Best crowd in 30 years
Source -
thisisnottingham.co.uk
The Nottinghamshire Outlaws are on course for their biggest domestic crowd for more than 30 years at their Twenty20 Cup quarter-final clash with Northants Steelbacks tonight.
The Trent Bridge club are set to smash the 10,000 barrier following huge ticket demand for the first time since around 12,000 attended the 1975 Gillette Cup quarter-final with Derbyshire in 1975.
The club are also poised to beat their previous Twenty20 best - 8,991 against Derbyshire last season.
"Notts used to get crowds of more than 10,000 on occasions in the 1950s, but I can only find once such instance since then," said Notts' historian and statistician Peter Wynne-Thomas.
"According to Wisden the 1975 match in question was played on a sweltering hot day in front of a five-figure crowd.
"Before 1980 there was no way of keeping records of members, but it is fair to say this crowd will be the best for a very long time outside of Test matches and one-day internationals. There have been other big matches since, but not with this level of attendance."
One figure Notts are not going to beat is their record Trent Bridge crowd of 35,000 for a County Championship game against Surrey in May 1948.
But the club are nevertheless delighted by the level of interest shown in the match - the first game Notts have played outside the group stages in four years of Twenty20 competition.
Notts' chief executive Derek Brewer said: "We are certainly hoping for around 9,000 against Northants and if we get more than that then it would be fantastic."
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