Football's lowest crowds: Arsenal, QPR, Old Trafford, Hampden Park and more By Craig Bloomfield (@worldofbloomers) | Wednesday, January 22, 2014
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A crowd of just 14,390 witnessed West Ham's Capital One Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City at Upton Park. Still, that's pretty good when you take into account these sporting attendances…
English football's lowest league attendance
Some reports suggest that the lowest ever attendance in the Football League came when a meagre 13 people watched Stockport v Leicester City on 7 May 1921 in a Division Two game. Indeed, only 13 people officially paid to watch the game, which was played at Old Trafford because Stockport's ground was closed. However, the truth is that upwards of 10,000 people saw the game after the majority of the crowd from a match between Manchester United and Derby County, played earlier that day at the same ground, stayed behind. The lowest attendance in Football League history is actually held by a club that no longer exists; Thames AFC, a club based in East London that went bust in 1932. No wonder, considering they could only attract 469 people to watch a Division Three South game with Luton on 6 December 1930. To make it worse, Thames played at the old West Ham Stadium (a greyhound stadium, nothing to do with the Hammers), which had a capacity of 100,000!
QPR's Olympic Stadium folly
At the same time as Thames AFC's tiny crowds were rattling around West Ham Stadium, QPR tried to boost their attendances by moving into the giant 1908 Olympic Stadium (known as White City), which at one time had a capacity of 150,000 (including 68,000 seats). A record crowd of 41,097 for an FA Cup tie with Leeds in 1932 seemed to justify the move, but that was the exception rather than the rule and after two seasons Rangers were back at Loftus Road. They moved back in to White City Stadium for the 1962/63 season, but recorded their lowest ever crowd for a competitive game of 3,261, which was lost inside the giant ground and they sensibly fled back to Loftus Road.
The strange case of Queens Park and Hampden
Glasgow's Hampden Park holds several football attendance records, including the biggest crowd at any football match in Europe; 149,415 at Scotland v England in 1937. For such a large stadium it's bizarre that the home team routinely attracts crowds in the hundreds. Queens Park FC have been Hampden's tenants for over 100 years and, despite once attracting 95,722 people to see them play Rangers in 1930, the Spiders' crowds have been lost in a sea of empty terraces and seats for decades. Last season, despite reaching the Division Three play-offs, just 325 turned up to watch them play Montrose… in a stadium that holds 52,000!
Wembley's worst ever attendance
These days, if less than 70,000 turn up to watch a meaningless England friendly, it's classed as a major disappointment, but back in the late 1980s they couldn't even get 17,000 to turn up. When England faced Chile in the first game of the 1989 Rous Cup (a three-team tournament also featuring Scotland), just 15,628 people were present at the old Wembley Stadium. This was partly due to a tube strike occurring on the London Underground that day, but the stay-away fans didn't miss much, as the game ended in a 0-0 bore draw.
Arsenal's Highbury low
Arsenal left their historic Highbury home for the 60,000 capacity Emirates Stadium in order to meet demand for tickets, but back on 5 May 1966 a 6,000 capacity ground would have been more appropriate. That night just 4,554 people watched Arsenal's top flight match with Leeds United and the crowd was so sparse that fires were lit on the old North Bank terrace in order to keep the few spectators warm on a cold spring evening. This shocking attendance was partly due to Liverpool's Cup Winners' Cup final with Dortmund being televised live at the same time, in an era when football matches on TV were few and far between, but is still a stark reminder to all Gooners that the good times shouldn't be taken for granted.
Low final attendance in the Lowlands
European Cup Winners' Cup finals may have been attractive to television audiences in the 1960s, but that was no use when a pathetic 3,208 people were in attendance for the 1964 showpiece between Sporting Lisbon and MTK Budapest. The game was played at the 70,000 capacity Heysel Stadium and ended in a thrilling 3-3 draw, which may explain why the attendance improved to close to 14,000 for the replay.
World Cup's worst attendance
The World Cup has seen some incredible crowds, not least the world record 199,854 who saw the decisive match in 1950 between Brazil and Uruguay, but 20 years previously when it was staged in Uruguay not all the matches caught the public's imagination. In that first ever World Cup finals, a shocking crowd of 300 watched Romania take on Peru at the Estadio Pocitos in Montevideo. No doubt they went away thinking, 'Nah, this World Cup lark will never take off!'
Dire derby crowd in Belgrade
Red Star Belgrade v Partizan Belgrade is one of the greatest rivalries in world football and 20 years ago Red Star were the premier team in European football. On one memorable occasion 108,000 people packed in to the Red Star Stadium to see these old rivals clash, but those glory days seemed long behind them when, in 2005, just 8,000 turned up to see a Yugoslav Cup semi-final derby. Imagine 8,000 at a semi final between Celtic and Rangers and you have an idea of how embarrassingly low that attendance was for these two proud clubs.
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