Every Monday I’m posting a section from my book ‘The Emergence of Footballing Cultures: Manchester 1840-1919’. It tells the story of the origins of men’s football in Manchester and discusses the birth of both City and United plus the clubs that predated them such as Hulme Athenaeum, Manchester AFC, Birch etc. Today’s section is the seventh chapter of the book (a 10,500 word section). This focuses on football as a business (yes, it was a business even then!), the move into league football for Manchester’s clubs and the relaunch of them as Manchester City and Manchester United.
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The series of features on the 1890s continues today with a simple look at the average attendances of league clubs. I’m publishing the statistics here for season 1895-96 when Manchester City was a Second Division club. These figures are estimated based on newspaper reports of the period but are widely accepted as a good indication of support enjoyed at each club.
In the following table every team is in Division One unless (2) appears after their name. This indicates they were a Second Division club that season. Where two teams have the same average then these have been listed in alphabetic order.
Notice how Second Division Manchester City had a better average attendance than all clubs apart from the First Division’s third placed club Everton and League champions Aston Villa.
1895-96 Average Attendances
Average
Team
16000
Everton
11875
Aston Villa
10000
Manchester City (2)
9725
Bolton
8700
Sheff Wednesday
8375
Derby
7600
Blackburn Rovers
7250
Sheff Utd
7200
Newcastle (2)
6975
Woolwich Arsenal (2)
6825
Preston
6600
Stoke
6275
Wolves
6100
Sunderland
6000
Bury
6000
Leicester Fosse (2)
5825
Small Heath
5600
WBA
5575
Liverpool (2)
5575
Nottm Forest
5500
Newton Heath (2)
5475
Burnley
3500
Grimsby (2)
3125
Notts County (2)
2775
Darwen (2)
2725
Crewe (2)
2625
Burton Swifts (2)
2475
Burton Wanderers (2)
2400
Lincoln (2)
2075
Loughborough (2)
1775
Rotherham Town (2)
1725
Burslem Port Vale (2)
This series of features covers the final years of Ardwick, the birth of Manchester City and the Club’s first national success. Why not subscribe and read every feature? Here’s a link to the story of the 1895-96 season:
Here’s an 1800 article below on Manchester City in the final months of 1899:
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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?
The series of features on Manchester City in the 1890s continues today with a 1800 word article on Manchester City in 1895-96. An interesting season and one which started to pave the way for everything that followed while reminding those who ran the club that fans’ feelings always had to be considered!
This series covers the final years of Ardwick, the birth of Manchester City and the Club’s first national success.
Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?
