This weekend’s final Manchester City home game of the season will see the Etihad stage its record crowd for football (any sport actually) and the club stage its highest home attendance for over fifty years. The new capacity is expected to be over 60,000 with a further capacity increase at the start of 2026-27. Detailed below are the last home crowd of 60,000+ City have attracted plus a little bit of history of attendances at City.
The last 60,000+ crowd was for the Manchester Derby on 6/11/1971 and was 63,326. These images are from that game (lots changed since then – the MCFC badge has been redesigned 3 times; Brian Kidd became a Blue, then a Red coach then a Blue coach)
The last 60,000+ home cup attendance was 60,844 v Newcastle on 29/1/1969.
For those wondering about home attendances over 75,000, the last one of those was 76,129 for City ve Everton in the FA Cup on 3/3/1956.
For the first 49 years of its existence the capacity of Maine Road was over 60,000, with the record attendance at the old place being 84,569 (see the story of this elsewhere on this site). Stadium developments, alongside safety changes and legislation, reduced the capacity from that high to about 63,000 by 1967. The Ibrox disaster of 1971 caused a reconsideration of stadium safety and a further reduction and City took the decision to seat the one year old North Stand. That meant the capacity from 1972 was approximately 52,600 (there was an attendance of over 54,000 in 1972-73 which I’ll explain about another day based on an interview – and admission – by the then club secretary Bernard Halford!).
The capacity of Maine Road (based on official records and announcements) over the years is:
1923 – 84,000
1931 – 86,000
1935 – 88,000
1946 – 84,000
1953 – 76,500
1957 – 77,000
1963 – 64,000
1972 – 52,600
1989 – 48,500
1992 – 39,359
1994 – 19,150 (first game of the season; increased gradually throughout the season)
1995 – 31,458
1997 – 32,147
1999 – 34,026
2000 – 34,421
2002 – 35,150
You can read more about Maine Road’s record crowd here:
And watch Maine Road’s opening game in 1923 here:
Gary James' Football Archive 