What's going on?
Big Clubs and their Gates
When looking through the recent Oldham matchday programme (on the way home
from the match, just to keep my sanity), I noticed something reasonably interesting on the stats page I usually find so incredibly boring. In the
attendance section, I spotted a huge contrast between the teams in the hunt for promotion and the rest of the division. Four teams had average gate
figures of over 10,000. These were Stoke (around 13,000), Reading (around 11,500), Millwall and Bristol City (both round 10,500). All four of
these clubs have realistic ambitions of promotion, with Millwall sitting pretty on
top and the other three lurking around the play-off places. Surprisingly, Bristol Rovers have the fifth highest average attendance and they aren't far
off the relegation zone. Unsurprisingly, Wigan, who have maintained a place in the top-three for the majority of the season, have a low average
attendance as ever (just over 6,000) despite their impressive stadium.
SHOCK NEWS!
I found one piece of transfer news hard to believe recently. When my brother
told me that Andy Scott had signed for Oxford I simply laughed it off. I told him that he had obviously read it wrong and it couldn't have been Andy
Scott. He then told me that it was definitely Andy Scott of Brentford, so I told him that it obviously couldn't be Oxford. Unconvinced himself, he went
back to check he had read it correctly - and he had! So, he was scoring goals for fun and pushing for the play-offs with Brentford; now he decides
to join Oxford, bottom of the league and destined for Division 3. This seems ore than a bit odd to me. Does anybody else think
anything fishy is going on?
Daniel Jennings