Watching City in an empty stadium

Tuesday night was a very strange occasion. Whilst the attendance of 140 was not the lowest ever for a competitive match, the fact that it was in a stadium with a 6500 capacity made it feel empty. Mind you, the City faithful still managed to make a considerable noise for 90 plus minutes which did help make it seem more like a proper game.
So, we have obviously played at much bigger stadiums over the years, but was Tuesday the lowest ratio of attendance to capacity we have ever played in front of?
Answer by Saturday at the latest please!!

I remember us playing Cardiff City at Ninian Park in the Welsh Cup (late 80s?) - I don’t know what the attendance was but it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred.

One of our trips to Darlington saw us play in front of 800-odd in a 25,000 all seater.

Well I believe the largest ground we ever played in was the West Ham Stadium at Custom House in east London. It was used primarily for speedway and greyhounds but was the home of Thames Association FC who were a league club for a couple of seasons. It was the largest stadium in the country with a capacity of 120 000 and yet holds the record for the lowest attendance for a league match - just 469 saw Thames v Luton in 1930. But that was probably many more than turned out to watch us beat their reserves 2-0 in a London combination fixture on 11 April 1931. I'm guessing that the ratio of attendance to capacity would have been around 1:1 000.

Here are some photos of the ground...

http://www.speedwayplus.com/CustomHouse.shtml

(awaits post from turnstile13 pointing out the attendance at 1938 Som Cup Final v Brislington played at the Maracana...)

I remember after we played Stoke in the Fa cup (93/94 I think) for our last away game we had Gateshead and I think that the all seater international stadium, complete with running track, had a capacity of 12,500 at the time and there was a crowd of 510. That would be my record but perhaps any Team Bath game at TwertonPark would top that.

How about Oct 22nd 1973.
Played Waterlooville in a Southern League Cup match at Fratton Park. Not sure why it was played there but it was perhaps due to lack of floodlights at Waterlooville's ground so evening games had to be played elsewhere.

The attendance was minimal and I may have been the only City supporter in the ground. No great effort on my part as at that time I lived in Portsmouth - about 10mins walk from Fratton Park.

Phil Weaver once travelled up to see us at Bromsgrove for an evening fixture. Walked into an empty ground only to discover he was 24 hours early...

The best I can offer is a game circa 1976/77 at our own Twerton Park; BCFC v QPR.
The circumstances were as follows. My Dad at the time was head of stewarding and was asked at short notice to open a turnstile for an unadvertised and very hush hush game staged solely for the purpose of one player. That player was Gerry Francis who at the time had been England captain but had been out for a considerable time through injury and either he, QPR or the FA was anxious to get some game time far away from any kind of media attention.
BCFC didn’t have a fixture that weekend but I have no idea why we were asked to stage the game. Only those in the know, or the curious attended and the gate was <20. I was one of the <20.
The PS to this comes in summer ‘78 and was relayed to me by David Counsell, then chairman of BCFC. We had won the Southern League and were up for election to the league with Wigan against two teams at the bottom of divi 4.
The teams in the top two leagues had a number of votes they could cast to whoever, whilst div 3 and 4 had a block vote of say 20 votes that would go to one club ( I don’t know the allocation).
Anyway BCFC failed by 1 or 2 votes to get into the league, a situation strongly influenced by the fact that QPR, who we had helped out one drab winter afternoon, didn’t cast their votes to us.
And of course Wigan got elected.
As normal with BCFC so near and yet.........

I can’t work out if I’ve imagined this, but didn’t a club, someone like Slough, once play a cup replay at Twerton Park? Probably taking 70s/80s. No idea why or if this even happened.

I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

comrade powell wrote:I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

It was indeed Slough Town, who were playing an FA Cup 2nd replay against Minehead. It must have been in the mid to late 1970's and, for some inexplicable reason, I went down to watch the game. (If my memory serves me correctly, Graham Roope, the England international cricketer, played in goal for Slough that evening and that was probably the reason I went down to watch).

Peter Newman wrote:How about Oct 22nd 1973.
Played Waterlooville in a Southern League Cup match at Fratton Park.  Not sure why it was played there but it was perhaps due to lack of floodlights at Waterlooville's ground so evening games had to be  played elsewhere.

The attendance was minimal and  I may have been the only City supporter in the ground. No great effort on my part as at that time I lived in Portsmouth - about  10mins walk from Fratton Park.

I was there and there were a couple of others as well!

Kelston Koppite wrote:

comrade powell wrote:I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

It was indeed Slough Town, who were playing an FA Cup 2nd replay against Minehead.  It must have been in the mid to late 1970's and, for some inexplicable reason, I went down to watch the game.  (If my memory serves me correctly, Graham Roope, the England international cricketer, played in goal for Slough that evening and that was probably the reason I went down to watch).

I had a feeling it was Merthyr and not Minehead, but I may have got my ‘Ms’ mixed up.

I recall Graham Roope playing in goal at Twerton Park and I am pretty sure it was against City, not to say that he didn’t play in the aforesaid replay as well.

LB wrote:

Kelston Koppite wrote:

comrade powell wrote:I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

It was indeed Slough Town, who were playing an FA Cup 2nd replay against Minehead.  It must have been in the mid to late 1970's and, for some inexplicable reason, I went down to watch the game.  (If my memory serves me correctly, Graham Roope, the England international cricketer, played in goal for Slough that evening and that was probably the reason I went down to watch).

I had a feeling it was Merthyr and not Minehead, but I may have got my ‘Ms’ mixed up.

I recall Graham Roope playing in goal at Twerton Park and I am pretty sure it was against City, not to say that he didn’t play in the aforesaid replay as well.

I have found out that the game in question was, in fact, an FA Trophy 2nd Round second replay in the 1976-77 season.  The result of the match was Slough Town 2 Minehead 1 after a 1-1 draw in the first game, and a 0-0 draw in the replay.

Somewhat curiously, that season Minehead had beaten City 2-1 in the first round of the same competition at Minehead to 'earn' the second round tie against Slough!

I will get my coat!

LB wrote:

Kelston Koppite wrote:

comrade powell wrote:I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

It was indeed Slough Town, who were playing an FA Cup 2nd replay against Minehead.  It must have been in the mid to late 1970's and, for some inexplicable reason, I went down to watch the game.  (If my memory serves me correctly, Graham Roope, the England international cricketer, played in goal for Slough that evening and that was probably the reason I went down to watch).

I had a feeling it was Merthyr and not Minehead, but I may have got my ‘Ms’ mixed up.

Having nothing better to do one evening in the dim and distant past, I went to watch a neutral ground FA Cup replay at TP and I'm fairly sure Merthyr were one of the teams involved - the other might have been Gloucester. Not many there but probably more than Team Bath could have ever have mustered.

Corstonian wrote:

LB wrote:

Kelston Koppite wrote:

comrade powell wrote:I don't think you imagined it. I can recall two clubs about the same distance from Bath playing a second replay at Twerton. Neutral venues were frequently used before the penalty shootout was introduced. But did we ever play at a neutral ground?

It was indeed Slough Town, who were playing an FA Cup 2nd replay against Minehead.  It must have been in the mid to late 1970's and, for some inexplicable reason, I went down to watch the game.  (If my memory serves me correctly, Graham Roope, the England international cricketer, played in goal for Slough that evening and that was probably the reason I went down to watch).

I had a feeling it was Merthyr and not Minehead, but I may have got my ‘Ms’ mixed up.

Having nothing better to do one evening in the dim and distant past, I went to watch a neutral ground FA Cup replay at TP and I'm fairly sure Merthyr were one of the teams involved - the other might have been Gloucester. Not many there but probably more than Team Bath could have ever have mustered.

It was that game I was thinking of - I am pretty sure it was Merthyr v Gloucester.

Sorry to disagree but I think Minehead were involved.