Ebbsfleet United v Dartford

[Harry J Allstars]

Originally Posted By: Lager Top

Originally Posted By: Harry J Allstars

And?

How does this alter the fact that you brought 300 to our place?

When is you next away game, lets see how many you take there. Darts fans don't travel, they couldn't be bothered to travel to Stonebridge Road when they played here with the groundshare and they couldn't be bothered to travel here the other night.

Still talking utter tripe Harold. Our away support is very good thanks very much. 2 official and 1 unofficial coach going to the big game this Saturday. To be fair the distances involved are nowhere near as great as your division so I would expect our support to away games to be greater than yours. The shame of it is, Gravesend is not a "football" town in the same way as Dartford is. I Guarantee you that if Dartford were in the same position in the Blue Square league and Trophy we'd be pulling much bigger gates than the 800 you got at the weekend.

Also Gravesend doesn't even have a football club bearing its name anymore where's the incentive for the local community to get out and support its local team? I can see only see the indigenous support dropping.

All this goes a little way to explain why you had only 300 people at Stonebridge Road last Tuesday night, you had 300, we had 900. You can say "it was only the Kent Senior Cup" all you like but the fact of the matter is it was a local derby and your fans of your footballing town couldn't be bothered to turn out for it.

You can shout about how you had fantastic gates on Saturday but our fans turn out for the big games against our local rivals so that's all that matters.

[Lager Top]

Originally Posted By: Jeff

Originally Posted By: EUFC superb

[

Considering we were supposed to be away on Saturday, until we were drawn at home in the trophy, I'm sure a lot of people made other plans for the day of the game, so, in the cirumstances, I don't think it was an awful attendence by any stretch of the imagination.

There's one from earlier.

Fair enough. Would that explain the drop of over 500 from last Saturdays attendance and circa 400 from Tuesdays?

[Lager Top]

Originally Posted By: Harry J Allstars

All this goes a little way to explain why you had only 300 people at Stonebridge Road last Tuesday night, you had 300, we had 900. You can say "it was only the Kent Senior Cup" all you like but the fact of the matter is it was a local derby and your fans of your footballing town couldn't be bothered to turn out for it.

You can shout about how you had fantastic gates on Saturday but our fans turn out for the big games against our local rivals so that's all that matters.

Harold, if you want to believe we had 300 and you had 900 then fair enough. I'm not going to argue with you. It obviously means a lot to you. That's not my point. My point is that the people of Gravesend don't seem to care about Ebbsfleet Utd hence the relatively poor turnouts this season. I didn't mention anything about our "fantastic gates on Saturday". All I mentioned was that if Dartford had been playing Weymouth in the FA Trophy on Saturday we would have got more than the 820+ Ebbsfleet pulled in.

[wobbly Wayne II]

i'm convinced Dartford are a massive club

[chris blanc]

Originally Posted By: Lager Top

Harold, if you want to believe we had 300 and you had 900 then fair enough. I'm not going to argue with you. It obviously means a lot to you. That's not my point. My point is that the people of Gravesend don't seem to care about Ebbsfleet Utd hence the relatively poor turnouts this season. I didn't mention anything about our "fantastic gates on Saturday". All I mentioned was that if Dartford had been playing Weymouth in the FA Trophy on Saturday we would have got more than the 820+ Ebbsfleet pulled in.

God forbid I get pulled into this asinine pi$$ing contest, but one to think about is this:

Population of Gravesend and Northfleet - 70,000 (approx)
Population of Dartford - 90,000 (approx)

What does this show? That neither team is getting anywhere near what they could or should be getting, with both teams struggling to get even 2% of the local population to the ground (It's probably not even 1% when you factor people coming in from other boroughs etc).

Rather than spending valuable time arguing over who is the best, we should be joining in with the threads looking at getting more people down the ground.

At the end of the day it's a pointless argument. Dartford would give anything to be in our position, if it wasn't for their shiny new ground they'd be thankful to be pulling in 300 people to who knows where. Stonebridge Rd if they were lucky.

[non-league fan]

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

i'm convinced Dartford are a massive club

They are seen to be big in the Rymans because of their attendances, but if they had changed their name to say "Thamesgateway Utd" and sold the club to people on the web to stay full time in the conference, it would not feal the same for me.

[wobbly Wayne II]

you dont need to do that as you're massive.

 

how about if you moved your ground , would that feel the same ?

[non-league fan]

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

you dont need to do that as you're massive.

how about if you moved your ground , would that feel the same ?

Sorry you lost me on this one.

[Stu M]

Originally Posted By: non-league fan

if they had changed their name to say "Thamesgateway Utd" and sold the club to people on the web to stay full time in the conference, it would not feal the same for me.

Lucky for you that you support the Darts then.

God, I wish I did too...

[Uncle Urchin]

Originally Posted By: Lager Top

I don't seem to be getting many answers here.

ah well...thats the thingy about this forum...you only get answers if you ask the right questions....

[Uncle Urchin]

Originally Posted By: Stu M

Lucky for you that you support the Darts then.

God, I wish I did too...

fear not stu....we are excepting new members at the bridge shortly at the discounted membership fee of 25 quid per annum...should be right up your street...

harry's as well perhaps...

[Stu M]

Originally Posted By: Uncle Urchin

fear not stu....we are excepting new members at the bridge shortly at the discounted membership fee of 25 quid per annum...should be right up your street...

Do you do live streaming on the web? I haven't had the right shots to be going that far north and mixing with the barbarians...

[Uncle Urchin]

Originally Posted By: Stu M

Originally Posted By: Uncle Urchin

fear not stu....we are excepting new members at the bridge shortly at the discounted membership fee of 25 quid per annum...should be right up your street...

Do you do live streaming on the web? I haven't had the right shots to be going that far north and mixing with the barbarians...

well you could always listen to our occasional match day commentarys...only problem is you'll have to listen to me...

[wobbly Wayne II]

Originally Posted By: non-league fan

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

you dont need to do that as you're massive.

how about if you moved your ground , would that feel the same ?

Sorry you lost me on this one.

Let me explain. You used to play at Watling street, you then sold out and lost your ground. (The sad thing is you lost your ground not by living your own dream but allowing a rival club to do it - now that is tragic ) you then become nomads and played at a number of grounds some of which that were even in Essex. You then come back to Dartford and moved to where you are now.

Did it feel like supporting the same club all those years !

Unfortunately we have not had that much fun, we have had to stay in the same stadium for all that period of time gradually climbing to the pinnacle of the non league game, and strangely enough we are still there.

There are things that I don't like about the myfc takeover, but the name change and takeover per se, do not register as a problem..

if only the f**kers could drop the pick the team bit, then I would find little to complain about.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

if only the f**kers could drop the pick the team bit, then I would find little to complain about.

Join up and tell them then Wobbly.

They aren't all f**kers, in fact the f**kers are probably a minority.

[Lord Horn]

Originally Posted By: Slartibartfast

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

if only the f**kers could drop the pick the team bit, then I would find little to complain about.

Join up and tell them then Wobbly.

They aren't all f**kers, in fact the f**kers are probably a minority.

Quite right Slarti, I think the f**kers are in the minority and will overwhelmingly be drowned out by the majority who only wish the best for the Fleet. As a MyFC member I would, however, like some option relating to team selection whereby we can just endorse Liam's recommendation. I know this is a bit of a hot topic on the MyFC site but I am happy to bow to superior knowledge, especially when I can only get to a few games a season. Otherwise, I'd have to rely on the live ramblings of Lord Chas and his cohorts to give me any consistent indication of match performance!

[wobbly Wayne II]

Originally Posted By: Slartibartfast

Originally Posted By: wobbly Wayne II

if only the f**kers could drop the pick the team bit, then I would find little to complain about.

Join up and tell them then Wobbly.

They aren't all f**kers, in fact the f**kers are probably a minority.

As mentioned on here before I don't believe in the concept so won't be joining up. The pick the team part is the worst aspect of interfering owners and should be resisted. Anyone who joins up and votes on team selection / transfers etc is a f**ker in my eyes. I presume we will soon find out how many there are.

[Lager Top]

Originally Posted By: chris blanc

God forbid I get pulled into this asinine pi$$ing contest, but one to think about is this:

Population of Gravesend and Northfleet - 70,000 (approx)
Population of Dartford - 90,000 (approx)

What does this show? That neither team is getting anywhere near what they could or should be getting, with both teams struggling to get even 2% of the local population to the ground (It's probably not even 1% when you factor people coming in from other boroughs etc).

Rather than spending valuable time arguing over who is the best, we should be joining in with the threads looking at getting more people down the ground.

At the end of the day it's a pointless argument. Dartford would give anything to be in our position, if it wasn't for their shiny new ground they'd be thankful to be pulling in 300 people to who knows where. Stonebridge Rd if they were lucky.

I wouldn't give everything to be in Ebbsfleet position. Not if it meant changing our name to "Dartford Tunnel FC" and selling out to an internet community.

What you don't seem to be able to grasp is that "Gravesend" have a good team, an excellent manager play good football yet people still don't turn out. Why is that? Is it because their team is called Ebbsfleet, (railway station). Is it because of the ground (In Northfleet). Is it the price? (£13 is steep)

I think the people of Gravesend just don't care about the club. What does Ebbsfleet mean to them? It's a shame, because on the evidence of last Tuesday you've certainly got a great team.

Still I'm off out now to the wilds of Essex for the next stop on the Dartford FC promotion tour. TTFN! Give my regards to Jeff!

[Hirsty]

God preserve us !

 

Have you been having extra Lemonade in your lager top ? Too many e numbers ?? I may have to downgrade you to Lager Shandy !

 

I won't let facts get in the way of a good argument by mentioning that your local team is Welling !!

 

Although you make some valid points ( occasionally !), you are not telling me ( or my fellow Gravesend/Northfleet & all stations etc.fans )anything new ! Many a thread on this board over the past few years ( pre name change & pre MyFC ) has been dedicated to crowds, either the lack of or incentives to increase. For a Borough the size of Gravesham one would expect higher attendances....but, despite various schemes, the long term effect has not happened. Don't ask me why ? Short of press ganging people through the turnstiles I don't know what the answer is.

 

However, clubs like Kettering get good crowds but are not in the Conference. So, is it better to have a good crowd and a lower standard team or vice versa ? seems we cannot have both positives here.

 

Your comment re if Dartford played in The Conference & drew Weymouth at home in the Trophy you would draw more than 818 is again probably a true assumption, but we will never know for sure unless you get there. In my opinion, having watched Fleet both as a part time & full time side in the Conference, to maintain a place in this league full time football is essential. I recall that you are against full time football in Non League ? So, what are your ambitions for the Darts then ?

 

Reasonable crowds watching part time football in the Ryman Premier ? or go those few steps further to achieve Conference standard ?

 

Sheff Wed get bigger crowds than Bolton, but Wednesday are still 4th from bottom in the Championship !! So what does that prove ?

 

Regards,

 

PS - it seems to be in vogue to have a picture of oneself in one's avatar so I dug an old one out from my playing days !

 

Over & out !

 

 

[Hirsty]

Sorry LT, I forgot the most obvious reason for a low attendance last Saturday......I wasn't there due to illness...so not many others bothered turning out !!

 

Cheers,