Yup, I remember being one of those sardines. 14,206 was the attendance.

Pretty sure they had to lower the capacity after that due to safety concerns. We didn't get a higher attendance than that until the corners will filled in.

I was in the west that night. The concourse at the front of the west stand was about 4 deep. No way that stadium was suitable for that crowd.

I well remember that match because I managed to cut short a business trip and flew in to Manchester from Tokyo and went straight to the match!
I'd booked for 14 tickets in the east stand. The top corners of the south weren't packed but the aisles were rammed. Really the crowding there was mainly due to the fact that it was the first time the stadium had been used in anger, and the trial run the week before only had a few thousand in the south stand.

i didn't think they did a trial run, they had an open evening in december which had a couple of hundred ppl milling about from stand to stand.

the problem they had at the time, was (and this was done to death on here) most previous stadium/grounds that had old crumbling standing areas, had standing areas, but also had routes for walking through the stand to get to where you want to go, if you stood halfway up the fletch you'll remember the slightly wider bit of floor that no one ever stood on, the HJ doesn't have them, and most ppl probably got up the stairs, realised most ppl had stood at the end of sections, assumed it was full cos they couldn't get through and just stood on the stairs.

i got there with 40 minutes before kick off on this occasion to find the gates closed, i got let in 20 minutes into the game and ended up standing half way up a set of stairs.

What was the crowd for Johns' debut?

Anyone got any spares?

13,024

13024 sell out crowd, capacity at time of game.

Block I 6
Block P 12
Block Q 83
Block D (East) 9

Available seats added in Block Q, possibly Wigan returns.

The ‘trial’ was a daytime event. Can’t remember the exact date, but I was there with my girlfriend (now missus). There were more than a few hundred definitely, probably about half the capacity of the northern stand. Whoever ran the PA system (may have been Mellor I’m not sure when he left for Wigan) guided us from stand to stand.

Somewhere I have the photos which I think were taken with an early digital camera. I’m not sure the pitch was even laid at that point?

I thought Wigan were a big club with a good following. Big clubs don’t return tickets.