..And the Swans are the Premiers...The Ultimate Team...The Ultimate Warriors. They have overcome the highly fancied Hawks in brilliant style. Sydney the 2012 Premiers - Gerard Whately ABC
Here it is Again! - Huddo SEN
1st v 2nd on the ladder
Swans bandwagon in full swing with 9 wins in a row
Collingwood army always come up in big numbers
Hawthorn game sold out so demand might drive more casual fans to this game too.
Surely will threaten the 72k record from 2003?
The only downside is the forecast for rain on the day and the surrounding days.
The rain predicted isn't of biblical proprortions (hopefully) So I reckon there will be in excess of 50000- if the Afl and the media build it up enough ( and let's face it the sports carnival in London hasn't brought us a great deal of joy - unless you are chinese, american, a pom or from Kasikstan) this is the opportunity to go all out with promotion. 1st playing 2nd so close to the finals is an advertisers dream.
I resisted the temptation to speculate on the crowd size this Saturday night until the Carlton game was done and dusted.
We've played Collingwood at Homebush nine times for a cumulative crowd figure of 473,346 - an average of 52,954 per game.
Our last really big crowd against them was in 2008, when almost 60,000 people turned up. After that, however, the crowds fell away as it dawned we were just not competitive against them.
With the exception of the first time we played Collingwood at Homebush, when it was 4th versus 3rd in Round 21 of 2003, all other encounters have been mid-season. So this year, the timing is right. And this time, it's first versus second, with first looking to break an appalling hoodoo.
The game is already being heavily promoted on television here in Sydney, and there'll be huge numbers of Collingwood fans who make the trip (check their fan forum), so I think it's reasonable to predict we'll get something close to the long-term average crowd of about 53,000.
There will a crowd of around 34,000.
The city2surf on the next morning so I and 80,000 other crazies will be running to Bondi instead of of getting drunk, abusing Collingwood supporters, and daring each other to think about the DREAM!!!
doof-doof
I have on a numbers of occasions through this thread ask the question: why shouldn't the crowd in 2012 match that mighty 2003 attendance of 72,000. I have now found two answers.
One: the novelty of ANZ Stadium as an Olympic main stadium has gone. In 2003 the Sydney Olympics had just past less than three years earlier. In the past dozen years people have for all sorts of reasons developed a dislike for Homebush.
Two: in 2003 rhe Swans had enjoyed recent wins over the Pies, including a magnificient win at Docklands in Round 6, 2003. This time around Collingwood have won something like 10 in a row, with no Swans victory in 7 years. Expectations are lower.
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