attendance

[gazan]

Our attendances have tended to slide from day 1. I realise that it also depends on how many the opposition bring but even the home crowd has slipped quite a way. It could be said that a few wins will raise the interest again but how long will that take? Attendances tend to go down a lot faster than they go back up. Further, we are generally seeing better football under the new regime compared to the previous.
So, is there anything else that can be done?

[alexmick]

Seems to me that we have about a hardcore Alex following of approximately 3,000 fans left in our ranks. Attendances have steadily diminished over the past few seasons, especially during our L1 days, when things started to go sour for Steve Davis. Fans were so sick and tired of seeing such poor performances, a lack of home victories and a perennial fight against relegation, that they drifted away. Once you lose support, then it is very difficult to entice them back into the fold. It is habitual this 'football thing' and so too is not going to football matches. Yes, we need to be successful to bring those missing fans back, but it will take a lot longer to improve the gates significantly and the club will have to be patient for this to happen. Hopefully, we are on the right track and there will be a steady improvement in attendances in the long run. I suppose that the cost of attending football matches is also a key factor in this equation too.

[gazan]

Interestingly, the home crowd went back up on Saturday! However, there will have to be some miracles in the next two games for some of those to return for the next home game.

[AstonAlex]

Our average attendance is below last year's average of 3,882 - this year's average is just under 3,700 so far. We have only had figures above last year's average twice in 6 games (4933 vs MT and 4021 vs Carlisle) so the numbers do seem to be down. It might be argued that Pompey, Plymouth and Donny were among the best supported clubs last year, but even so our highest attendance was only 5016 so things aren't looking too clever.

I guess Dave and the lads had better give us something to cheer about more often!!