Whatever the pros and cons of exactly how many attend our home games, many years ago, when 'good old' Mike McDonald was Chairman of the Blades, we had home crowds of approximately 12-15,000 (feel free to correct me if you're in possession of the actual attendances for this period). The ground looked as if it was crying out for what we're getting now, so I think we should all take a second, reflect, and then look at the last couple of seasons and understand the type of progress we're making with home crowds. During our depressing stint in Division 1 we averaged 18,000, quite amazing when you consider how loyal supporters were when you consider how stagnant we'd become.
Now we've achieved promotion to the Championship, and shown our ability to compete at the very top of this division, we're now getting approximately 26-28,000 per home game, the ground is fit for purpose, and I suppose it was a case of what would happen when promotion was achieved. Of course, who, realistically, would have imagined us doing quite so well? But here we are, showing just how good we are, with the supporters buzzing with anticipation at what the next few months might reveal......whether there's a few seats currently free per game, imagine if our progress continues next season? This will become a redundant conversation as season ticket demand will increase, and our crowds swell to around the 30-32,000 level.
All told, we're in great shape, with the best squad I can recall, superb management, and so much to look forward to.......maybe it's me, but having experienced truly bad times I'm sensing very little that suggests we're about to take a backward step. And before anyone pipes up, yes, I know, something, anything, can happen, we're the Blades after all, but I refuse to succumb to this type of mind-magic. Hard work, talent, and superb judgement is what's taken us from the bottom of Division 1 to the top two of the Championship, with no sign of there being any reason to think otherwise. UTMB