Last Nights Attendance...

Annihilate Now!

Was announced at 71,000+ yesterday... much to the amusement of everyone in the ground (in fact, it probably drew the biggest crowd reaction of the night). It was clearly a nonsense figure, as anyone with a pair of eyes could tell that there wasn't anything like 71,000 people in the ground last night... so why do the club feel the need to fudge such a figure? I can only assume they just take all ticket sales into account, even if those people don't show up... which isn't actually what an attendance should be... but I digress, why bother? It just makes us look a bit daft!

The actually attendance last night was probably in the 60 thousands I imagine, which for a dead rubber Champions League game on a very cold Wednesday night is still a very good figure, so why lie about it exactly? Anyone any clue on the clubs motivations behind this one?

I know there are more important issues - such as how shit we are - to talk about, but this one is whats bugging me this morning!

hp88

They all do it, apparently City sell out every weekend but you always see a few empty blue seats, it's calculated by the number of tickets sold and not swiped at the turnstile.

K Stand Knut

It bugs me a little as well, not enough to start a thread about it but enough to respond to someone else starting a thread about it!!!

Was funny to hear the crowd reaction to it though and at least it woke some of them up for 30 seconds.

As for why they do it, I have no idea. It MAY be down to the fact that they can only provide those figures in that space of time i.e. the systems at the ground don't allow the actual entrants in to the ground to be counted that quickly. I'd call bullshit if someone said to me but in order to try and keep this discussion going, I'll play devil's advocate!!!

Oggmonster

I'm sure it goes off the tickets sold, so for example if 15,000 season ticket holders don't turn up it's still classed as in attendance as someone purchased that ticket. It isn't just United that do it, I know City do the same. I really don't know why because the tickets are done with scanning so surely all the scanners have a system in place to quickly tell the real attendance?

It doesn't look so bad if it's out by a couple thousand but when there is clearly a lot less it does look stupid but like I say United aren't the only ones who do it, I'm sure most premier league teams will.

ghaliboy

I know Sydney does it at their home games.

Annihilate Now!

Hmmm, well I suppose if everyone does it...

Just seems a bit small-time to me (hence why I'm not surprised City do it!) and I would have lived in the eternal hope that United were above such small-time nonsense. Especially when the actual figures are probably quite impressive anyway. Getting over 50,000 people into Old Trafford on one of the coldest nights of the year for a meaningless match against a (no offence to Cluj) unglamorous opposition is bloody good going I'd have said!

Leroy The Red

I cracked up at this.

mufcwarm92

It's not some sort of conspiracy, as has been said it's just a figure of tickets sold. Much easier to proximate that than count the number of people walking through the turnstiles.

hp88

I am almost certain they know the actual attendance as I think they would have to collect it for health and safety purposes and considering it's all electronic now it can't be that hard keeping track of the number of tickets scanned.

Wowi

Yeah, if only we had some sort of technology that could count the number of scanned tickets. I'm as certain as I can be without actually knowing it that the club has figures for how many people that actually turn up for each game. The number of sold tickets is what ultimately matters for the owners though and it looks better when you look at the attendance average at the end of the year.

Gio

Yes, the real figures are provided to the police.

Will Absolute

Greshams Law: bad practice drives out good.

If everybody lies truth tellers put themselves at a disadvantage.

Genius Me!

What I found embarrassing was the chants of united. I found it embarrassing that the cluj fans were chanting as men, yet we were chanting as kids. Fairplay to the kids for chanting, they're the future fans, but it's still embarrassing as fuck to hear when no men's voices could be heard.

adamwest

Is this a WUM? Seriously who gives a fuck? It was a dead rubber of a match which was epitomized by the absolute tosh we got to see on the pitch.

Derby time.

Marching

Genius Me!

No it's not a wum. It's not like its the first time it's happened this season with the half time and full time countdowns. Dead rubber or not it shouldn't matter IMO, I just find it embarrassing hearing all the kids voices.

verminater

Do you go to the games and watch shit served up on a silver plate?
It's hard to show passion when the players don't give a fuck.

See the Spurs game for the crowd and team feeding off each other. (Just a shame we couldn't turn it around)

noodlehair

It's the amount of tickets sold for the game isn't it? (i.e. the amount of people who've had money removed from their account whether they like it or not).

What fucks me off more than the falsified attendance figures, is Fergie banging on about integrity, and then the club forcibly taking money from people for a game that was treated with so much actual integrity, Ferguson awarded himself the night off from doing his job.

Sultan

I paid for 8 empty seats last night, and another 2 who I have been trusted with to try and sell.

Liam147

I can only assume you apply for/get 'lucky' with aways then?

There won't be many in the same boat as you, but the number of empty seats shows that many were in a similar situation.

For me, the main two reasons to get a ST is to be able to apply for aways, and to be guarantee your seat for the big games. But the cost of them hugely outweighs the benefit for me. Instead of paying roughly £500, I'd be forking out closer to £700. It's pretty shocking the way it's done, but they know if they didn't do it the way they do, games like last night would be played in empty stadiums. Sad really.

hp88

Same situation as you, don't know if was because we had already qualified but no one wanted tickets last night, at one point I was giving them away for free.

verminater

It was freezing, and as stated many times before, we sadly knew the type of performance we'd get.
I felt like leaving it, but spending £45 and having nothing for it, doesn't sit well.
Next time, (If things don't change) I might just pass.

ghaliboy

I know who to see when I come over next year

DAY TRIPPIN'!

ciderman9000000

What, in case there's a fire drill and everyone has to file out and stand in the car park whilst Fergie does a register?

Scrumpet

Or maybe in case there's one of them actual fires.

Redlambs

Arsenal have done it for years.