v Watford (h) 23/12/23

[RevidgeBlue]

16 minutes ago, Mike Graham said:

It is looking like 16.5k to 17k.  I had hoped for a few more but this is still a fantastic achievement thanks to the Supporters Trust and the coalition of fans groups, brfcs and of course the Club.

The joint working with the Club, fans groups and the Community Trust is something to build on.

The Club have welcomed our ideas and involvement.  We need to take this further and look at how we can influence future ST pricing and options.

How many times have we had that number over the last couple of seasons? It's a great effort especially at the time of year.

It's almost as if the Club have deliberately introduced digital day immediately afterwards as an act of spite to undo any build up of good will caused by the Fans takeover 

[wilsdenrover]

1 minute ago, Mike Graham said:

Yes.  The challenge is that the owners set financial targets for sales so we may have focus more on the structure and options of the ST offer.
One of our Supporters Trust Board members has already made a presentation to the Club and we will have further discussions.  If you have any ideas please send them to [email protected] or post on brfcs under the Trust thread.

 

I’m not expecting you to share but are you privy to what the financial target is?

I’ll certainly share any ideas I have but I wouldn’t go holding your breath 😀😁

[JHRover]

What it needs is the club to DRIVE this and build on it. That's the only way we will get attendances moving in a positive direction and for it to be sustained.

What we appear to have here is the ideas and effort being made by supporters, which I've no doubt the club will facilitate and allow, but that can't be the way of it longer term, it is the club's job to do something about numbers through the turnstiles.

Unfortunately with negligent ownership quite content to leave the same old faces in place ticking their boxes and meeting their personal targets that isn't going to happen, and no matter how much goodwill is developed by JDT's team and initiatives such as this one, it will be smashed to bits if Waggott keeps on bumping up ST prices and reducing the quality of the product on offer.

[RevidgeBlue]

5 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

I’m not expecting you to share but are you privy to what the financial target is?

Whatever the exact target is I'm fairly sure this is a well trodden path.

I'd be amazed if Waggott was suddenly prepared to reduce prices having raised them in the first place as that would actually require a bit of effort to get more bums on seats to meet said target.

[Mike Graham]

5 minutes ago, JHRover said:

What it needs is the club to DRIVE this and build on it. That's the only way we will get attendances moving in a positive direction and for it to be sustained.

What we appear to have here is the ideas and effort being made by supporters, which I've no doubt the club will facilitate and allow, but that can't be the way of it longer term, it is the club's job to do something about numbers through the turnstiles.

Unfortunately with negligent ownership quite content to leave the same old faces in place ticking their boxes and meeting their personal targets that isn't going to happen, and no matter how much goodwill is developed by JDT's team and initiatives such as this one, it will be smashed to bits if Waggott keeps on bumping up ST prices and reducing the quality of the product on offer.

Very good points.  The Trust wants a long term relationship with the club based on a long term plan.  We have to start from somewhere and to be honest the bar is pretty low at the moment.  They seem prepared to listen so the door has been opened, but we need to also prove they can trust us.

[wilsdenrover]

Just now, RevidgeBlue said:

Whatever the exact target is I'm fairly sure this is a well trodden path.

I'd be amazed if Waggott was suddenly prepared to reduce prices having raised them in the first place as that would actually require a bit of effort to get more bums on seats to meet said target.

I think you’ll probably be proved to be correct on this.

I asked as I imagine people (such as the trust) knowing the figure would aid their efforts to show SW there’s more than one way of hitting that figure.

 

[JHRover]

Just now, Mike Graham said:

Very good points.  The Trust wants a long term relationship with the club based on a long term plan.  We have to start from somewhere and to be honest the bar is pretty low at the moment.  They seem prepared to listen so the door has been opened, but we need to also prove they can trust us.

May be correct, but I think this is ultimately the responsibility of the club, owners, board, to not just sit back and wait for the Trust to come along with proposals and ideas and then when they do 'yay or nay' them. Someone somewhere in a position of power and decision making has to take a lead on it and be judged on it.

Unfortunately the owners don't get this, or simply don't care, and as such it appears nobody is tasked with growing anything, infact quite the opposite, if it saves money they have licence to cut and reduce.

Over a decade the damage becomes huge and potentially irreversible, no matter how positive the intentions of people trying to change it.

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, JHRover said:

May be correct, but I think this is ultimately the responsibility of the club, owners, board, to not just sit back and wait for the Trust to come along with proposals and ideas and then when they do 'yay or nay' them. Someone somewhere in a position of power and decision making has to take a lead on it and be judged on it.

Unfortunately the owners don't get this, or simply don't care, and as such it appears nobody is tasked with growing anything, infact quite the opposite, if it saves money they have licence to cut and reduce.

Over a decade the damage becomes huge and potentially irreversible, no matter how positive the intentions of people trying to change it.

I think, as much as they shouldn’t have to, now the Trust has ‘a foot in the door’ it would be silly for them to leave without giving it the proverbial ‘right good go’

 

[Mike Graham]

7 minutes ago, JHRover said:

May be correct, but I think this is ultimately the responsibility of the club, owners, board, to not just sit back and wait for the Trust to come along with proposals and ideas and then when they do 'yay or nay' them. Someone somewhere in a position of power and decision making has to take a lead on it and be judged on it.

Unfortunately the owners don't get this, or simply don't care, and as such it appears nobody is tasked with growing anything, infact quite the opposite, if it saves money they have licence to cut and reduce.

Over a decade the damage becomes huge and potentially irreversible, no matter how positive the intentions of people trying to change it.

Speak to fans of any club and it is our job to take issues, ideas and proposals to owners, CEO’s, MD’s and FD’s.

If we did not we would inviting disaster.  The Trust has a responsibility to take up issues on behalf of our present and future fanbase.

[1864roverite]

Mike and everyone associated with this project can be rightly proud of their sterling work. There are many good comments regarding the way forward - my take is that the club should be looking at the numbers on Saturday and compare them over the past 10 years and see what can be achieved with forward thinking and the involvement of the Fans Trust and others - there is a recipe for success SW and conned to buy into it 👍

[K-Hod]

Cracking work with the fans takeover, it’s a credit to all involved.

This is something to build on and the club need to be fully on board. More bums on seats has got to be to the benefit of everyone. Next stop, selling more season tickets.
A lot more. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that cheaper tickets get more in the ground.

[tomphil]

3 hours ago, magicalmortensleftpeg said:

‘To see some of our own fans chiming in just shows what we’re up against’

That didn’t take much provocation did it. Commenting that a good crowd by our standards would still leave Ewood nearly half empty is hardly critical of the fans who are turning up. I just want to see the club do more to bring the fans in and be more creative and brave when setting ST prices. We’ll never fill Ewood but it’d be nice to see it a bit fuller than it is now wouldn’t you agree?

Tomorrow is a positive step but I still think a lot more could be done by the club.

To be honest i hadn't even seen you post on the subject if you made one so maybe if you say something you know yourself might be provocative then don't say it if you're bothered about a response.

Which that wasn't.

Anyway, the ones i referred to have been numerous on social media and usually from the young element who never seem to understand their own fanbase.  

'No excuse not to fill Ewood'

'Surely we've sold 20k so far..'

'People always moaning about price but still won't come'   etc etc

Missing the point that never seems to dawn the GROUND IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN TOO BIG for a town this size not hosting Prem football with added thousands of away fans every game.

That is what it was built for but those days are history, permanently i'd say.  Look at the size of places like Nottingham, Coventry, Leics, Derby then look at the size of their grounds, same as ours more or less.

Look at Preston, Bumley, Bolton, Wigan, Watford and so on, there's a reason they are that size.

[Mattyblue]

Bang on tomphil.

Ewood was redeveloped with the thought that we would be THE club of the north west outside Liverpool and Manchester for a sustained period of time. Coaches were arriving from all over. Indeed our gates weren’t much different than Everton and Man City at that stage. The likes of Burnley, PNE, Bolton were languishing in the third/fourth tier. Alas it all fell away very quickly in the grand scheme of things as mistakes were made at the top of the club.

Yet, the leadership of John Williams brought those gates back, but only on the back of cheap prices and PL football.

Alas, we know what happened next and we now have neither, so it is a total white elephant as we plod along for a decade in second division mid table, but with top end prices. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Mattyblue

[Guest]

11 hours ago, J*B said:

Think we need that @goozburger update...

I'll do an update tomorrow night if I get chance between watching the Alien films. 👽🩸🔥🥚🚀

[Lancs Rover]

12 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

‘Blackburn fans’ in the headline there, you can tell that the LT is sub-edited nowhere near East Lancs these days (south Wales).

It might also be connected with search terms on the internet. That's my guess. Especially in the headline TBF.

[Upside Down]

15 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

It won’t be half empty. But generally yes it just shows how difficult it is to get a 20,000 crowd with only 9,000 ST holders.

But to pretty much fill the Blackburn End lower and a giant stand like the Jack Walker (as well as far more in the Riverside than the standard one man and his dog) from such a low base will be a big success.

Now if we had say 12,000 ST holders (like we bloody well should have) and then sold 7/8k walk ons all of a sudden the place is looking very well populated.

Sell more STs, sell more STs, sell more STs is always the answer to the perennial crowd question at this club.

To put things into some more context, we had 20,000+ season ticket holders when venkys bought the club.

Still, where would we be without them eh....

[Mike Graham]

11 hours ago, wilsdenrover said:

I’m not expecting you to share but are you privy to what the financial target is?

I’ll certainly share any ideas I have but I wouldn’t go holding your breath 😀😁

Yes I know the figures.  Those attending the MoU meetings are privy to some confidential information.  The first time we breech confidentiality will probably be the last time financial and other information is meaningfully shared and the Trust will lose our credibility.

[arbitro]

12 hours ago, Mike Graham said:

Yes.  The challenge is that the owners set financial targets for sales so we may have focus more on the structure and options of the ST offer.
One of our Supporters Trust Board members has already made a presentation to the Club and we will have further discussions.  If you have any ideas please send them to [email protected] or post on brfcs under the Trust thread.

 

And therein lies the problem for me Mike. In theory Waggott could sell 100 tickets at super exorbitant prices and meet his target. As well as a financial target there should be a target of the number of tickets sold. The benefits of selling more season tickets have been well documented. Giving such targets would mean that Waggott and his team would have to be more creative instead of the cut and paste offers of the last few years.

With the current set up it hardly seems in Waggott's interests to sell more and reinforces my view that he isn't too concerned about the long term health of the club.

[chaddyrovers]

33 minutes ago, Mike Graham said:

Yes I know the figures.  Those attending the MoU meetings are privy to some confidential information.  The first time we breech confidentiality will probably be the last time financial and other information is meaningfully shared and the Trust will lose our credibility.

I understand that trust is needed from both parties. 

Please keep up the work and getting management at Rovers to better understand the fanbase and local people struggling financially 

[Herbie6590]

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

And therein lies the problem for me Mike. In theory Waggott could sell 100 tickets at super exorbitant prices and meet his target. As well as a financial target there should be a target of the number of tickets sold. The benefits of selling more season tickets have been well documented. Giving such targets would mean that Waggott and his team would have to be more creative instead of the cut and paste offers of the last few years.

With the current set up it hardly seems in Waggott's interests to sell more and reinforces my view that he isn't too concerned about the long term health of the club.

It’s a long time ago but the lesson is still valid…when I was in sales I had targets for sales volume, margin & fees. I also had “New, New Business” targets to ensure that I continued to grow my portfolio by bringing in new customers & I didn’t therefore just take a short term view and milk my existing customers to the point of extinction. 
 

If I owned Rovers I’d set the CEO demographic growth targets, loyalty targets & new customer targets. 

[Gav]

21 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

It’s a long time ago but the lesson is still valid…when I was in sales I had targets for sales volume, margin & fees. I also had “New, New Business” targets to ensure that I continued to grow my portfolio by bringing in new customers & I didn’t therefore just take a short term view and milk my existing customers to the point of extinction. 
 

If I owned Rovers I’d set the CEO demographic growth targets, loyalty targets & new customer targets. 

You have to care about the club, care about your investment, Venkys care about neither.

I often think about all the work John Williams and Tom Finn did over the years to put the supporters first, it wasn't just a cash cow for those two, they actually tried to build the brand, build the fanbase, keep tickets at reasonable prices and generally gave a toss.

Waggott is doing exactly what he's paid to do, switch the lights on and put the cat out and collect season ticket money from 8000 fans, job done. I don't really blame him myself, he's doing what is asked of him, its the bloody owners that are again culpable. 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Gav

[tomphil]

Yes if they told him to do something he'd have to obviously and nobody can magic 15k season ticket holders at top 8 prices out of thin air.

However it is also the CEO and boards job to present, push and nigh on demand things of the owners in order to push the club forwards.  They are the people on the ground here the so called heartbeat of the club whilst the ownership is thousands of miles away with eyes mostly on other things.

Do they ever do that ?

Highly unlikely and that is also a big part of the problem here.

[wilsdenrover]

4 hours ago, Mike Graham said:

Yes I know the figures.  Those attending the MoU meetings are privy to some confidential information.  The first time we breech confidentiality will probably be the last time financial and other information is meaningfully shared and the Trust will lose our credibility.

I appreciate why you can’t share but I’m glad you do know the figures.

As I said in a subsequent post, I think this must help you decide whether an idea is worth ‘pitching’ to the club.

[wilsdenrover]

2 hours ago, Herbie6590 said:

It’s a long time ago but the lesson is still valid…when I was in sales I had targets for sales volume, margin & fees. I also had “New, New Business” targets to ensure that I continued to grow my portfolio by bringing in new customers & I didn’t therefore just take a short term view and milk my existing customers to the point of extinction. 
 

If I owned Rovers I’d set the CEO demographic growth targets, loyalty targets & new customer targets. 

Brand new and returning?

Edited December 22, 2023 by wilsdenrover

[Ben-2000]

There would need to be some kind of 'wow factor' to significantly increase ST sales. 

Sadly it isn't going to happen anytime soon, however I do applaud any attempt of trying.