Boreham chairman laments poor crowd

[MAD_MAGPIE]

I guess every club has a ceiling in which it’s support and fan base can grow to where it will not increase much more whether that’s due to demographic or competition with other clubs in the area. The clubs can have money injected into them to take them beyond their natural level which may grow and increase attendances to a point.

Wigan are a good example. When they got to the Premier League their attendances were less than 20,000 for most games.

Accrington Stanley are another, they are in League One and their attendances last season averaged 2,700. Sunderland who were and still are in the same league got 32,000. Accrington are probably at the peak of how high they can go, Sunderland are probably at the lowest they will go. For now they are both equals in terms of league they play in and both are where they deserve to be at this point in time

[DelroyFacey22]

When we played Boreham Wood two or three years ago I expressed surprise at the relatively high standard of the facilities and someone told me that Arsenal put their money in there because it was the home ground for Arsenal Ladies. Was (is) that (still) true?

Not sure how much money they put in but they do use their facilities for the womens team and possibly their youth team/s in the same way Chelsea use AFC Wimbledon's Kingsmeadow

[nottscol]

By contrast Basford United of the Northern Premier League attracted a crowd of 501 last night.

[Frigiliana Pie 1]

Their record over the last 20 games of last season was W3, D7, L10, so results might have something to do with the falling attendances. All three wins were away, the last home win being on Boxing Day.

[LilCrazyKim]

Looking that their prices, they charge the adult rate as soon as a kid turns 16. I can't imagine that helps.

[Skatorna]

Without a blank chequebook it is incredibly difficult to create a strong football club where there simply hasn't been one historically.

Boreham Wood have only seen their team be above the Conference South for 4 of their 71 years (all the last 4 seasons including this one). That is a very long time to have not a lot of success, and therefore multiple generations of local people who are more concerned with the Football League than the Parthenon League not supporting them. I don't know what the chairman expects charging £20 to try and attract people who don't support the team and never have.

[upthemaggies]

The population of Boreham Wood is roughly the same as Accrington and larger than Fleetwood, but they have got Watford just 6 miles away, Barnet's current ground is 4 miles away and I would guess most football fans there have grown up supporting either Arsenal or Spurs.

Stevenage and Crawley, who we think of as small EFL clubs have populations of a similar size to Watford, which goes to show that you have to build a support base over several generations and maintain a fair degree of success.

Wigan is a good example of what can be achieved in a relatively short space of time. the town is also of a similar size to Watford but is traditionally a rugby area and they only entered the league 40 years or so ago. When we used to play them in the 80s they'd get around 3.5k, last season they averaged 12k, so that period of PL success has grown their fanbase and it won't shrink back to what it was at Springfield Park, they are now a much bigger and more established club.

[bridpie78]

Didn't Hardy try this with Notts' though? Attendances increased for a while but are already falling. Doesn't really work in the long run I don't think. The prices for lower league football are high as a comparison to the higher leagues, but ultimately smaller clubs are more reliant on this revenue than the TV money, endorsements and so on Sid. It leads to slightly ill considered comments about non league football being expensive when in actual fact it is not that it is expensive at all as a result of anything it has done itself, it is expensive compared to the higher leagues and perceived better value for money, as many of the revenue streams enjoyed by clubs in higher leagues which mean they can keep ticket prices low as they are not reliant on them as a primary source of income are simply unavailable or only available in small amounts. ( Sorry for the huge sentence!). The Boreham Wood 99 quid season ticket is a bit daft though. it makes whats on offer appear worthless and as this is reflected in the attendances. They would be better off just charging 13 quid pay as you go. If the Chairman has put in 1.7 million this year the 40 odd grand from season ticket sales wont go far.

Some good points there about comparing non league entry prices with premier league,on first look it does seem you get better value for money at the top end of the pyramid a better product and better facilities,as you say they can afford to keep prices lower because they are not as reliant on gate receipts so its a little unfair to compare them directly.

AH did do a few fan days and it proved on a saturday afternoon if the circumstances are right we can attract 15k people if they are paying a fiver to get in,it has yet to be proven if we could do that week in week out,it would be a huge gamble by the people in charge to try it for a season.

ive been doing the number crunching to set prices for season tickets and turnstile prices with some rough figures and guesswork

3000 season tickets at £200 = 600k
23 games at £20 averaging 5000 (2000 pay on the day) = 460,000

they would have to take a leap of faith that we'd turn up in our droves every game to drop the prices to £10, season ticket prices would have to drop accordingly and again they would have to hope more were sold so i've done an optimistic forecast for that.

4500 season tickets at £100 = 450k
23 games at £10 averaging 10000 (5500 paying on the day) =1,265,000

As Sid pointed out bigger crowds give a better atmosphere which you would hope would contribute to better performances on the pitch but there could be other benefits
a) being able to attract better players
b) more people in the ground means more food/drinks/programmes sold on the day
c) returning fans or brand new fans coming in and getting the bug which is good for the longer term health of the club
d) more merchandise sold shirts/scarfs/mugs
e) bigger crowds/more interest gets us more media coverage and a knock on effect of being more attractive to potential sponsors

As i said its a gamble but i think if there is a club in the lower/non leagues that could try to break the mould it is Notts we have a big ground for L1 never mind the NL we have a strong home and away support over a number of years even when things have gone horribly wrong on and off the pitch and the fan days that AH tried proved succesful.

It is probably too late now to try anything new because it would be unfair on season ticket holders but if i were the one doing next seasons pricing i would be tempted to give it a try, whats the point in having a 20k stadium that 1/4 full.

The question is how many stay away fans would turn up if the prices were dropped and how have changes in work arrangements affected attendances, many people now work flexi-time,continental shifts or 4 on 4 off shifts which means its no longer monday to friday working and then do fun things like go to football on a saturday afternoon.


I didn't intend the post to be that long when i started but i did a jackal2 and went on a roll, hope it wasn't too rambling

[navypie]

Some good points there about comparing non league entry prices with premier league,on first look it does seem you get better value for money at the top end of the pyramid a better product and better facilities,as you say they can afford to keep prices lower because they are not as reliant on gate receipts so its a little unfair to compare them directly.

AH did do a few fan days and it proved on a saturday afternoon if the circumstances are right we can attract 15k people if they are paying a fiver to get in,it has yet to be proven if we could do that week in week out,it would be a huge gamble by the people in charge to try it for a season.

ive been doing the number crunching to set prices for season tickets and turnstile prices with some rough figures and guesswork

3000 season tickets at £200 = 600k
23 games at £20 averaging 5000 (2000 pay on the day) = 460,000

they would have to take a leap of faith that we'd turn up in our droves every game to drop the prices to £10, season ticket prices would have to drop accordingly and again they would have to hope more were sold so i've done an optimistic forecast for that.

4500 season tickets at £100 = 450k
23 games at £10 averaging 10000 (5500 paying on the day) =1,265,000

As Sid pointed out bigger crowds give a better atmosphere which you would hope would contribute to better performances on the pitch but there could be other benefits
a) being able to attract better players
b) more people in the ground means more food/drinks/programmes sold on the day
c) returning fans or brand new fans coming in and getting the bug which is good for the longer term health of the club
d) more merchandise sold shirts/scarfs/mugs
e) bigger crowds/more interest gets us more media coverage and a knock on effect of being more attractive to potential sponsors

As i said its a gamble but i think if there is a club in the lower/non leagues that could try to break the mould it is Notts we have a big ground for L1 never mind the NL we have a strong home and away support over a number of years even when things have gone horribly wrong on and off the pitch and the fan days that AH tried proved succesful.

It is probably too late now to try anything new because it would be unfair on season ticket holders but if i were the one doing next seasons pricing i would be tempted to give it a try, whats the point in having a 20k stadium that 1/4 full.

The question is how many stay away fans would turn up if the prices were dropped and how have changes in work arrangements affected attendances, many people now work flexi-time,continental shifts or 4 on 4 off shifts which means its no longer monday to friday working and then do fun things like go to football on a saturday afternoon.


I didn't intend the post to be that long when i started but i did a jackal2 and went on a roll, hope it wasn't too rambling

I started losing the will to live.

[bridpie78]

I started losing the will to live.

Glad i didnt atttach the spreadsheets and powerpoint slides with workings out for the other 23 clubs in the NL now, i killed thread, noone wants to talk about it anymore and would rather just pay 20 quid to just have me shut up