This is following on from the largest grounds thread where our original capacity was mentioned.
Our capacity before the rebuild and before the loss of the top section of the south terrace has always fascinated me.
I had always heard the story that the Valley had never been filled to capacity.
My old man, a gooner, had always said that during numerous Charlton v Arsenal matches he attended the gates were regularly announced as being anywhere between 55 and 70k. He has always told the story that the Valley was so big that during some of these games the corners were half empty. Now I am not so sure about this. I have seen archive footage from a couple of these games and the corners look anything but half empty!!
Moving on to the Villa cup game where our record attendance was set, for years I imagined this game being played with gaps in the corners and plenty of room for more fans because of the "we never filled the Valley" story. But again I have my doubts. There is a decent photo from that game of the East terrace and more recently, I dropped on old news reel of the game, albeit only a few second worth. There is no doubting that the Valley was full to bursting in every area, dangerously so in some parts as the crowd spilling over the railings on to the pitch proves. From the photo and news reel, I fail to see how one more person could have squeezed in, let alone another 10k or so.
@Chizz said on the other thread the capacity before later changes to the ground was 87,500, a few years ago I would have agreed but I'm not so sure now.
Anyway, it got me thinking. With today's technology, would it not be possible to come up with a realistic figure? Way beyond my capabilities but surely there must be some kind of software out there somewhere to provide a fairly accurate figure?
If the 75k attendance for the Villa game was genuine and not a tax avoidance figure, I would say that was our official capacity back then and not closer to the 100k I have spent years bragging about to my northern mates!!
Comments
From what I’ve heard from family there was more than 75 odd thousand. People climbing in for free, some turnstile operators allowing people in unofficially for a fee, figures allegedly lowered for tax
Capacity often irrelevant when considering attendance till ~’90
From what I remember in the '70s the old Panini sticker books used to quote 66,000.
Going back to the League Cup games against QPR and West Ham and the league game against Tottenham there were far more than 30,000 at those games.
You also need to take into account loads of people would bunk in before our return with better fencing.
When we had our largest attendances, the main stand had terracing in front of the seats, so less seats, more capacity.
Back in the day people would pile in, paying or otherwise and if you were able to watch the match it was a bonus. If the barriers and perimeter fencing held out then it was a result.
Although i was not around during our highest attendances, I have been at matches were its impossible at times to raise your arms and on one occasion it was even difficult to breathe. Just squeeze in as many as you can. Of course we all know how that ended up when combined with cages.
I have little doubt that attendances were regularly under reported for a couple of reasons for decades. Rather different from the Valley in recent years.
It was a different world then. I look back fondly to those times but the world has moved on and football is much better for families now.
The terraces felt crowded for sure, but in part because we were so used to them being wide open! Look at footage from (say) The Kop from that era, and people are squeezed together like crazy.
The club possible fiddled the attendances of course...easy to do and an obvious motive (VAT fiddle). But I always felt at the time that the 66,000 figure was mythical, that we'd never really be able to accommodate that number, at least without some sort of Hillsborough risk.
You could counter that 'at The Who concert there were 80,000', but who knows what the real number was. My job on the turnstiles came about because after the first concert they sacked virtually all the existing turnstile operators for taking their big (unofficial) payday. It was the only 'Saturday job' I was prepared to do.
* 'that much is true...'
But you need to remember that the south terrace was vast and went back a long, long way. While the areas either side of the concrete walkway may have been full on these big attendance games, the corners - way up by the Sam Bartram entrance and over where Valley Heights tower block (or whatver it's called) is now - may not have been. So there could still have been room for more but just a long way away from the action, and any photographs or newsreel cameras view.
When the south terrace area was sold, it stood empty and abandoned for many years (I'm not actually sure what is there even now), and until the roof went on the Jimmy Seed Stand, you could see all the way to the top.
Until Spurs broke the records this season, Man City had the highest English league attendance I think, though they were playing at Old Trafford (!) at the time (just after the war) - just over 80,000 I think.
Now it is the fact that the official gates are over the real number of fans in the ground.
That was well before my time but the biggest crowd I saw at The Valley was the Spurs game in 1977, much bigger than the West Ham and QPR cup games IMO.
Does anybody know that a Rob Lee used to work on our turnstiles?
You only need to watch the Spurs fans in the Covered End part like the Red Sea, when F Troop paid them a visit.
Back in the late 1960,s when the Heights End ie south terrance was still at its greatest it was almost as high as the old east terrance.
IN THE 1970S the ground was said to still be able to hold 67,000 people.
in my mind i would say that had Don Welsh been correct in what here was saying and he played in that Aston Villa cup tie it would have been a record of over 85,000.,