England vs Norway audience figures well beaten by Great British Bake-Off

Nearly twice as many people tuned into the cookery show than the friendly international

Simon Rice
Thursday 04 September 2014 09:42 EDT
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England might have beaten Norway last night, but they couldn't beat Mary Berry.

Last night's international friendly was perhaps the least anticipated England game in recent memory, with just 40,000 turning up at Wembley to watch Roy Hodgson's side.

Still looking to escape the shadow of a disastrous World Cup, a friendly against a side whose best known player plays for Blackburn was perhaps not the ideal fixture.

And it seems England fans weren't just staying away from the national stadium.

TV figures released this morning showed the audience watching the game on ITV was 4.5million, peaking at 5.5million. In comparison, the Great British Bake-Off on the BBC, featuring Berry and Paul Hollywood, had an audience of 8.3million, reaching a peak of 9.1m.

ITV and the Football Association, much like the contestants on GBBO, will be hoping to see a rise.

The FA has accepted that it has work to do to regain supporters' trust after the disappointment of the World Cup, and has arranged high-profile friendlies against world champions Germany, Spain, Italy and France over the next two years to try to drum up interest, especially with a fairly hum-drum Euro 2016 qualifying group.

FA general secretary Alex Horne said last week: "We have got some work to do, we have to rebuild a squad which is Roy Hodgson's department, and we have got to rebuild some trust with the supporters."

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