Attendances

[TRS]

Max price of £5 adult (Prem) or £4 adult (Div 1).

Kids free with paying adult (maybe selected/promoted games)

Always have refreshments available (and always have hot food on offer and make sure prices don't change from game to game!)

Have a loyalty card - attend so many games and get in one free (didn't Feltham do this?)

Designate a family day in the early/late part of the season with bouncy castle for the kids or similar

Offer a barbecue in early/late part of the season for certain games and promote it

Have 1-2 Friday night fixtures each season and offer reduced entry to the next Saturday home game with voucher

Put/link match videos on your website Some do, most don't - some only do when they win

Have an updated website and regularly updated twitter feed - when the weather is dodgy I often end up where there is information (usually from twitter) to say if a game is expected to be on. There was one or two occasions last season where I switched games at late notice for this reason, so my £6 went elsewhere. Updated information is key. I appreciate websites take time to maintain etc - twitter feeds don't!

 

Just some ideas, some will work, some won't.

[vrfc196]

Change all Team Names to Guernsey and see your home attendance swell by 1500 every other week ....! just a thought !

[CW1975]

I think a lot depends on location too

 

At Westfield i think we do ok for attendances our average this season is 105 (inflated with Guernsey game) but we have seeen a few 70+ games. I think the lure of being able to drink and watch the game from an elevated position helps! Our biggest problem is that we have Woking FC over the road.

 

I am suprised that some of the teams from towns dont have bigger crowds. Biggest one being Farnham - decent sized town. decent ground 5 min walk from town centre etc

 

Completley agree about some clubs charging OTT prices ! Anything more than a fiver is criminal ! Theres some clubs in div 1 that charge £6 !

 

 

NLN, you are in an ideal location for getting support. What do most of the Woking fans do when they play away? If you time it right you could get someone outside Wokings ground giving tickets to the fans letting them know that next time Woking are away on a Saturday they can come and watch you guys for free. I'm sure they will want to go and watch footy but not travel to the away game, this will build up your support for certain weeks.

 

For example

 

Woking are at home on Tuesday 13th December to Sutton Utd

 

You play at home on Saturday 17th Dec and Woking are away to Thurrock

 

Get someone outside giving the tickets away on the Tuesday night, you are sure to get repeat visitors when Woking play away.

[CW1975]

We had our community day and delivered over 1000 leaflets around Sheerwater. We only saw a handful of new faces including one mum and her two children that came down for a cuppa rather than to watch footy.

 

I guess it is all down to location and you have to put a lot of work into constantly getting into the community, unless as above you have football supporters on your doorstep week in week out.

[Don't Blame Me]

What I find disappointing is the lack of away support in this league. I have lost count the number of times that it has felt that we have taken more fans than there are home ones. The game at Guildford was about 50/50 but Cove... where did they get the attendance of 41 from? There were around 50-60 Windsor fans there! Last night there must have been between 30-40 Windsor fans at Farnham. As for those coming to Windsor, the ones that stood out for me were South Park (Doing the Poznan), Camberley and Horley.

[Manors]

Think its about clubs promoting themselves alot more, but this is not easy, as it will naturally fall on the shoulders of the person that does everything else at the club. So it's possibly about clubs (that are rivals on the pitch), getting together to promote themselves to the wider local community. Local press need to do more though. The coverage that the Camberley Mail gives to CCL is very poor.

Encouraging kids to attend (ideally with a parent) would be a start and as TRS stated, keeping web sites up todate would help too. The use of social media channelled in the correct way is an inexpensive option that can be trialed over a period of time to see what results are achieved

[Krooner]

Our youth chairman trialled an email based system to advertisie the game against Mole Valley. 300 emails sent out. Him and me there

 

This will probably only work for local derbies but if clubs have youth teams at the same age group play a mtach before the game. So Camberley/Cove/Sandhurst/Ash could do this. There say U9's play a match before the first teams play or even better have a half time penalty competition.

[The Fan]

Our youth chairman trialled an email based system to advertisie the game against Mole Valley. 300 emails sent out. Him and me there

 

This will probably only work for local derbies but if clubs have youth teams at the same age group play a mtach before the game. So Camberley/Cove/Sandhurst/Ash could do this. There say U9's play a match before the first teams play or even better have a half time penalty competition.

it seems strange that the fa, force teams to upgrade grounds, for spectators. yet most clubs dont think about spectators/fans.

once they are inside grounds. most clubs fail to put up teams, there is very little if any use of pa systems. think krooners idear of some form of pre match or half time entertainment, is a good start. free tickets sent to schools is another way.

[Intershminter]

Westfield should be telling woking season ticket holder that they can get in for free to Westfield home games and taking their money over the bar. Might even pick up a few regulars who bring their mates.

[Krooner]

I think the idea of free entry for Reading/Aldershot/London teams season ticket holders is a good idea but you cant do that all the time because that is a little unfair on the regular supporters of that club who have to pay to get in.

 

It is intereesting about dropping the prices to get in. When I go to a game I take a certain amount of money which I will spend be it on entry/food/drink. So if entrance was £2 cheaper will I spend more ?

[newby marvel]

mens naked football......................sure to get the ladies in...............possibly guys lol

[Eastside Urchin]

If clubs want to bring in more fans then they have to improve the whole day out as a footy fan.

Most of the food served at the majority of grounds are shocking.Some grounds are untidy and could be easily tidied up with a luck of paint,PA systems are dated and all too often those on the PA are dull.It is my experience in the Ryman League that too many clubs have "hangers on" people who only seem interested in a free lunch and free beer in the oppositions boardroom.Non League needs to root out these parasites,they cost clubs money and rarely help their own clubs.

Clubs could do more but many can't be bothered,they choose to come up with ideas like free entry to everyone apart from their own loyal fans who follow them home and away,alienating those fans for the sake of a few fans of other clubs who let's face it are not going to be regulars.It's lazy and shouldn't be allowed.

Saying all that,I am going by my experiences at Ryman Prem level,I do understand that it's more difficult the lower down the pyramid to attract new fans.

[Brunty.]

mens naked football......................sure to get the ladies in...............possibly guys lol

Not if your playing newbs!

[Don't Blame Me]

If clubs want to bring in more fans then they have to improve the whole day out as a footy fan.

Most of the food served at the majority of grounds are shocking.Some grounds are untidy and could be easily tidied up with a luck of paint,PA systems are dated and all too often those on the PA are dull.It is my experience in the Ryman League that too many clubs have "hangers on" people who only seem interested in a free lunch and free beer in the oppositions boardroom.Non League needs to root out these parasites,they cost clubs money and rarely help their own clubs.

Clubs could do more but many can't be bothered,they choose to come up with ideas like free entry to everyone apart from their own loyal fans who follow them home and away,alienating those fans for the sake of a few fans of other clubs who let's face it are not going to be regulars.It's lazy and shouldn't be allowed.

Saying all that,I am going by my experiences at Ryman Prem level,I do understand that it's more difficult the lower down the pyramid to attract new fans.

 

Hence when we played Mole Valley SCR, when both teams were going through their training routines, we played the Benny Hill theme!

[Eastside Urchin]

Duly noted lol

[Regan]

Not a lot that hasn't been touched on already but it's an interesting subject to think about.

 

At Guildford City we know that, with no clubhouse/bar to support us during the week, the only way we can make money (other than sponsorship) is to get people through the gate. There's a huge catchment area in Guildford so there's plenty of potential there. We've seen a pretty steady improvement in attendances over the past few seasons, but we only ever make any money when a club brings a large away support (Windsor), it's a big game or we get a lot of groundhoppers.

 

As mentioned above, Twitter is an easy way to let people know about postponements and such. Every club has someone who can send a text (they have to for the FA full-time thing) so sending updates to Twitter, to me, is essential. It's also a pretty good 'marketing' tool for clubs - we have nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter and over 300 fans on Facebook. That's partly down to advertising but also natural growth over time; it doesn't just happen overnight. We also get well over 150 visits to our website each day - and over 300 before/after a match. There are lots of football fans in Guildford who don't even know about the club so it's all about targetting them, which you can do much more effectively using online media. Leaflets don't work - you'll be lucky if 5% of the people you deliver to are football fans, and of those very few will actually go to watch any level of football, let alone something as unglamorous as Step 5.

 

Friday night games are great - they pull in the groundhoppers and people who work on Saturdays, plus they give you the weekend off to appease your other half every now and then! I'm always amazed by how few clubs are actually interested in doing Friday games though - the travel logistics are not much different from a normal midweek game. Mind you, if everyone started doing it then they would lose their effect. We play home midweek games on a Wednesday (rather than Tuesday) which sometimes means we get a lot of groundhoppers. We love it when they come, but you can never really tell when they are going to... and then they moan when you run out of programmes!

 

We held a Sunday match in 2010 in which we got a similar sized attendance to a 'free entry' match a few weeks previously - and they were all paying to get in! However, many clubs would never agree to it (I appreciate the reasons for that) and the league rules actually seem to prevent clubs from moving games from Saturday to Sunday.

 

We currently have a whole host of offers to encourage people to come along. Guildford's biggest sports clubs are ice hockey, basketball and netball - so their supporters can all get in half price. We also offer half price admission to any season ticket holder of any other football club - it's pretty low risk as there are very few clubs in this league who will have any season ticket holders, and even fewer who aren't committee members (and therefore get free entry anyway). Our youth players are also offered free entry (or get paid to ballboy) and this has seen a few more through the gate. They weren't coming in anyway so there's no loss on the gate... let's make a bit of money from the snack bar instead.

 

Like someone said before though, you have to be careful not to alienate your existing supporters. I think that our supporters are pretty supportive of our efforts but you can't stretch that too far. At the end of the day we all want to see Guildford City doing well and more spectators improve the atmosphere. We're fortunate to have the university nearby which has provided a good bunch of supporters (home & away) but they are only really around from October-early December and then January-March. Many of you will know that I started supporting the club when I was at university in Guildford - and we have one current and two ex-students on our committee.

 

The matchday experience can be pretty terrible at this level too which doesn't help. Teamsheets, music and PA announcements are great but sometimes there just aren't enough helpers to get this covered. We do it when we can but they are all 'luxuries' compared to running the turnstile/snackbar and doing administrative stuff. The same with making the ground look presentable - a good idea but this takes time, money and (skilled) volunteers.

 

My rather long-winded point is that clubs need to think a bit more laterally if they want to attract more spectators - and then they need to find a way of telling people about it!

Edited November 24, 2011 by Guildford Sweeney

[missunderstood]

I had the idea of installing wind turbines on floodlight pylons. The income from the generous feed in tariff into the national grid would have meant that the turbines would have paid for themselves in about five years and would have given the club a substantial income for the estimated lifetime of the turbines,( approximately 25years).

 

The technology is in place, as are the engineering skills, unfortunately local councils who love to brag about their green credentials are rarely sympathetic to football clubs or new ideas.

[Regan]

I had the idea of installing wind turbines on floodlight pylons. The income from the generous feed in tariff...

 

The technology is in place, as are the engineering skills, unfortunately local councils who love to brag about their green credentials are rarely sympathetic to football clubs or new ideas.

 

The feed in tariff isn't going to be around much longer, but your final sentence is very true!

Edited November 24, 2011 by Guildford Sweeney

[Smudge]

Bigger Crowds= A Winning Team,Welcoming facilities and personnel,reasonable Entrance Fee,reasonable Food and drink prices.Unfortunately due to the change in peoples life habits,and the make up of the population in certain areas this can only mean a decrease in Crowds.How did us older people get the bug for going to Football,our parents took us,this no longer happens.Reason=Youngsters today,have so many chances to play for teams u/7-u16 in regulated Youth Leagues,so why would they go to watch Non League.I reckon that if you asked the youngsters of today what team they supported,90% would be the Top 6 PREMIERSHIP SIDES,unfortunately we live in a different world.Guernsey are a special case as they have never had any decent sides to watch on a regular basis,so the experience is new for them.LONG MAY IT LAST.

[Don't Blame Me]

When I was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, most kids "supported" Chelsea, Man Utd, Leeds and Liverpool. Why? Because they were successful - nothing has changed.

 

Sure, there is more kids football but there are many clubs in the CCL and Hellenic Leagues that have thriving youth sections. Getting these youngsters through the turnstiles with their parents will help but while the media and the antichrist BSkyB keep preaching that football didn't exist before the Premier League was set up will always mean that there will be no shortage of youngsters wearing replica shirts of clubs that they will have little chance of watching for real in years to come.