Post by Dave on Apr 27, 2009 9:46:16 GMT
One of the most disappointing things this season has been the large drop in our home gates, even many away matches this season has seen fewer numbers of travelling TUFC fans. I’m sure the club were not expecting to see nearly one thousand knocked of the home gate this season.
We have talked on the forum about all the reasons why the gates have been low, the credit crunch was seen by many as a real part of the problem, others felt that the price was now just to expensive for the level of football, bearing in mind that just down the road you can watch championship football for not a lot more money.
The gate for our final league game against Burton bearing in mind the prize on offer for our club, was in my view a poor gate and it should have been 5500 and not the 4500 we got. Yes the club must be grateful for getting our highest gate for a league game this season, but in seasons past such a game would have seen a near full house.
What was interesting yesterday was looking at all the fans that walked past me on the popside, nearly everyone of them were wearing something that showed they were a TUFC fan. Some I must admit were from the dark ages, old Wembley tea shirts and some old scares and hats, yet it showed that while they may not have formed part of the diehard 2000 this season, at some time they been and supported the team.
Our share of the gate yesterday was up by 1300 or so, many of those would be the missing 1000 who went to home games last season, while the rest really are just the floating fans that we have always had, but all there due to the game having that much more appeal in terms of what the match meant and what winning it could mean.
What the game proved is that TUFC has plenty of fans, its getting them through the gate week in and week out is the problem and I now firmly believe that the main reason our gates have been so much lower, is simply because we play in the BSP.
The honeymoon of the new board was over at the end of last season, how different would it have been if the season had not ended with such a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Exeter City, a defeat that meant we were going to remain in the BSP and not take our place back in the football league, a place I and many feel we do belong.
I wonder if football fans showed be made to take vows when they become fans, just like you do when you take that big plunge and get married. It would only need to be the most important ones mind, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. Our club has never been rich, but it has had times when it was poor, it’s had days when it’s enjoyed good health and ones when it really was poorly. It’s had some good times, but as we know it has had plenty of bad times.
I suppose in the end it must come down to the sort of person you are, some will stick with a dead marriage for all sorts of reasons, while others will feel that they no longer can live such a unhappy life and need to make changes and getting divorced is the only way.
One reason some will never make the break is because they made those vows and are the sort of people who took them serious and will go to all ends not to break them. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get football fans to have that mentality, you would never ever lose a fan again?
But that’s never going to happen and the real problem has always been that once a fan makes a break from the club, its so hard to win them back again, I have lost count of all the people I know who once went to Plainmoor every single game. Some still go to the odd game and some I saw yesterday at the Burton game for the first time in ages.
I have asked some of them why they no longer come on a regular basis and it’s nearly always the same answer, TUFC are no longer a league club and we came last season as we believed we would only be in the BSP for the one season. Well I had hoped like most of you that it would be only for one season, but what ever happened to the idea that due to the Roberts year, we would all be happy just to rebuild the club and ending our first season in mid table would have been a real achievement.
We all know what happened really, that dreaded word expectations, ones that rose far too high and all because we started the season so well and went top of the league. but ones that got shattered due to not making it back into the league.
Here we are again with another good chance of going back up, we have to endure some more nail biting times as we watch our team try and win the games we now have to play, should we do it and I firmly believe we will, what gates can we expect next season?
I think we should not get carried away and expect to see gates over the 3500 mark, its not going to happen. Yes there will be an increase and I would take a guess that 2700 or 2800 would be the sort of gates we would get. If we started well and were near the top then maybe a few more stay always will be tempted back.
Gates would grow slowly during the season I believe, but a bad run, rubbish football played would see gates falling but not to the low levels we have seen this season and simply because we would be a league club. First we need to get there and as I have said before failure may well result in even lower gates next season, something that is scary as it would make the task of getting back into the football league, that much harder.
We have talked on the forum about all the reasons why the gates have been low, the credit crunch was seen by many as a real part of the problem, others felt that the price was now just to expensive for the level of football, bearing in mind that just down the road you can watch championship football for not a lot more money.
The gate for our final league game against Burton bearing in mind the prize on offer for our club, was in my view a poor gate and it should have been 5500 and not the 4500 we got. Yes the club must be grateful for getting our highest gate for a league game this season, but in seasons past such a game would have seen a near full house.
What was interesting yesterday was looking at all the fans that walked past me on the popside, nearly everyone of them were wearing something that showed they were a TUFC fan. Some I must admit were from the dark ages, old Wembley tea shirts and some old scares and hats, yet it showed that while they may not have formed part of the diehard 2000 this season, at some time they been and supported the team.
Our share of the gate yesterday was up by 1300 or so, many of those would be the missing 1000 who went to home games last season, while the rest really are just the floating fans that we have always had, but all there due to the game having that much more appeal in terms of what the match meant and what winning it could mean.
What the game proved is that TUFC has plenty of fans, its getting them through the gate week in and week out is the problem and I now firmly believe that the main reason our gates have been so much lower, is simply because we play in the BSP.
The honeymoon of the new board was over at the end of last season, how different would it have been if the season had not ended with such a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Exeter City, a defeat that meant we were going to remain in the BSP and not take our place back in the football league, a place I and many feel we do belong.
I wonder if football fans showed be made to take vows when they become fans, just like you do when you take that big plunge and get married. It would only need to be the most important ones mind, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. Our club has never been rich, but it has had times when it was poor, it’s had days when it’s enjoyed good health and ones when it really was poorly. It’s had some good times, but as we know it has had plenty of bad times.
I suppose in the end it must come down to the sort of person you are, some will stick with a dead marriage for all sorts of reasons, while others will feel that they no longer can live such a unhappy life and need to make changes and getting divorced is the only way.
One reason some will never make the break is because they made those vows and are the sort of people who took them serious and will go to all ends not to break them. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get football fans to have that mentality, you would never ever lose a fan again?
But that’s never going to happen and the real problem has always been that once a fan makes a break from the club, its so hard to win them back again, I have lost count of all the people I know who once went to Plainmoor every single game. Some still go to the odd game and some I saw yesterday at the Burton game for the first time in ages.
I have asked some of them why they no longer come on a regular basis and it’s nearly always the same answer, TUFC are no longer a league club and we came last season as we believed we would only be in the BSP for the one season. Well I had hoped like most of you that it would be only for one season, but what ever happened to the idea that due to the Roberts year, we would all be happy just to rebuild the club and ending our first season in mid table would have been a real achievement.
We all know what happened really, that dreaded word expectations, ones that rose far too high and all because we started the season so well and went top of the league. but ones that got shattered due to not making it back into the league.
Here we are again with another good chance of going back up, we have to endure some more nail biting times as we watch our team try and win the games we now have to play, should we do it and I firmly believe we will, what gates can we expect next season?
I think we should not get carried away and expect to see gates over the 3500 mark, its not going to happen. Yes there will be an increase and I would take a guess that 2700 or 2800 would be the sort of gates we would get. If we started well and were near the top then maybe a few more stay always will be tempted back.
Gates would grow slowly during the season I believe, but a bad run, rubbish football played would see gates falling but not to the low levels we have seen this season and simply because we would be a league club. First we need to get there and as I have said before failure may well result in even lower gates next season, something that is scary as it would make the task of getting back into the football league, that much harder.