“There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies and statistics.” Benjamin Disraeli.
We’ll support you ever more.
According to the Daily Record, Sell Out Saturday, the campaign started by Aberdeen fans to fill out every SPL ground in the wake of Rangers move to the third division was a roaring success. The Record declared that “Crowds were up in a number of matches”. In fact there were only four Premier League games played on Sell Out Saturday, of which none were a sell-out.
The Record’s statistics do not cover the Edinburgh Derby played on the Sunday, which recorded its lowest ever attendance for an opening season fixture between the clubs. Celtic did not play this weekend, as they were off in America losing a pre-season friendly to Real Madrid in a half-empty stadium in Philadelphia.
Only Aberdeen saw an increase in attendance, though the ground was nowhere near sold out against Ross County. The turnout from fans of the SPL was so poor the Record had to include Scottish Football League One attendances to boost figures. If Sell Out Saturday was supposed to be about the Scottish Premier League rallying to offset the loss to the game of Rangers playing in Division Three, then why include the Football League teams?
It seems the Daily Record story of Sell out Saturday is Jackanory at its best. The reality of the state of the game in Scotland is that most of the SPL games played on Saturday had lower than average attendances.
The real story the Record should be running is that with Celtic not playing at the weekend. How many of the Celtic fans who had a free Saturday on SOS weekend could be bothered to support the campaign and take in another SPL game? Send replies on the back of a postage stamp please.
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