Fratton Park - Wikipedia entry

[spyinthesky]

On the Pompey Take over thread dear old corps has resonded to comments on recent poor crowds at Fratton Park

 

Had a quick look on the Wikipedia entry for Fratton Park and it appears someone has altered the average crowd figures for seasons 1994/5 and 1996/7

 

According to the stats available elsewhere the avearge attendances on these two seasons were 8,269 and 9,406 not the 18,269 and 19,406 shown in the Wikipedia entry.

 

Three possible explanations

 

I. The figures shown independently are wrong and Pompey did in fact average 18k/19k (note that this level was far more than they seem to have recorded between 1968/9 to 2002/3!!)

2. The figures shown on the Pompey entry are right but they declared less for tax reasons for those two seasons

3. A Pompey fan (possibly some porky pie merchnat, similar to whoever made up the SCUM strike story) has altered the Wikipedia entry as they were ashamed that their average attendance was sub 10,000 for three successive seasons.

 

It is worth noting that when Pompey won the 1st Division in 1949 and 1950 their average attendance was 37,000 on both occasions which was only 70% of their ground capacity at the time.

This was during the time when post war crowds were booming.

Pompey actually averaged less that the likes of Hull City who were in a lower division!!!