Phillip Rollo puts crowd at 8851
That is a surprisingly low number. Does show that the crowd for Victory back in Feb, was boosted by a perfect storm of things coming together (team on a roll with a lot of positive press, Victory having some genuine drawcards like Honda, lack of other events in Auckland at that time, worked in well with Super rugby game night before, first Nix match at EP for a few years etc etc).
I guess it means any likely backers of a possible Auckland A League bid, know they will have take a conservative approach on forecasting crowds, once the novelty value disappears.
Still having a Nix game in Auckland, during a bus strike is just plain bad luck. Auckland's traffic can be bad, but the bus network is pretty good - so lack of buses would have put a few casuals off from going.
Anyway sounds like those who attended rated the atmosphere (different if team had lost), and a game played in sunshine is always better for the image of NZ football in Australia - than one played in horrible wind & rain. So on that aspect alone was a winner, just another 2-3K people would have been good.
Hopefully come Feb next year and Melb City game, there is a good positive vibe around, and can be a crowd of more like 12Kish. That will be the kicker. League looks very tight this season, and Nix could as easily be going into that game on say a 3 game losing streak, as a winning run.