Alan Biggs at Large: Attendances at BOTH Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday are healthy right now

Add the words “comparison between the clubs” and you can replace hills with mountains.

Many an unsuspecting reporter has come to grief on this seemingly innocent task.

You are reading someone who speaks from experience.Surely you can’t argue with something so factually based?

Oh yes you can! Oh no you can’t! And so on.

But, amid this pantomime season, there is one thing on which even the most tribal members of this city’s two footballing tribes should be able to agree.Attendances at BOTH clubs are incredibly healthy right now; some would say remarkably so.

Safe to say there is no need to actually compare them. With the clubs a division apart - one in the Championship and the other League One - a comparison would be invalid.

However, you can contrast the figures with preceding seasons down the years and, considering that both teams had a faltering start to the current campaign, turn-outs at Bramall Lane and Hillsborough are relatively very healthy indeed.

Sheffield United’s current league average of 27,504 is bigger than for their Championship promotion campaign of 2018-19 (26,177).

It also compares favourably with the first Premier League campaign before the pandemic (30,904).

Sheffield Wednesday’s current average for the third tier (22,078) is actually bigger than for some of the club’s seasons in the top flight.

For instance, in 1988-89 the figure was just 17,779. Go back to the 1960s, which was largely a successful era for the club - again in the top league - and you’ll find a 21,804 and one as low as 15,939.

It’s all relative and naturally there are many factors at play. In the Owls’ case, fans have responded to charismatic managerial figures in Jack Charlton and Ron Atkinson.There were big crowds under Howard Wilkinson and Trevor Francis.

Yet, if you go back to the peak season of the modern Hillsborough era, the League average for the double cup final season of 1992-93 was a less-than-eye-catching 27,187. It’s why, when Wednesday’s current owner toyed with thoughts of a new stadium at the buoyant start of his reign, I pointed out that Hillsborough was not always full during some of the club’s best years.But if the Owls’ support has a limited ceiling, it has a very solid floor.That firm base has endured few more searching tests than in the aftermath of relegation last season as the club reeled from a crisis on and off the field.For fans to rally to the cause in spite of the owner’s unpopularity has been highly commendable.Loyalty is in equally strong supply across the city. Dropping from the Premier League has made little difference through the turnstiles.Support has been unwavering despite the vexed loss of a revered manager and even some recriminations over pricing, which is a factor on attendances everywhere.Consider this. After Dave Bassett took the Blades into the top flight with a second successive promotion, the Bramall Lane average in 1990-91 was 22,534 - well below today’s figure.

In two of the next three seasons in the Premier League, the average dipped below 20,000.On the other hand, the 2006 return to the big time under Neil Warnock was greeted by 23,650 regulars. The subsequent 2006-07 average was 30,512.

Then, as now, there was a wash over surge from being in the elite with a new generation of fans attracted.

It’s to be taken at the flood because, as Wednesday have also found over the years, it doesn’t last.Both clubs have failed repeatedly to maintain forward momentum. Can they get themselves going again? And if they do, can they make it stick?

No-one can answer either question. But what you can be sure of is that the people of Sheffield won’t desert either of them.

Never has there been more emphatic evidence to that effect.Have I got away with it?