Archive for category: News

City’s attendances this season have been much discussed. The official average stands at 15,739, which is the lowest since 2002/3 – when the Tigers were in the bottom division.

But are fifteen thousand people really turning up to watch City every week? With the Upper West Stand closed, we’re instantly losing around 5,000 from a capacity of around 25,400. Of the twenty thousand seats still available for City fans, are three-quarters of them occupied every week? Really?

We wonder. But first things first: tihere’s no obligation for City, or any club, to announce attendance figures that precisely correspond to the number of people physically present. They’d be doing nothing wrong if a different way of calculating attendance figures was implemented, and that’s actually fairly common. If City want to count everyone who could theoretically attend, rather than those who do, that’s up to them.

However, as this Guardian article a couple of months ago explains, crowd figures are a sort of health check on the state of a club. They do matter. And knowing them matters, so we can understand what’s happening to our club.

So we asked around. And look at what we found:

That’s interesting, isn’t it?

Those crowds feel a lot closer to what we experience in the ground. Both state that the official attendance is fully 20% higher than the actual attendance. The Bolton one in particular shows that virtually half the stadium is empty.

If we reproduce that 20% margin for the crowd in Saturday’s defeat against Bristol City, 14,762 becomes about 12,300. A half-empty stadium. Just a few years ago we were locking people out of the stadium amid skyrocketing demand. Now we have a ground one-fifth shut and barely reaching 50% capacity. That health check reveals a chronically sick football club. It’s a desperately sad situation.

We asked Hull City AFC if they wanted to comment on these figures, however they declined to do so (though impeccably politely). These figures were obtained with a Freedom of Information request to Hull City Council.

We were never going to keep Andy Robertson, were we? Even if City had stayed up and possessed responsible owners, it’d have been a lot to expect. And so it’s come to pass, with the Scottish international becoming the latest but perhaps most widely anticipated departure of this dispiriting summer.

He’s joined Liverpool, a rare instance of a City player leaving directly for a top-half-of-the-top-flight club. The fee’s around £8m, decidedly on the low side for a played with such colossal potential. Half the value of Maguire, really? Hmm. Still, since joining City three summers ago, his explosive talent has been obvious, and taking a further step up the footballing ladder has always looked likely.

It’s the latest move in a steep career progression for Robertson. Rejected by Celtic for being “too small” (how the hell does this still happen in the modern day?) he spent 2012/13 at Scottish amateurs Queens Park and the following season at Dundee United. Still only 23, with 15 Scotland caps and dozens more to come, he could go a very long way in the game. His rampaging runs down the left wing were a joy to watch, and that third (and decisive) goal at Derby County will live long in the memory.

Best of luck, Andy.

City have confirmed the departure of another first-teamer, with Tom Huddlestone leaving for Derby.

He had a £2m release clause in his contract that the Rams have activated, and with Ehab Allam negligently declining to offer the player a new contract until interest emerged elsewhere, the player has elected to move back to the club he began life as a professional with.

Huddlestone frustrated and delighted during his time at the club. There’s a strong argument to be made that he’s the finest passer of the ball we’ve ever had, yet frequently he’d fail to orchestrate games in the way he’s capable of doing. However, prior to a comically unjust red card at Everton at the end of last season, he was in perhaps the best form of his City career.

That career took in two separate spells in the Premier League, a League Cup semi-final, victory in a play-off final at Wembley, an FA Cup final and European football. It’s been an eventful time on and off the pitch, though the ongoing circus off it has seen his time end. His final contribution was to thank to everyone at City, apart from the owners. He’d have been a regular starter next season, and it’s hard to see how he can be replaced for £2m, if at all. For the second time during this increasingly desperate summer, our loss is Derby’s gain – and City are once again looking hopelessly unprepared for the start of a new season.

All the best, Tom.