Attendances

[Mattyblue]

Everyone’s crowds were shite in the mid 80s, even clubs like United and Arsenal had half empty grounds, so a daft comparison.

And as for chaddy, if you think £30 is reasonable for one game of lower league football you must have a serious amount of disposable income.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Mattyblue

[darrenrover]

13 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Everyone’s crowds were shite in the mid 80s, even clubs like United and Arsenal had half empty grounds, so a daft comparison.

And as for chaddy, if you think £30 is reasonable for one game of lower league football you must have a serious amount of disposable income.

You're right on every count Matty. The game was on it's arse back then: despite all the pomp about their support, even Newcastle Utd have had a period of home gates ranging between 6 to 8,000.

Regarding our own current plight regarding attendances, it's about time everyone got their heads out of their backsides at BRFC, considered the facts and did something about it, rather than scoring yet another own goal by blaming 'the fans' and veiled threats that we'll have to sell to balance the books.

You have to ask the questions of positive or negative impacts regarding attendances on the numerous issues raised on here in this thread alone. All have had a negative impact IMO, otherwise people would not have raised them in the first place. They are ALL absolutely relevant and the sooner the club take them all on board the better.

To sum it all up, a new poster was quoting as a potential free buses from the likes of Darwen as an example: good idea. I've gone to Ewood on a bus from a Darwen pub for 30 plus years, it's been great up until recently. In our pomp in the Premier League years, we used to leave the pub at 2.10pm for a 3pm kick off, picked up by a police bike at the boundary, down the outside of queuing traffic and parked up in the one way triangle opposite Macdonalds by 2.30pm. After the match, away by 5pm, police escort to M65 junction 4 again, before the away coaches left, back through Darwen and back in the pub by 5.15pm - it was brilliant and at the time there were 4 or 5 buses from various Darwen pubs on the same scutch for £3 per person and 50p for kids, everyone loved it. Now a days there's at most 2 and usually only one bus picking up at various pubs: there's never a police escort either way, the parking has got progressively worse year on year and this season, they park the bus on the one way system (Blackburn not Darwen side) for collection after the match, meaning that once everyone's on board, you then have to fight your way through traffic along with everyone else. 

Factor in Owen Coyle appointment after the club had endured Shaw and Shebby, 2 relegations, moving fans for fun without prior consultation, stupid match day surcharges, 12 noon kick offs for big games, no accounting for 18-25s where previously parents had paid for junior tickets, etc etc. Then factor in demography and Sky TV!  How many more things to p1ss people off?

The club could and should do much more to rectify matters, whilst recognising factors that they can't change. The cheep shot at supporters is incomprehensible, out of order and further compounds the issue IMO. Oh, to feel valued!!..........

 

[Mattyblue]

There needs to be a fan liaison committee set up urgently in my view, separate from the Fans Forum.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Mattyblue

[chaddyrovers]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

 

And as for chaddy, if you think £30 is reasonable for one game of lower league football you must have a serious amount of disposable income.

No not a serious amount of income at all. But I'm very sensible with money. It is reasonable compare to other events like a music Concert. I had look into buying some tickets for Rod Stewart music concert at Bolton ground recently and they were over 60 pounds each for seats that were basic and far away from the stage. U2 tickets for their concert at Manchester next Saturday would cost me over 400 pounds for seats which would allow me to see most things. 

Would you say they are reasonable prices? 

[Mattyblue]

They are one off purchases to see A list musicians, who have a massive national fan base to draw from. Supply and demand.

We have bi-weekly tickets to see second tier football with a relatively small, non affluent catchment area. And lots of supply and low demand.

Come on chaddy, be sensible.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Mattyblue

[chaddyrovers]

Matty, I think we could reduce prices to 15 pounds per game but I dont see loads of fans buying tickets for each game. 

Fans will pick and choose their games to attend. And with Christmas coming up fans will be even more selective. 

Maybe do a special deal for the games over Christmas. 2 game for 25 pounds for adults and kids for 1 per game

Alot of fans who dont attend regular(2 or 3 games per season or less or not attend for years) are very unlikely to buy more tickets or season tickets. These people have found other ways to watch Rovers or other things to do now. The damage was done in previous years before Mowbray and Waggott joined Rovers. 

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by chaddyrovers

[Mattyblue]

Of course, it’s not the Premier League, we won’t be seeing 20,000 gates, but they can improve on what they are now and we need to get away from the eye watering prices we see at the moment.

I’m always up for deals, but they need to be decent, last season’s offers (apart from Oxford) were all a bit half arsed to me.

 

 

[blueboy3333]

In 1989-90, when the Taylor Report came out, the cheapest ticket at Man Utd to watch Fergie's team was £3.50. Adjusting for inflation (about 120% since 1990) that would be about £7.70 today. At Arsenal it was £5 (about £11 today). The cheapest season ticket at Liverpool cost £60 (£135 -ish in todays money) 

Inflation-adjusted it costs the same today to watch Bamber Bridge as it did to watch Man Utd and Liverpool in 1990.

At Rovers it would have been similar. Anyone know what a ST cost on the BBE in 89/90?. 

Of course football is different today (it's not really) and people can sit in their own seats but there is nothing 'reasonable' about charging someone £27.00 to watch a 2nd division game when you would have got on the BBE when King Kenny first came to the club for about £8 in todays money. 

Football is a rip-off. The fans are paying the exorbitant cost of player wages. However these prices have now been 'normalised' so that fans have now forgotten they are being ripped off. The arrogance and ignorance of someone like Waggott (and Mowbray) feigning surprise (and a bit of indignation) at the crowds in the mighty Div 2 not going through the roof is an insult. They will be in the top 5% of earners in the country.

'Let them eat cake' indeed.

 

[47er]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Matty, I think we could reduce prices to 15 pounds per game but I dont see loads of fans buying tickets for each game. 

Fans will pick and choose their games to attend. And with Christmas coming up fans will be even more selective. 

Maybe do a special deal for the games over Christmas. 2 game for 25 pounds for adults and kids for 1 per game

Alot of fans who dont attend regular(2 or 3 games per season or less or not attend for years) are very unlikely to buy more tickets or season tickets. These people have found other ways to watch Rovers or other things to do now. The damage was done in previous years before Mowbray and Waggott joined Rovers. 

 

The damage was done before Waggot got here but it doesn't make sense for him to compound it.

[tomphil]

I don't think Waggot has made it worse he just hasn't gone all out to try and reverse the trend when there was the best opportunity there's been since Allardyce pitched up and him & Williams came up with ideas to boost numbers.  Again though they had the 'product' a lot of fans only have eyes for .. the Prem.

There's been a bit of complacency there but an outsider coming in not understanding the club/town/area is nothing new particularly under this ownership but it even took Williams a while to come to terms with the Blackburn way.

The club was in terminal decline but they've stopped that and put one foot on the rebuilding ladder but to push it on with this altogether mantra needs some serious thinking. Otherwise it will soon be back to being a treading water lower table selling/trading club again cashing in the assets, paying the bills, putting money in agents pockets and asking the 10k to support it.

That was only a few short years ago and a return to that would be fatal.....again.

[HowieFive0]

Nice initiative by Stanley ,writing to all the schools in the area telling them that they will give all Year 3 kids an Accy Stanley shirt for free(around 1200 shirts)

This is what i meant earlier in the thread about getting out there and get back into schools and create a little interest. A kids shirt cost nothing to the fact that a simple act could result in kids following the team for years to come.

Matty ..going back to the 6000  attendances of the 80s ..so in 30 odd years we ve just about doubled our core support? Me thinks we re not far off reaching the maximum figure of core supporters. Yes in the PL we had larger gates but how many of those fans were coming as Blackburn Rovers fans or just coming to sample Premier League football ? Across from the Fox and Hounds that waste ground was packed out with coaches and buses from all over Lancs ..Morecambe ..Lancaster ..Fleetwood..  Chorley  and local towns like Accy.. Ossy ..Darwen  etc ..its virtually empty on match days now. No coincidence take away PL and the majority vanished. BRFC alone isnt the greatest attraction.

As for people saying well we got 27000 on against Oxford ..id compare this to when a team wins something and has a parade through the town,thousands and thousands come out and cheer and wave but dont actually ever  go to a game. The Oxford game was our open top bus parade. A chance to wave cheer ..well done Blackburn and then forgotten again.

Ticket prices need dropping thats for sure but isnt just the answer.We need to be enticing the next generation ..get um hooked .Its a slow process but if we re at our maximum for core supporters which is becoming more evident every season its probably the only sure fire way to increase that core in the future.

 

[Mattyblue]

I was simply stating a fact Howie, pretty much every club in the country gets substantially bigger gates then they did in the mid 80s, it was the nadir of football in this country, so it isn’t a fair comparison.

We obviously have a core support of 11,000 as they’ve kept going through a horrendous period.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Mattyblue

[HowieFive0]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

I was simply stating a fact Howie, pretty much every club in the country gets substantially bigger gates then they did in the mid 80s, it was the nadir of football in this country, so it isn’t a fair comparison.

We obviously have a core support of 11,000 as they’ve kept going through a horrendous period.

Yes clubs in general do get bigger gates but since the 80s we ve increased the capacity of Ewood dramatically. So the percentage of seats taken to empty seats is probably very similiar to the 80s..less than half full so very comparable in my eye.

[tomphil]

Everyone's ground was too big for them in the 80's.

Even Burnley although they'll tell you different ?

[Mattyblue]

So what if the ground’s bigger? Doesn’t make our fanbase any bigger. 12,000 is a decent core to work with and not too bad considering the decade we’ve had, it just looks poor in a ground our size

31,000 seats is a capacity similar to other clubs stadiums from cities with 3/4 times our catchment area. It was built in a time of great strength for the club, but since those halcyon years it has rarely been close to being full - the £199 Premier League season ticket period aside.

[darrenrover]

47 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

I was simply stating a fact Howie, pretty much every club in the country gets substantially bigger gates then they did in the mid 80s, it was the nadir of football in this country, so it isn’t a fair comparison.

We obviously have a core support of 11,000 as they’ve kept going through a horrendous period.

Rovers could do far worse than outsource to and empower a small group of intelligent supporters, incentivise them in some way with the mantra of significantly increasing our core support. It could cost nowt but make thousands....................

Edited October 13, 2018 by darrenrover

[Ewood Ace]

16 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

I think the ticket prices are reasonable and standard for the area in terms of championship clubs in our local area. Teams are Bolton, Wigan and Preston. I think a surcharge doesn't affect much tbh. but we need figures to sort this out.  

There's something that all these clubs that you say have 'reasonable' tickets prices have in common and that is empty seat galore. 

You say the surcharge doesn't affect it much but it is bound to have an affect of some sort and what is the actual justification for it. If a father decides it's a nice day and to take his lets say 2 kids to football what is the justification for him having to pay an extra £9. It is hardly encouraging people to come is it.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Ewood Ace

[arbitro]

6 minutes ago, darrenrover said:

Rovers could do far worse than outsource to and empower a small group of intelligent supporters, incentivise them in some way with the mantra of significantly increasing our core support. It could cost nowt but make thousands....................

I've said before on here Nick that Rovers should tap into the fan base for ideas and initiatives. I know of a few on here who have the intelligence, acumen and love of Rovers to bring new, fresh ideas. One of the best managers I ever worked for set up an initiative named Manufacturing Improvement Teams. For the time they ran they saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and generally made the company better and safer. There teams were made up of mainly process guys, the people actually on the coal face.

[den]

Haven’t read much of this thread and only just seen Waggott comments about his disappointment at the attendances. 

Basically the problem isn’t at all down to the fans, it’s down to the owners and Waggott himself. The older fans on here warned the owners that once supporters stopped coming down here it would be so, so difficult to get them back. We argued that it would take a long time coupled with a lot of success.

We know this club, the owners and Waggott don’t. That’s the problem.

[darrenrover]

Just now, arbitro said:

I've said before on here Nick that Rovers should tap into the fan base for ideas and initiatives. I know of a few on here who have the intelligence, acumen and love of Rovers to bring new, fresh ideas. One of the best managers I ever worked for set up an initiative named Manufacturing Improvement Teams. For the time they ran they saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and generally made the company better and safer. There teams were made up of mainly process guys, the people actually on the coal face.

Absolutely correct.

You know you're preaching to the converted with me Tony, we generally sing from the same hymn sheet. Why doesn't some bugger actually have the humility to ask those that do know? ( I also have to say, without any other agenda!)

[chaddyrovers]

8 minutes ago, Ewood Ace said:

There's something that all these clubs that you say have 'reasonable' tickets prices have in common and that is empty seat galore. 

You say the surcharge doesn't affect it much but it is bound to have an affect of some sort and what is the actual justification for it. If a father decides it's a nice day and to take his lets say 2 kids to football what is the justification for him having to pay an extra £9. It is hardly encouraging people to come is it.

Rovers have a core fan base of around 10k to 11,500 fans. 

We will attract fans to the odds games but I don't see these people turning up to every game like the core fan base will. The damage was done much early in Venkys reign. The average attendance in our last season in premier league was 22,551. That figure will include away fans aswell. 

where are these all these 15k fans who turned up for the Oxford game, how many of them have been back this season? I really wonder, maybe 2 or 3 k. 

Waggott has already said why there is a surcharge for ticket sales after 12pm. 

 

[HowieFive0]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

So what if the ground’s bigger? Doesn’t make our fanbase any bigger. 12,000 is a decent core to work with and not too bad considering the decade we’ve had, it just looks poor in a ground our size

31,000 seats is a capacity similar to other clubs stadiums from cities with 3/4 times our catchment area. It was built in a time of great strength for the club, but since those halcyon years it has rarely been close to being full - the £199 Premier League season ticket period aside.

Im actually agreeing with you Matty ..12000 is a decent core. When the ground was redeveloped they obviously got their figures wrong on capacity as has been  proven over the years.  We could have 50000 core supporters but in a 100000 capacity stadium its going to look empty ..empty seats are now and will be the norm.

Bradford City have increased their season ticket sales from 11500 to 18000 over the last few years and this was mainly down to price. But would we find another 6000 season ticket holders if we slashed our Season ticket prices for Championship football? i seriously think we wouldnt . To slash Season tickets you have to be guaranteed to make up for the shortfall in price by selling a lot more ..

[darrenrover]

2 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Rovers have a core fan base of around 10k to 11,500 fans. 

We will attract fans to the odds games but I don't see these people turning up to every game like the core fan base will. The damage was done much early in Venkys reign. The average attendance in our last season in premier league was 22,551. That figure will include away fans aswell. 

where are these all these 15k fans who turned up for the Oxford game, how many of them have been back this season? I really wonder, maybe 2 or 3 k. 

Waggott has already said why there is a surcharge for ticket sales after 12pm. 

 

Chaddy, get a grip: We need more bums on seats,  please don't take your bat and ball home but join in the conversation.

The discussion is not about excusing all and sundry for everything but recognising the fact, that there are things that neither we as supporters, or the club have any control over. Let's discuss what the club and what we as supporters can influence positively.

Let's face facts: for one reason or another, 'the club' have p1ssed off thousands over the past 8 years or so, would it not be a smart move to try to address this first and foremost (I don't know how but we're sorry, we ballsed up might go a long way), then a line in the sand could potentially be drawn under that one!

You then move on: should the club have consulted with members of the family stand in the upper Blackburn End or in the Darwen End before shunting them elsewhere? Course they bloody should but what's done is done. There's been an absolute clutter f**k of cock ups over the past 8 years but you can't wind back the clock over anything, no matter how hard you try!

Accept the many cock ups, apologise for them, acknowledge that the club have learned from their mistakes and wish to endorse sensible fan's opinions on how to move on in the future and you'll put 5 to 8000 on the average gate IMO.

[HowieFive0]

1 hour ago, darrenrover said:

Rovers could do far worse than outsource to and empower a small group of intelligent supporters, incentivise them in some way with the mantra of significantly increasing our core support. It could cost nowt but make thousands....................

Not only tap into the actual supporter and get their ideas but theres another 91 clubs all with different ideas and  incentives regarding match day tickets concessions etc. Easy to cherry pick the best ones and give um a try.

Bradford have a thing called WebFlexi ..pay £75 quid then pay half price for match day tickets ( £10 ).Not guaranteed your own seat but allows people who either cant afford a season ticket or people who cant get to all the games so a  Season ticket wouldnt be value for money to get discounted tickets.

Lots of ideas out there ..just need the club to actually try a few !

[darrenrover]

37 minutes ago, HowieFive0 said:

Not only tap into the actual supporter and get their ideas but theres another 91 clubs all with different ideas and  incentives regarding match day tickets concessions etc. Easy to cherry pick the best ones and give um a try.

Bradford have a thing called WebFlexi ..pay £75 quid then pay half price for match day tickets ( £10 ).Not guaranteed your own seat but allows people who either cant afford a season ticket or people who cant get to all the games so a  Season ticket wouldnt be value for money to get discounted tickets.

Lots of ideas out there ..just need the club to actually try a few !

Absolutely spot on, not everything works for every club because we're all different. Cherry pick ideas as you say.

The synic in me can't help but think that  there'll be some bugger at Ewood, who's reading this thread, nick all our thoughts and ideas and clean up in some form of commission based scheme based on increased turnover and an agent working along side him.........(jesus, get a life darren!)

Beamo!!!

Edited October 13, 2018 by darrenrover