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Dear Roker Report,
Why has the attendance for the final game of the season against Chelsea not been announced?
I keep a record of all our home attendances but this omission has spoiled that record.
I’ve contacted Chris Waters but he’s ignored my request for info on the attendance figure and all the internet sites say the figure isn’t available.
Anyone with info?
Stuart Lathan
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Stuart. Thank you for your letter.
I did find the lack of an available attendance figure for the final game somewhat strange — it’s normally
listed on the BBC Sport page for any given game but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
A bit odd, admittedly, but let’s just say it was “Absolutely rammed”. That should be more than good enough!
Dear Roker Report,
I’m annoyed at the backhanded praise we get from the media and pundits on our fantastic season.
“They did well but they spent a lot of money in the summer” is the usual one, so let’s look at what we’ve spent.
In 2021/2022, we had a net spend of £200,000 to finish fifth in League One. From 2022 to 2025, we had a net spend of £9 million, making a profit and eventually finishing fourth in the Championship.
This season, we’ve spent around £140 million — certain teams spent more than that on just two players and ended up below us! On the opening day of the season, we had fourteen players making Premier League debuts, so it’s not even like we bought proven experience.
Is a five-year net spend of £130 million a lot to turn League One squad into a successful Premier League squad and Europa League qualifiers? I don’t think so.
Let’s not forget it was two League One players that combined to score a goal that completed the double over the World Club Champions to get us into Europe.
Colin
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Colin. Thank you for getting in touch.
You raise an excellent point and whilst it’s easy to focus on the figures we’ve actually spent in order to reach this point, when you break it down, many of the signings we’ve made in recent times have been absolute bargains; either paying us back before being sold for an enormous profit (Jack Clarke, Jobe) or making a huge impact upon arrival (Granit Xhaka, Nordi Mukiele, Dan Ballard, Trai Hume, etc).
We’re basically the embodiment of the phrase “It’s not necessarily how much you spend, but how smartly you spend it”, and the results in recent times have spoken for themselves. We haven’t always got it right, but when we do, we really do.
