A Story of Villa Park Attendances
In-house progress
The influx of money into the English Premier League may have changed the names of the successful teams and warped the landscape of the English game, banishing some traditional footballing powers into history, but one of the steadfast ways to measure the size of a club is still by the attendances they attract. The 2013/14 season saw an average attendance of 36,080 at Villa Park, an increase of over a 1000 on the previous season’s average gate.
Despite it being the second consecutive season that Paul Lambert’s team have broken the record for the all-time number of home defeats in a season, this increase marks the second seasonal attendance increase under Paul Lambert. Are Villa supporters suckers for punishment? Apparently so.
When Alex McLeish finished on 38 points like Lambert’s Villa did this season, the club saw their average attendance drop by over 3000 on the season before. Villa fans voted with their feet. This of course would have contributed to the board making the decision to bring to an end to McLeish’s time at Villa. Lambert hasn’t given them such a concern, despite his poor record of results.
Below average club
While the Villa ticket office my be content with the improvement in recent seasons, Villa’s average attendance is a mere 9th biggest in the Premier League. While Villa are top five or six calibre in terms of their overall Premiership record and all-time league record, in terms of physical size we are being left behind. In the three seasons under Martin O’Neill when Villa finished 6th, the club’s average attendance was either 7th or 8th in the league. Now in recent seasons, 9th or 10th has been the order of the day. Will this slide continue?
Alarming stat
The most alarming stat though when looking at the overall picture of average attendances is when you consider Villa Park’s average attendance 36,080 is actually below the Premier League’s total average of 36,657. Yes, crowds at Villa Park are smaller than the League average. Something seriously has to be done about that…a below average club we are not and we should never be allowed to become. UTV
English Premier League Average Attendances
Villa are a disgrace.Oleary finished 6th from top,as did Martin O”Neil on a few seasons.It has gone wrong ever since. I was at Villa when they had 76588 attend againstDerby and when it was a pleasure to go.The writing is on the wall this time,the Houdini act cannot save them any more.
Man Citeh had similar crowds to ours for years and now they are looking to increase their capacity to 60k…this is nothing that investment and ambition can’t fix. Give us real, sustained winning investment and we’d sell out 70k a week. The fact we have crowds the size we have at the moment is down to Lerner’s shambolic business sense
the reason that the attendances are up is because neutral supports & supporters of the bigger clubs buy tickets in the home end, Villa park is easy to get to for tourists. aslo 4for40 and the other offers during the season bring in lots of arm chair supporters, I would like to see a table for income from gate receipts only, I believe we would be very near to the bottom due to all the discounts etc.
This article is a joke! The average overall league attendance figure is bumped up by the silent masses that turn up at the Emirates and Old Trafford and by the North East knuckle draggers who have no other clubs or anything of interest to support for miles around. Ridiculous!
It is what it is. Try this one then – https://myoldmansaid.com/premier-league-average-attendances-percentage-stadium-capacity-table-2014/
If we had a full house every week, i think maximum we would finish is 8th. So what is the point of the article? We are ahead of Spurs but that due to size of their ground. Agree with other comments, would be inteesting to see a view on number of empy seats as suspect that would reveal there are more at Villa Park than most.
try comparing the attendance to capacity of each clubs ground, then you will have the % of empty seats per club, which would be more accurate. or are you saying spurs should be alarmed because they only get 35808 as an average, its a capacity crowd. the stadium is small….
to be honest, the shit we have been served up for the past 4 seasons, i think its amazing how many they get!!! imagine what our crowds would be like if we were competing for top 4 season after season????
https://myoldmansaid.com/premier-league-average-attendances-percentage-stadium-capacity-table-2014/
It is not alarming at all, if you knew how averages worked you would not even have posted this article. The stadiums that are bigger than villa park are by some way bigger in most cases (Old trafford, Emirates, St James, SOL, Etihad etc) these much higher attendances bring the average attendance of the premier league right up! So it is stupid to even consider where our average lies in comparison to the overall average. It is indeed only clever to compare our “Average away from capacity” with other clubs, that would have been a worth while read.
Meaningless stats
What would hav ebeen more meanigful would hav ebeen the attendance as a percentage of a full house
Meaningless?! It’s how many people watch Villa and how many people watch other teams. You know… you can work out if attendances are up or down, and how Villa compares to other teams in the league etc, etc, etc.
looking @ the table for attendances 9th is good when one considers Villa’s League position compared with most of the teams above Villa in the table . The only 2 teams I’d excude are Toon & Blunderland but they can attract high crowds because they only have each other as viable competion for footie fans over a vast area
This site runs some good articles, but this one is just….poor and redolent of a cheap sensationalist red top newspaper.
I cant be bothered to point out the inconsistencies and illogicalities in the article as they are so obvious
Not so obvious…care to explain?
Attendances up during Lambert’s time in charge – fact. Villa Park average attendance is below the Premier League average – fact. 9th in league in terms of average attendances – fact. Both these last two facts back-up Villa decline in status due to four relegation threatened seasons – fact.
The impression I had was that Villa’s attendance of 36,000+ would be above the average of the league (due to the amount of smaller stadiums), so that was surprising, hence the use of the word ‘alarmingly’ in the title, which is the only thing that can be labelled as sensationalist.
Also, I like to view Villa in terms of where they should be and not as some tin-pot average mid-table team, that seems to increasingly be the limits of some supporter’s ambition for the club.
Not a big club any more ? That depends on how much Dross the people behind this great club will allow it to continue in the scheme of things.