A regional daily newspaper came under fire from fans of a premiership football club after publishing an article about empty seats at its biggest game of the season.
The Manchester Evening News reported that Manchester City’s top-of-the-table clash with Chelsea on Monday was played out in front of a less than full Etihad Stadium and warned that the club should be careful over expansion plans as a result.
The article, written by sports reporter David Lynch, was accompanied by a screen-grab image from Match of the Day 2 with unfilled seats circled in red.
But it prompted an angry backlash from fans after being posted on the website of Bluemoon-MCFC – an unofficial Manchester City forum – with supporters accusing the paper of “stunning ignorance.”
Empty seats were shown with red circles
David’s piece state that the number of empty seats at the Etihad Stadium was “the elephant in the room that City fans must confront without a nudge from their neighbours if Sheikh Mansour’s plans to build the biggest club in the world are to bear fruit.”
“If the stadium is not full during a high-profile clash against the club’s most credible title rivals then questions quite simply have to be asked,” he wrote.
“There were swathes of empty seats visible on television, and it’s not hard to believe that some out of the gaze of the viewer might also have been.
“It makes talk of increasing the capacity to 60,000+ look like utter folly.”
It prompted a number of angry responses from City fans who took to the Bluemoon forum to air their views.
One Manchester City fan, writing under the name of Damocles, wrote: “That is stunning in it’s ignorance. Really, I’m actually stunned that this is printed in a newspaper. I see the idea of quality control has just disappeared from the MEN.”
Fellow City fan Sefiruso added: “This is just embarrassing, to think this guy gets paid to write some drivel offends me more than what he actually wrote.
“Not everyone can shift sell or even give away their seat to someone they trust and this happens at all premier league grounds especially for midweek games.”
The article angered several Manchester City fans
Supercity88 wrote: “I will trust the club’s own feasibility studies ahead of an article that shows that a couple of seats here and there are empty.
“A lot of those were in the family stand where people are no doubt having to take their nippers to the toilet during the match.”
David defended himself on his Twitter page by writing: “If people are buying tickets and not turning up, that’s going to look awful in a 60,000-seater. A better ticket exchange needed.”
The MEN also published a counter article on the empty seats issue written by another sport reporter, Stuart Brennan, who said it was “not surprising” there were a few empty seats at a Monday night match.
“If there were significant areas of empty seats in the home areas, they were not evident to the naked eye on the night,” wrote Stuart.
“There may have been pockets of empty seats, but that does happen, especially at night matches, when season ticket holders who live some distance from the ground cannot get time off work, or kids have to be up for school in the morning, and so on.”
MEN editor Rob Irvine tweeted: “@MUFCemptyseats @david_lynch88 had a view which @StuBrennanMEN disputed.Nowt wrong with a debate, I went and was surprised at empty seats.”
The Evening News declined to comment further.
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I was expecting to see rows of empty seats, but they need to be circled to be spotted. Season Ticket holders are probably not allowed to transfer tickets when unable to attend, and as suggested, not everyone can get to an evening game. Seems like a reporter trying to make a story out of nothing. If he had been there he’d have some credibility, but as he wasn’t able to use his own photo, I assume he was not. Is it OK to use BBC screen grabs, by the way?
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I think you’ll find Manchester City are a Premier League football club, not premiership.
These details should matter to journalists, don’t you think?
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did the MEN ask the club for a comment?
pretty shoddy journo work, if not?
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The MEN has invented ‘Space in the Crowd’.
If that’s not you circled at last night’s match, write your details on a post card, post it First Class to get to us before next Friday, and we will pick a card at random from a pile on the newsroom floor and a postal order for ten shillings could be yours!
Don’t forget, Loppy Ludd will be at the Tripe Exchange all next week. If you don’t spot him, send a postcard…(yes we get the idea…Ed)
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Must admit I was surprised to see empty seats on Sky, but then you see them at the Emirates, the former Theatre of Dreams and anywhere on live broadvasts, according to the time and/or day.
Most football fans loathe the way Mansour’s billions have transformed City from a floundering failure into a global brand, picking up oceans of plastics along the way, and in that context, empty seats will always be the catalyst for an anti-City jibe.
However, for an MEN sports reporter to take the mick, and to make the absurd ‘connection’ between a few empty seats and Mansour’s latest expansion plans, suggests a distinct lack of objectivity.
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In response to this article city have now released an official statement
” I light of the recent article published i the MEN regarding empty seats at matches the club would like to issue the following statement. Please could we remind all fans of the following
1. If you need to leave your seat at anytime during a game please could you raise your arm . A steward will give you permission to leave your seat. Please remember only one boy and girl at a time per block may leave the stadium
2. If for any reason you are going to be late for a game please ring the club . The register will be updated and forwarded to the MEN. Please remember to sign in on arrival.
3. If for any reason your seat will not be used during the game please call the club with your reason and also follow this up in writing with reasons for Absence . The register will be updated and your excuse will be passed on to the Bluemoon attendance Police to confirm validity of your excuse. The club will then inform the MEN of all waggers so your seat can clearly circled in red.
The Club would like to thank fans for their cooperation “
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Plenty of empty seats in the MEN Newsroom since several rounds of recent redundancies…
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I am a City fan and I was at the match.
There were a handful of vacant seats, yes, but the phrase “swathes of empty seats” is downright shoddy journalism.
The cynic in me thinks this is an attempt to get fans going and drive traffic to the website, which I guess has worked.
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I’m not a regular visitor to football stadiums but when I have been – and particularly to a midweek match – there have always been some empty seats. I looked at the few small circles on the screenshot and have to admit that I’m struggling to see the facts behind the story. At a time when newspapers are fighting to keep the remaining readers they have and football clubs appear to be looking for any excuse to ban reporters from their grounds, I’d have thought the news desk should have quickly binned this pointless story.
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Through the fog of pedantry and bitterness, I think Blue Moan has hit the nail on the head.
It is, nonetheless, a fairly desperate cocktail of shoddiness and reader-baiting.
Poor form MEN.
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In a crowd of more than 40,000 could it be that chances are these empty seats were due to people being at the toilet or still eating their prawn sandwiches?
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If you want to see empty seats at a Premier League ground view a replay of Fulham v Sheffield Utd on Tuesday. You could put the red rings around the seats with anyone occupying them!
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Just can’t afford to get away with this type of spin. You get crucified on social media and can do damage to your reputation on a vast scale compared to pre Twitter and Facebook days.
Should have been pulled when it was clear the image they had didn’t stand up the line, no matter how well or ill-intentioned.
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Did he miss any goals while he was scrutinising the spectators?
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City have always been well supported, even two divisions below the Premier League. To circle 8 seats from a lazy screen grab of several thousand is pretty lame…
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Lack of editorial control here, they will have lost lots of readers over this.
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It’s a strange decision for a local newspaper to launch an attack on its own customers. This article has damaged the paper seriously in Manchester. The main issue is the failure to apologise. The match was sold out weeks ago and the screengrab was taken while people were stuck in traffic outside. In fact there were suggestions the game may have been delayed. None of this was reported and the paper did not get a response from the club to the original article
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