Shamrock Rovers’ biggest attendance since 2011 turned out for their first home game of the season against Bohemians on Friday night.
The SSE Airtricity League often gets criticised for small crowds but everything is relative.
Take the respective populations of the Republic of Ireland and England into account and you see a different picture.
We have multiplied this weekend’s attendance at the Premier League games and multiplied them by a factor of 11.7 to reflect the different populations and this is where each of the 12 teams in the SSE Airticity Premier League compares to their English colleagues.
1 Manchester Utd 75,291
1 Shamrock Rovers 61,074
2 Arsenal 59,988
3 West Ham Utd 56,967
2 Dundalk 55,528
4 Manchester City 54,047
5 Liverpool 52,984
6 Sunderland 41,592
7 Chelsea 41,521
3 Cork City 39,019
8 Everton 38,450
9 Leicester City 31,939
10 Tottenham 31,526
11 Southampton 30,734
12 Middlesbrough 30,484
4 Limerick FC 27,576
13 Stoke City 26,894
5 Bohemians 25,389
14 Crystal Palace 25,049
6 Sligo Rovers 25,014
7 Galway City 24,722
15 West Bromwich 23,418
8 Derry City 23,400
9 Finn Harps 21,586
16 Hull City 20,599
17 Swansea City 20,584
18 Watford 20,543
19 Burnley 20,336
10 St Pats 20,147
11 Bray Wanderers 13,068
12 Drogheda United 11,934
20 Bournemouth 11,172
We realise it doesn’t really mean much but population does matter and for the Irish clubs to feature so favourably on a comparative League table is worth bearing in mind before leaping to criticism.
SSE Airtricity League attendance thanks to extratime.ie. English Premier League attendance thanks to soccerstats.com
