Prior to today, the greatest home & away crowd that didn't involve Collingwood was the 91,571 crowd at the MCG for the Carlton vs Essendon game in Round 20 of 2000 (When the old rivals were Top 2 on the ladder), which is also significant because it WAS the only game out of the Top 12 greatest home & away attendances that doesn't involve Collingwood.
Until Saturday, as a game between a 17th-placed Richmond team and a 13th-placed Hawthorn team in the middle of June managed to pull a crowd of 92,311, the 8th-greatest Home & Away crowd in history, only 125 patrons short of Richmond's home & away record (92,436 vs Collingwood at the MCG on ANZAC Day 1977), and only 162 short of Hawthorn's record, which is 92,935 against Collingwood at Waverley on the Queen's Birthday 1981, which is the only game in league history to have a crowd of 80,000+ fans outside of the MCG, a fact that will probably stand for a while yet.
You couldn't even get a bigger crowd at the European Championships.
And to think, the only reason they were there was to celebrate Changkuoth Jiath's 50th game for Hawthorn...
That and Dustin Martin had his 300th game.
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