srfc
Ancient Mariner
Maiden failing to beat him in the charts as a sign of their diminishing popularity is frankly ridiculous.
I would be willing to put money that any of the Maiden albums that did get to number one in the UK were not going head to head with a big name artist also releasing an album in the same week. So it's nothing new.
Probably naive by Maiden not to have scheduled their release a week earlier, but maybe there was also a big name with an album out last week too.