First time to AFCH yesterday...

[adwebb]

Firstly I come in peace, myself and two other football fans decided to head down to the stadium yesterday for the Essex 'El Classico'. We all support different teams and are regular visitors and feeling slightly despondent at the moment (not Premiership or Championship teams I hasten to add).

 

We live minutes walking distance from the ground and are all, what we would describe as the perfect target audience for AFC Hornchurch yet have never seen or felt the ‘calling’ that clubs such as AFCH require – why? I don’t know, it was purely a small advert in the Upminster Bulletin that caught our eye for arguable AFCH’s biggest match this season! Where was the advertising for the match around Upminster/Hornchurch? There are so many youngsters needing things to do during the Easter holidays yet little marketing strategies in place. Granted it is a small club that relies solely on volunteers but facebook/twitter come for free and are the perfect tool to attract the future fans that the club need. To my unsurprised the manager himself even stated poor crowds with relation to the league position in the match day programme!

 

The game wasn’t great, there were some patches of decent play and the atmosphere was excitable only due to the Billericay fans. The next few games for AFCH are massive for the club and whilst the game was hardly an advert for fans to come back there were no efforts to bring any fans (such as ourselves) back for the next home game at the very least! Trust me, the club I support don’t play great football, they aren’t at all glamorous and yes I will be going back week on week despite this and money is an issue but come on, smaller clubs that are in the heart of towns such as AFC Hornchurch do themselves very little favours and yet constantly whinge that they don’t have the pulling power of West Ham and the countless London clubs that are in close proximity and the price of tickets (£9 is more than reasonable amount to charge) – you will actually find that a decent amount of people would turn out for the games if some creases were ironed out.

 

Yesterday was the day to keep hold of another 200 fans that turned out in support of the Urchins but unfortunately I feel that they failed to hold onto this potential, future fanbase! Shame, especially if the play offs don't go their way!

[Lord Upminster]

Fair comment.

 

Always good to get an opinion and prospective from a neutral looking in from the outside.

Hope to see you at the Bridge again soon.

[Hasbeen]

Thank for your comments and ideas and the ones for twitter/facebook could well be a 'goer' to attract the younger fan. However you can see the dilema that the club faces. As you have stated you live in close proximity to the ground and yet have never appeared to have visited previously. The game was by no means a classic but I felt the atmosphere (from both sets of supporters) was great and yet you still don't feel inclined to visit again. Please attend other matches in the future I'm sure the Hornchurch 'bug' will bite.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Hasbeen

[Eastside Urchin]

Sad as it is,we have tried,under 11s in for nothing for a season,we had 25 takers,we put banners around but these were stolen.

We have tried postering but it doesn't seem to attract new fans and after a couple of weeks those putting the posters up lose interest as no one else seems bothered about putting them up

[Urchins]

Just so as you know, the league set a minimum price for matches. I believe we charge the minimum for a Ryman Premier match. Some clubs charge more, and some charge extra for a seat in the stand.

 

All forthcoming matches are announced before the game and at half time, and are published in the program which you obviously read. So, what else do you think the club should have done to encourage you to come to the next home game ?