City Crowds On The Up

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Crowd attendances at the City of Manchester City Stadium are on the up compared to this time last year.

Seasons compared

The first six home games in the 2008/09 Barclays Premier League season saw 257,782 fans through the CoMS doors while only 253,670 attended during the same period last season.

With an official capacity of 47,726, the games against Chelsea (47,331) and Liverpool (47,218) broke the all time attendance records; however, the game against Arsenal at the weekend and Manchester United at the end of the month might push the record even higher.

Premier League Stadiums & The Credit Crunch

Despite the down turn in the economy, according to the Press Association Stadiums are still 92 per cent full this season, the same as the last campaign, but some clubs are suffering while others are enjoying bigger crowds.

During 2008/09 Newcastle United has seen a slump in attendance with an average of 46,689 compared to 51,321 in the last campaign, a drop of 4,632 or nine per cent. Sunderland are also down - from 43,344 to 41,186 - as are Blackburn's crowds.

However, similar to City, Bolton and Middlesbrough are doing well compared to last season.

Premier League spokesperson Dan Johnson said on the subject...

'Some figures are up and some are down. If you factor in the Manchester United v Fulham match which was postponed we will find we are roughly where we were last season.'

'Our figures suggest we are still at 92% occupancy in our stadia, better than anywhere else in Europe and last season we had the highest attendances for over 50 years.'

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