I found this site.....really useful when discussing attendances........... http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/brir.htm
Sorry if I get this wrong but wasnt it back then that whoever was the home team out of Rovers or City, it was normal to watch either who was at home so gasheads would watch City if City were home and ****heads or shall I now say 'pissheads' would watch Rovers when we were at home?
I wouldn't like to say it was usual to attend for both teams. But for over 15 years in the 60's and 70's I did. Having married into a bunch of reds, I took father-in-law to his home matches and he came to some of mine. For that period at Eastville you could change ends at half time and chat to the other lot. Very seldom was there any agro between supporters. The violent aggression came about sometime in the seventies if I remember correctly.
Back in the mid 70's while at secondary school we did go to the ****pit on the odd occasion when the gas were away,( tho we always went in the away section) in amongst the odd away trip with the supporters club !!!!
Me too. We had two very good neighbours, one a City fan and the other a Rovers fan. As a youngster in the 50s going into the 60s they would take me alternate weeks. That way I got to see both Bradford and Atyeo regularly. I continued doing this for a while, then decided I preferred Rovers, though Ashton Gate was the nearer ground.
Well that could explain why attendances were higher back then. The 40k that went to Wembley for both sides, I wonder how many in the Rovers end were reds and how many in the City end were blues - having a day out with their mates and families!
I remember the FA Cup game against Arsenal in January 1967. In those days for big gates the club employed crowd marshals to pack everyone in. On the day over 35,000 turned up at Eastville. It's probably the only occasion where we were so tightly packed in at the open end that I was able to take my feet off the ground and not fall down.
I was there too...in the open end. Only recently did someone tell me that was where the away fans were. It's where I always went if I was on the terraces.
I always used the open end. I loved the superb high view from there. I eventually did voluntary work with Ron Moules and Ray Kendall and was given two North Stand tickets, but I preferred to stand on those high terraces.