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Post by pugs on Feb 22, 2012 13:10:59 GMT
If i'm not mistaken the last 2 home games have produced the smallest home league crowds since we returned to the football league. After all we were averaging well over 7,000 by the turn of the year.
Reason to be concerned? Apathy creeping in perhaps?
Makes you wonder how many we'd have got had we been mid-table.
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Post by Gary Baldi on Feb 22, 2012 13:49:36 GMT
Barnet and D&R two weeks in a row. 2 poorly supported sides on Tuesday nights. One game was in half term and on Valentine's night.
I'd be disappointed with attendances if we played teams like Roverz and Argyle who are better supported.
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Post by improvox on Feb 22, 2012 13:51:38 GMT
Dont think we nede to worry too much, they were tuesday night games against teams that are hardly going to draw extra fans. Neither are likely to bring big support eithe r(especially on a midweek).
I would expect a pretty big increase for Saturday
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Post by archie on Feb 22, 2012 13:57:39 GMT
I think that's probably right Gary Baldi.
Two unattractive sides to play against for the neutrals to come and spend good money on, especially when those are the sorts of sides we struggle to play our best stuff against. Football is an expensive business nowadays and people tend to pick and choose more carefully which games to watch.
Whilst it is disappointing to see low crowds while we're doing well it's understandable
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Post by pugs on Feb 22, 2012 14:03:20 GMT
Yeah I get all the 'tuesday night', 'unattractive opposition' (aren't 90% of them!), 'valentine day/half-term' stuff and know it would affect crowds but we're talking about 1,500 off of our average! We had midweek games last season and didn't drop under 6,000 + we weren't ever in a play-off place....
I just hope it is a temporary lull and i'm sure the numbers will rise in the run in. I'm sure any positive result against the scum will give our attendancies a much needed boost.
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Post by junior1 on Feb 22, 2012 14:05:17 GMT
Shrewsbury only took just over 300 to the scum last in a crowd of 7900 odd..
That for me is worrying....
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Post by junior1 on Feb 22, 2012 14:08:13 GMT
Another note, the club must know the crowds are not going to be high, even average for those 2 games. IMO they should have promoted a kid a quid for the D&R game. Take advantage of half term. How about a dad & son ticket for 15quid in the east stand?
Be creative, the ground caters for upwards of 10-000 home fans. What have we got to lose, sub 6000 crowds, oh.....
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Post by pugs on Feb 22, 2012 14:14:19 GMT
Another note, the club must know the crowds are not going to be high, even average for those 2 games. IMO they should have promoted a kid a quid for the D&R game. Take advantage of half term. How about a dad & son ticket for 15quid in the east stand? Be creative, the ground caters for upwards of 10-000 home fans. What have we got to lose, sub 6000 crowds, oh..... My thoughts exactly. Get the kids in for these lower profile games. The club have missed a trick for these past 2 home games in my opinion.
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Post by archie on Feb 22, 2012 14:14:44 GMT
That I agree with Junior, do we have 'fan' days at the club?
Last season against Barnet the attendance was just over 6,000 on a saturday I believe so last night wasn't too bad in comparsion.
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Post by dabigfella on Feb 22, 2012 14:36:46 GMT
Take a look at some of the crowds at other games in League 2. They aren't so hot recently either. Cold wet and miserable evenings against poor opposition. Not the greatest inducement to turn out unless you are a die hard nutter like me!
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Post by John Lennon on Feb 22, 2012 17:28:34 GMT
That I agree with Junior, do we have 'fan' days at the club? Last season against Barnet the attendance was just over 6,000 on a saturday I believe so last night wasn't too bad in comparsion. Part of my decision to do an Ultimate Support Saturday for the Bristol Rovers game was our crowds wernt as good as we had hoped, so I and others felt we needed to do something. I think there were over 7,600 home fans there for that, and the games following it attracted big home support. So it showed initiatives like this do work, and us going on a good run definitly helped. I thought the club may do something like kid for a quid or another initiative during this period of smaller crowds, but it hasn't happened. It takes a lot of time an effort to organise an Ultimate Support Saturday, and the games aren't favourable for creating a better atmosphere with no more big followings expected, but its a challenge and maybe its what the club and fans need during this vital time
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Post by rollsy on Feb 22, 2012 18:47:08 GMT
Said in another thread the other day that the club really need to do things to promote games, and to encourage more people to come. Hereford and Crewe attendances weren't very good either. Next season will be lower all season if stay in this league. I'd rather have offers of cheap tickets for a few games a season than have over 5,000 empty seats!!
I see we've sold 5,300 for this Sat's game. Another sub 6,500 gate.
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Post by hartlyhare on Feb 22, 2012 19:21:43 GMT
of course the standard of football hasn't been great recently so that doesn't encourage people to make the effort to go
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2012 19:28:17 GMT
i think these attendances are pretty decent considering we used to get alot less than this. IMO its still alot better with less. as for kid for a quid, it wouldnt be financially viable for the club unless they got an extra 5,000 kids turn up
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Post by uptheus on Feb 22, 2012 19:28:24 GMT
of course the standard of football hasn't been great recently so that doesn't encourage people to make the effort to go Exactly
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Post by rollsy on Feb 22, 2012 20:04:48 GMT
i think these attendances are pretty decent considering we used to get alot less than this. IMO its still alot better with less. as for kid for a quid, it wouldnt be financially viable for the club unless they got an extra 5,000 kids turn up How is it better with less?? And why would we need 5,000 kids to make it financially viable? Not many kids would have gone last night or last Tues night who aint season ticket holders. So even if only 1,000 kids turned up. Thats £1,000 more than we would have got. Not to mention the adults that may come with their kids at the cheap price.
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Post by improvox on Feb 22, 2012 20:09:07 GMT
Another note, the club must know the crowds are not going to be high, even average for those 2 games. IMO they should have promoted a kid a quid for the D&R game. Take advantage of half term. How about a dad & son ticket for 15quid in the east stand? Be creative, the ground caters for upwards of 10-000 home fans. What have we got to lose, sub 6000 crowds, oh..... Or mother and daughter of course... But yes it is a good point. I remember similar points being made a year or two ago on here, I rarely see any kid a quid promotions from the club. It looks like the work in the community bring in kids and parents they are often in the North Stand, but I wish the club which was named Family Club of the Year for our division recently (or something similar) - would do more to attract families and kids to games. It seems the majority of inititives are actually fan driven rather than club driven (Ultimate Support etc)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2012 22:47:17 GMT
Better atmosphere and u dnt get those idiots in the bottom corner of the ox mail stand. I asked a director after the game yesterday and he said kid for a quid isn't viable and they would loose money. I think he knows what he's on about since he's a director. Or I would hope he does
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Post by The Fence End on Feb 22, 2012 23:20:55 GMT
Back to 7000 plus on Saturday I would think. Currently on a good mini run and a lot of teams ahead of us failed to win yesterday and today, we are in with an outside chance of we continue this run.
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Post by valhallayellow on Feb 22, 2012 23:26:08 GMT
Part of my decision to do an Ultimate Support Saturday for the Bristol Rovers game was our crowds wernt as good as we had hoped, so I and others felt we needed to do something. I think there were over 7,600 home fans there for that, and the games following it attracted big home support. Surely that's the only consideration when doing these Support Saturday games isn't it? The aim being to boost the crowd. What other factors contribute to the decision making process?
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Post by John Lennon on Feb 23, 2012 8:19:57 GMT
Part of my decision to do an Ultimate Support Saturday for the Bristol Rovers game was our crowds wernt as good as we had hoped, so I and others felt we needed to do something. I think there were over 7,600 home fans there for that, and the games following it attracted big home support. Surely that's the only consideration when doing these Support Saturday games isn't it? The aim being to boost the crowd. What other factors contribute to the decision making process? The original aim, and it still is the aim, is to improve the atmosphere at home games.
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Post by barmyarmy on Feb 23, 2012 9:00:50 GMT
Its just my opinoin but I suspect that if bridle had the involvement in the club they had at the start of the season they could well have done something to boost the attendance of at least one of these games.
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Post by phantompieman on Feb 23, 2012 9:49:11 GMT
I am not very good at guessing correct scores but after the recent wins I would expect 7.000 crowd sat.
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Post by saddletramp on Feb 23, 2012 10:26:51 GMT
As i stated on another thread,3 home games and Bristol away in 11 days,people just cant afford it,so they pick and choose,i actually highlighted the imbalance in home and away fixtures at the start of the season.its a crazy situation. The scum actally have it worse than us,from Crawley last Tuesday,to Dagenham on the 6th of March they have 5 home games and 2 away local derbies (ish)in just 21 days ! The scum and shrewsbury still have 9 home games to play,while Hereford,Torquay and Bristol have only 6.
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Post by scoob on Feb 23, 2012 11:11:19 GMT
Overall our average crowd is slightly up compared to the same number of games last season but about 0.5% down compared to the final tally. The overall average for the clubs who were in L2 last season is down about 3%. Cheltenham and Southend have increased their crowds by about 9%, Torquay are up by about 2% but these are not surprising considering their relative league positions. A couple of surprisese are Macclesfield (23% Increase) and Aldershot (18% increase) where their league position has not changed enough to make much difference so there must be another reason. Shrewsbury have seen a big fall which is surprising (8%). Other big fallers are Crewe (10%), Bradford (13%), Port Vale 14%, Morecambe (16%), Hereford (9%). Most other clubs have seen a rise or fall of a percent or two.
Our recent crowds have been disappointing but when taken in the context of above then are not too bad and will be boosted in just over a week and if we continue to challenge for play-offs/auto promotion.
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Post by paulbeasley on Feb 23, 2012 12:31:43 GMT
If you take the away following out of the equation we had just 16 fewer home fans this season than last against Barnet. Tues v Sat too of course. And the average will obviously go up as we've sold out for March 3rd and promotion chasing Torquay & Southend are still to visit. The Torquay game is on Easter Monday so should be a big turn out & if we are still in it there should be a good turn out from Oxford fans v Rotherham, AFC, Morecambe & the Gills too. Plus the Gills & Rotherham may be in with a chance of the play-offs too. When the season is over I think our average will be well up on 2010/11.
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Post by Yellow River on Feb 23, 2012 16:59:57 GMT
In general I think our crowds have held up pretty well all things considered..
When you take into account how the average football supporter is becoming poorer and poorer due to ever increasing, fuel, heating, food, rental, VAT costs etc, etc. High unemployment, stagnant or reduced salaries.
I would imagine that the average attendance of most clubs in the Football League over the next 2 or 3 seasons will probably fall.
Clubs will have to 'cut their cloth' accordingly.
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Post by hairy on Feb 23, 2012 18:44:10 GMT
Crowd will not be helped much by Macclesfield fans on saturday, they have had to cancel the one coach they had booked as they couldnt fill it, less than fifty away fans perhaps?
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Post by rollsy on Feb 23, 2012 19:13:49 GMT
We've only sold 5,300 odd home tickets. So guessing there will be just about 6,000 in home end and Macc will bring less than 100. So another very low 6k crowd. Unless we're giving a lot of free tickets to the army bases.
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Post by superox on Feb 23, 2012 19:24:07 GMT
Next season we will also see a reduction of £100k in central payments from the Football League.
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