Crowded House

If I had a fiver for every time that the words 'credit crunch' have been blurted out as the root cause for any of the events of the past year then I would be able to bail out the nation from the aforementioned crunch all on my own and still have enough spare change to purchase an ailing multi-national corporate bank. Am I alone in finding the two word phrase itself more irksome than the implications to the nation's economy? I know the answer to that should be yes, but I am confident I'm not the only easily irritated financial novice out there.

Anyway, to haul this piece back to sport, one of the suggested impacts of the, grrr, credit crunch is a significant reduction in spending on leisure activities. So in theory the steady boost in sporting attendances which this country has seen since the 1980s should this year have begun to wain. Whilst in football at least there are signs that crowds are beginning to level out and or drop. Of the Premier League's top ten supported teams from last season, nine currently have a lower average attendance than last season. Only Manchester City, buoyed by the arrival of Robinho and a truck load of cash, can boast an higher average, albeit only by 1,500.

However, whilst top level football in this country looks to have reached the top of an attendance arc, top level rugby union is continuing to grow in popularity. The Six Nations tournament is a regular sell-out, with supporter demand regularly outstripping availability, and now it seems the increased demand for live rugby union is extending to club level. Numerous Guinness Premiership sides are boasting increased attendances this season, in the case of Saracens that increase means their total home attendance at this point in the season is only one thousand shy of last season's overall total.

Such is the demand for club rugby that Harlequins have reached a deal with Twikenham to stage a league match at the national stadium in each of the next three seasons. The result of their first attempt at this venture was a reduced capacity sell-out of 50,000 for the Quins match with Leicester this week, a club attendance record. North of the border it was a similar story as Edinburgh's own national stadium hosted a club record league crowd for Edinburgh's match against Glasgow.

The Harlequins Chief Executive Mark Evans is confident that come next year Harlequins 'Big Game II' will be a full capacity crowd. "It is about an event, about building a fan-base not just about maximising monetary return," said Evans on the Guinness Premiership website. However his approach to spending may give some indication as to how the nation currently finds itself at this financial point; "If we get 82,000 next year and the profit margin increases, we will just spend it, have more fireworks." Stability will never win out over Catherine Wheels.