Two of the biggest names in the Aviva Premiership, Saracens FC and Harlequins Football Club go head to head this week and as per the ticket sales, the London derby might just be the biggest ever in the history of the game with as many as 85,000 people expected to make their way into the stadium to cheer on their respective teams. This milestone, should it be reached, will represent a huge step forward for rugby as a club based game in England since the start of the Aviva Premiership in 1997.
At that time, Mark McCall, the Director of Rugby for Saracens and his counterpart at Harlequins Football Club Conor O’Shea were teammates for another Aviva Premiership side the London Irish and the biggest home crowd that they could expect at the home stadium of The Exiles at The Avenue was a meager 5,000. According to officials of Saracens, they just have a few hundred tickets still left to be sold and with the match taking place at Wembley, which has a capacity of 90,779, they are well on their way to beat the attendance record set in the match between the Leicester Tigers and the Celtic League side from Ireland, Munster Rugby which was recorded to be 82,208.
According to McCall, it is great for English rugby to be selling games out like this and he also extended his gratitude to The Quins who are as much responsible for pulling such a huge crowd for the match as they are – Nick Easter in particular has been sensational recently.
Harlequins Football Club might be struggling in the European Challenge Cup and was knocked out unceremoniously, but they are still on top and a victory against the arch enemies will give them immense confidence ahead of the next few matches that are left and the new season.