Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Sun May 05, 2019 1:03 am  

2nd tier Union tin-pot cup final reportedly gets 3,000. Sad indictment that we can't get close in the 1st tier of League https://www.london-irish.com/news/irish-denied-as-ealing-hold-on-for-championship-cup-win/bp2163/ We really need to either accept that we are now a Championship side and accept that 1,000 is "a good crowd" or we need to really push ourselves to the locals.

2nd tier Union tin-pot cup final reportedly gets 3,000. Sad indictment that we can't get close in the 1st tier of League https://www.london-irish.com/news/irish-denied-as-ealing-hold-on-for-championship-cup-win/bp2163/ We really need to either accept that we are now a Championship side and accept that 1,000 is "a good crowd" or we need to really push ourselves to the locals.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Sun May 05, 2019 10:38 am  

To be fair it was a final and it was a local derby. Their previous biggest crowd was 2700 again against London Irish.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Sun May 05, 2019 11:10 am  

As I understand it, Ealings 11 game league average is 1036 & Irish 3770, so no surprise really. I expect most were Irish fans & it will be interesting to see what crowds they get when they start playing at Brentford's new ground.

It will also be interesting to see what Ealing do if but more likely when promotion & relegation is stopped between Championship & RU Premiership. Irish already seem to be spending some of their £17m CVC paycheck to recruit quality players to give them a chance to avoid relegation if it isn't ended.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Mon May 06, 2019 8:39 am  

It has not been all that rosey at London Irish.Since moving to Reading their attendances have dropped around 30% from their first season there to their gates now.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Mon May 06, 2019 4:24 pm  

The Championship Cup final (formally known as the British & Irish Cup) had a turnout of 1,796. The average home attendance for Ealing in this Cup was 701 over 6 games with the highest being the final with 1796 & the lowest in the quarterfinals with 267. ET, for some reason, didn’t add a gate figure to their match report which is something they usually publish. The highest attendance for Ealing Trailfinders ground was the Broncos v Pies game with 2,586 in March 2019 & the highest union attendance in 2015 was 2,278 against Rosslyn Park. Their home league game (the first game of the 18/19 season) against London Irish was 2205 in Sept 2018. Maybe LI match picked a round 3K out of thin air. ET has an average home attendance of an average attendance of 828.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Mon May 06, 2019 4:34 pm  

Thats odd because the sky commentators spoke quite authoritatively about the 2700 pervious best and the cup final crowd of approx 3k I think

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Mon May 06, 2019 4:52 pm  

Last years 17/18 Final at Trailfinders Sports Ground had a gate of 1,386 with a 22-7 win against Leinster A.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Tue May 07, 2019 12:07 pm  

Ealing is pretty much a home game for the Exiles. Certainly closer for many of their fans than their 'home' ground has been for years.
I would expect the attendance record to be 'smashed ' when St Helens or Leeds Rhinos come to town later this season.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Wed May 08, 2019 7:21 am  

Someone is now tweeting there were 3,627 for the final. That’s 350 short of capacity. Watching a bit of the game on tele there was a healthy crowd with some seats empty in the new stand. Given the home semi’s only attracted 450(ET) & 1,208(LI) that figure seems very high. Comparing to the over 2,200 -2,600 crowds for Cas, Hull & the Pies games I’d say 2300 would be reasonably accurate. Anyway… that’s enough of that as we’ll never have an accurate figure as it’s doubled from 1,800 to 3,600 overnight other than a hearty congratulations to ET for their second Cup Final win in as many years.

Re: Attendance record at Trailfinders smashed : Wed May 08, 2019 2:39 pm  

Maybe they used Ian Lenegan's attendance calculator?