ESSENDON Football Club attracted more supporters to its home games than any other club in the AFL, according to figures released today. Essendon was the only club to top the 500,000 mark – a total of 532,365 attended the Bombers’ home games.

And Essendon topped one million supporters for all games. Just over 1.1 million supporters watched the Bombers during the 2000 home and away season. The figure was just 12,000 short of last year’s record figure of 1,119,578.

The home-game figure is however almost 100,000 down on the club-record high of 630,399 that was recorded last season. Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson said the downturn was basically a result of the fixture.

“The figures are pretty solid all things considered,” Jackson said. “We played four interstate teams at home this year and we only played three last year so that probably cost us about 20,000.”

“We attracted about 49,521 to our Thursday night match against Richmond … played at any other time we would have expected that game to attract upwards of 65,000. We also didn’t play Geelong at home this year and that match attracted 62,000 last year.

“We attracted just 39,836 to the St Kilda game. That was expected because they were struggling and therefore why it was switched to Colonial Stadium. However, that match attracted 60,000 in 1999. Given all this it is hardly surprising our crowds are down.”

Jackson said some crowds at Colonial Stadium might have been down 5000 on what could have been expected. “There is no doubt the adverse publicity Colonial Stadium received had an effect,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he expected the home crowd figure would increase significantly next year. “People have warmed to Colonial Stadium – you only have to look at the crowds we attracted to the Hawthorn (46,956) and Western Bulldogs (45,725) games to work that out,” Jackson said.