Season's biggest crowd expected

Strong pre-match ticket sales indicate that Wellington Phoenix fans may have heeded a warning that games could be taken away from Wellington.

The club is now predicting tomorrow's Wellington Phoenix game will draw the strongest home crowd of the season.

It comes days after the club's co-owner Gareth Morgan asked fans to "step up" and start coming to games or they could lose host status.

So far this season, the team has been unable to draw crowds of more than 10,000 to games on its home turf – Wellington's Westpac Stadium.

The biggest crowd was in Auckland, where the Phoenix drew more than 20,000 spectators.

But Wellington Phoenix head of marketing David Dome said pre-match ticket sales were stronger than ever and the club hoped it would encourage a win against the Melbourne Heart tomorrow.

It could put the team in line for second place, making this its best season.

Crowd numbers would definitely be more than 10,000 – but the club was predicting closer to 12,000, Dome said.

It looked like fans had taken on board Morgan's message, he said.

Morgan said the pre-match sales were fantastic.

"I'm not going to claim credit for what might be a flash in the pan, but I don't think it did any harm. I just want Wellington to do as much as possible to lay its claim."

He took to social networking site Twitter after last week's victory over the Newcastle Jets to warn fans that their lack of support could lead to the team playing elsewhere.

Morgan, a Unicef New Zealand ambassador, has also introduced a draw to be made at halftime, in which if there was someone sitting in the seat number drawn, they had the choice of either winning $1000 cash or taking $800 themselves and giving $500 to Unicef. If the seat is unoccupied, the cash will jackpot for the next home game.

Morgan and six other Wellington businessmen took over the club last year.

- © Fairfax NZ News