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When Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall and his Harlequins counterpart Conor O’Shea played alongside each other for London Irish in the Premiership’s maiden season of 1997/8 the biggest home crowd they could hope for at The Avenue in Sunbury was 5,000.
Now, 15 years later, the two Irishmen will lead their sides into battle in a London derby in front of a projected crowd of over 85,000 at Wembley. The Premiership has come a long way.
Saracens say there are only a few hundred tickets left on sale for the game on Saturday and with Wembley’s official capacity estimated to be 90,779, there is confidence within the club that they will comfortably surpass the world record attendance for a club match — 82,208 — set by Munster and Leinster at Croke Park in 2009.
“I remember when the chairman Nigel Wray was talking before our first game at Wembley [against Northampton in 2009],” said McCall. “He said ‘we will sell out a game at Wembley’ and everyone laughed at him. Now we're not far off.
“I think it’s great for English rugby that we can put on games like this and it says a lot about the Premiership.”
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rug...t-Wembley.html