Town boss Mick McCarthy says winning games will be the key factor in encouraging fans back to Portman Road, Tuesday’s 0-0 draw with Brighton having been watched by the lowest crowd at a Championship game at Portman Road for almost three years.
Tuesday’s official attendance was 15,228, the smallest since the 14,953 recorded at the Blackburn home game in December 2013. Both games will have actually been watched by fewer fans with season ticket holders counted in the attendance figure regardless of whether they are at a match.
McCarthy said he noticed the disappointing crowd when he reviewed the game later in the week: "I thought that when I looked back at the game on Thursday morning, but I didn’t hear what it was.”
In addition to the low attendance on Tuesday, summer season ticket sales were down around 1,000 and McCarthy says the only way to reverse the current downward trend is to win games.
"Just seeing it disappointed me," he added. "I didn’t really notice it the other night. I don’t walk out onto the pitch and go, ‘It’s a low crowd’, I’m focused on the game.
"But seeing it this morning I did. The crowd looked pretty sparse. I don’t like that, I prefer to have big crowds but the only way we’ll get them is by winning games.
"And at the moment, we’re not, so we’ll have to get back to that, like we did four years ago when we were bottom of the league with seven points and the crowds were low.
"We got crowds in because we started winning games and we started to have a bit of success. If we start to do that again that’s when they’ll come back.”
Is it just winning football that gets the numbers through the gates? "If you’ve got any other reason as to why, if it’s that they haven’t got the money [that people don't go to games], which people haven’t, it’s tight, but you tell me any other reason people come to watch.”
Are entertainment and goals also factors? "When I came in four years ago and we were bottom with seven points - and I haven’t done anything different over those last four years - did the crowds increase? Why was that? [Winning games].”
He added: "Very rarely have I ever come away from a game I’ve gone to watch and I was supporting a team and they win and I go ‘Didn’t enjoy that today’, whether it’s rugby, tennis, whatever I go and watch.
"The person I see who wins it, it’s generally more entertaining than when you get beaten, isn’t it?
"I could name a couple of teams who would spin that they play some lovely entertaining football and we’re not playing them any more.
"And by the way we’re not trying not to play entertaining football, let’s clear that up. We don’t play unentertaining football, we’re not trying to do that.”
Today’s opponents Huddersfield boosted their home crowds by subsidising 15,000 season tickets - an adult seat cost £179 - in the summer, off-setting the cost against £1 million of the additional £2 million in TV money Championship clubs are receiving this season.
As a result, the Terriers their home crowds have hit higher levels than at any time since they were in the top flight in 1970/71.
McCarthy says that running that aspect of the club isn’t down to him, he’s only in control of the football side: "I don’t have anything to do with that, that’s not my bag.
"I try and create a winning team, a good environment and manage the playing side of it.”
Meanwhile, former Blues left-back Jamie Clapham, 40, has joined Barnsley’s staff as their first-team coach on what’s initially a short-term basis.
Clapham was previously first-team coach at Coventry working under his former Town team-mate Tony Mowbray until they resigned on Wednesday.