Review of the fourth division from Saturday;

http://boards.rivals.net/default.asp?si ... =528374246

Promotion fantasists

Interesting that.

Interesting points Chip.

Pools could potentially get 6500 home fans in the Vic.

Apart from Scottys shite season, the last few years we have probably averaged 5000 home games and will probably continue to get that this season if we keep getting good results.

Supposing everyone paid full price, we will make about 90-100k per match (it's obviously less once you take off kids and oaps)

100k divided by a full house would mean we would have top drop the match day price to 16 quid in order to keep Ken's pockets lined with the same cash as the £20 entry and keep the fans as happy as possible. Would dropping it to 16 quid make any really difference? There isn't really much difference and IOR have probably got it spot on financially as they know that they'll still make their 100k (?) a match and don't have to rely on full houses every week.

They know they have a hard core now of 4500 that would turn up even if it was some shit team on a wet cold Tuesday night and they're going to use that to charge whatever they like.

The Bradford situation is far different as they have a massive stadium and can afford to drop the prices.

Bradford have a much bigger catchment area too.

I reckon that if Pools were to expand the Vic to hold 10,000 (say 8,000 home and 2,000 away) we would be lucky to fill it two or three times a season in the next year or so, unless we drew a 'big' club in a cup tie.

However, an increasing amount of kids and teenagers have been exposed to a side that has won more than it has lost over the last few years. Especially females, who make up an increasing number of Poolies of all ages.

I reckon under-20s now make up a bigger proportion of an average Pools crowd than ever before. Pools will get in their blood. As they get older they will add to the number of 'diehards' which will increase as it has done since IOR took over.

Pools are no longer a joke. Every time I come up for a match I am always chuffed to see how many bairns are wearing the strip on matchdays. Even in summer you see plenty of people in the town wearing their strips with pride.

As the Premiershit wriggles further up its own arse and becomes ever more boring, the potential for Hartlepudlians and Yakkers to become regular Poolies will increase.

Provided Pools continue performing at a decent standard (2nd tier even?) and the capacity at The Vic is increased, in 5 years time we may be taking about a hardcore of 6,000+ Poolie diehards.

The study centre for kids Pools have set up is a step in the right direction, as is the move to sell cheap junior season tickets. Going to Pools is seen as a very normal thing to do now, not some freakish self-punishment as it was when I were a lad.

Given time those days of struggling to get 1500 to turn up will seem like some kind of distant bad dream.

your'e lass been making those ganja dumplings again

We get on average around 6.7% of the population attending matches, there's not many clubs can compete with that. On a comparable level; Nottingham Forest for example if running at the same percentage would get nearly 50'000 at each game. Swansea are closer but still need to get 19'000 to compete wheras Bradford would be at 31'000.

Putting attendance issues aside, I really enjoyed that round up. Well done to GroovinWithMrBloe

Also, if this season doesn't tell Hodcroft that we need to extend the away end then it never will.

Leeds would probably have brought 6k on Boxing Day and Forest the same last home game of the season if they're challenging for the league. Thats 10,000 supporters lost already or about 200k potentially lost. You've then also got Huddersfield and Carlisle plus any cup ties.

I've never really seen the point in extending the ground previously as we rarely get close to sell-outs (esp. the away end) but barring another Scottyesque season, we're going to be having big game more seldom these days and it would proving better financially to have a bigger ground.

Leeds just sold their entire allocation of 4500 for the away end at Forest. They had 8500 applications. We're probably as close to Leeds as Nottingham is........

Then again if it costs 200K to build you're running to stand still if they don't own the ground eh??

EXACTLY!

But try telling that to the folk who think that selling the Vic to HUFC would be akin to selling your wife by the hour on Boro station.

I thought IOR wanted to extend the away end. That's why they want to buy the ground isn't it?
It'll certainly come in useful in the championship next season, although Sunderland's experience in that division has shown that the potential for huge away gates is not as big as some people perhaps imagine. (Remind me who holds the record for visiting supporters at the SOL.)

signed,

R. Head

(official board optimist)

The problem is the speculation.

There is no guarantee that reducing prices will significantly increase the gate beyond the break even point. i.e. if you get 4000 @ 20 quid you've got 80K. Reduce that to 16 quid as a tempter and you need 5000 through the gate before you make a penny more. Reduce it to eighteen quid and you need 444 more before you make any more money. If only 4200 show up, you've shot yourself in the foot, chucking good money after bad, in proportion to the amount you've reduced it.

Incredibly there are people not interested in football and there are those who spend more on going to see higher placed teams. Maybe we aren't far off Poolie saturation point in Hartlepool??

Welcome to Rip Off Britain mate and that's not just a dig at the UK 'cos I'm out of it, but everything is becoming beyond the common man now including his game. You aren't in the 'target audience' now I'm afraid. The distinction is simple. You either CAN afford it or you CAN'T afford it.

The Town End NEVER sings!

It is the quietest part of the ground bar none.

Even half a dozen Torqueer fans on a Tuesday night will make more noise than the Town End!

No it doesn't but clubs really just don't see it terms of loyalty. There's a lot of parallels in the music industry, record companies show no loyalty to bands once their sales start falling and bands don't have much loyalty to the people who put them there once they've got their trotters in the trough.

The commercial world is just trying to empty your wallet as quickly and efficiently as it can.

And yet you can bet your bottom dollar at some stage he will...

At Luton the other week I handed over two £20 notes to get in. Obviously I got changebut the action of having to hand over 2 x £20 notes to get into a Pools game was a bit of a shock. Us exiles have it even worse because we always have to add petrol money to just about every game.

Supporting Pools is becoming an expensive hobby.

Typically I usually get to 25ish games a season. That costs in the region of £20 each one to get in and £40 fuel. Add to that a tenner for something to eat and drink.

25 x £20 = £500
25 x £40 = £1000
25 x £10 = £150

£1750 a year plus the extras.

Replace the £40 by anywhere from 200 to 400 euros and that's what it would cost me if I made a special trip.
But all that means is the entry fee isn't really an issue compared with travel costs. :shrug:
In fact by the time I've drunk 4 pints I've already saved 10 quid on what I'd spend at home for the same.

I think I paid something like 40 quid at Cardiff, but the whole trip cost nearer 800.

I have ONCE been to see Montpellier HSC play, last year against Bordeaux in the last 16 of the French Cup.
For what I considered very modest seats I paid well over 20 quid. And playing-wise I reckon Montpellier are currently on a par with Pools.

Dunno but I won't stop going if it beomes too expensive but I will cut down on my games.

That was when he gave up smoking for three quarters of an hour that time.....

only one woman to blame for this consumer society
remember how you all wanted to be yuppies

Tony Blair's mam

I can fully agree with a lot of the points you are making Mr Chip.

But under what criteria do you define "ordinary man"?

What is ordinary?

What is an average wage?

What is it normal to spend money on?

I don't buy fancy tellys, a new three piece every two years, go to music gigs charging cover charges on top of out of town travel or go drinking in places that wanna charge £3+ for a drink on a Saturday night and therefore am quite comfortable with the prices charged at Pools.

I think as much of a price problem it is a society problem. Too many people in today's society expect to have everything and will rack themselves up in debt to get it until they are in danger of disappearing up their own arse and end up ringing Ocean Finance or similar.

I think it's too much of a broad brush statement to try and refer everything back to "the ordinary man".

Chip has a point; but its all down to consumers expectations. We demand success but that costs and someones got to pay the invoice. When Sky TV and the premier league arrived the money started to pour in and all the players started earning mega wages. Now at that level its paid for by huge sponsorship deals and Sky revenues however wWe then get the trickle down effect to the level that an awful lot of average players in div's 3 & 4 are earning 75k/100k plus.

The likes of us get a pittance from Sky but we still demand success. Even with IOR subsidising the club to the tune of about £750k a year there is still a big hole in the finances that someone has to pay for - us.

going to the match used to be the preserve of the working man but those days are long gone. Your £8 chip used to be 10p each to get in - if everyone paid of course rather than one of you opening the side door at the Odeon to let the rest in. Thats doesn't happen any more because people are no longer happy with sitting watching a film in a flea pit.

Fair do's.

If Mrs R and I ever have kids I might be in the same boat.

Fortunately I'm not at the moment!

It's expensive enough going alone but when you start multiplying x kids it gets silly.

Have you never considered the obvious answer? Get the kids working!!

A massive cut in season ticket prices a la Bradford would not have been possible and could have been financially constraining as other posters have suggested (if anyones ever read Gary Nelsons book on being a manager at Torquay he comes accross a similar situation, chairman drops prices to increase crowd, crowd increases but not by a large enough amount so revenue drops).

I guess the decision to be made is that we either pay lower prices and go back to being a joke side (but at least its affordable) or we continue to pay for our success but its expensive.

Either way the extra £4 a month (per person) isn't a significant rise, its less than two pints on match day prices! I think its more of a psychological thing to be honest as £20 seems much more expensive than £18. Plus our extra contribution is nothing compared to the money that IOR puts in year in year out.

But the clubs wage bill is defined by the league caps isn't it?? Which is directly linked to turnover. Drop the gate price and we can pay less, get less talented players, lose the more talented ones to clubs who get bigger attendances and gradually spiral down to non-league. In fairness that's a more honest way of going out of business than insolvency but that's all it is.

I don't think I'm suggesting that, I would hate it to happen, but the fact is we ARE run on a business model and we know for a fact that all the costs aren't passed onto the fans. Whether anyone can afford it is down to their personal finances and surely that's the same with anything. Trouble is, with things like Council Tax, you don't get to choose whether or not you pay it or whether or not you get more for your money. With Pools you do.

The only reason I can afford to go to the matches is because I save up monthly throughout the year in order to buy the following years season ticket. If I didn't do this then I would seriously struggle to afford to go.

I'm confused by some of your statements "The Law" as you appear to contradict yourself in your previous two posts, on one hand you say your going to choose to stop attending as its too expensive and then on the other you say that you don't get a choice and you have to attend.

Personally I fail to see how pools can ever charge enough per game to stop you going. Ok you may not be able to attend as many games (as Chip says he will cut his cloth accordingly and reduce his attendance from 30 to 50 games) but are you saying that unless you can afford to attend every single game you are deciding not to attend any??

In which case it is you who are deciding not to attend the games and not pools making that decision for you.

As Mr I said it all depends on what your financial priorities are, I appreciate following Pools is much more expensive than it was 10 years ago, however I'd argue that we get much better value for money than we ever did back then.

That's the main reason that I couldn't move abroad.

I've thought about working in hotter countries for significantly more money, but at the end of the day the one over riding factor which stops me from doing it is the thought of missing Pools.

For a Hartlepool area resident cutting down on away games seems the sensible priority to me.
First of all it's not hurting Pools' pockets to miss them.
Then the Lutons and Swindons (and if the rumours are true Leeds) lay it on thick when it comes to away prices and are much more expensive than Pools.
And lastly there are the travelling costs and the fact that for me at least away trips aren't all they are cracked up to be.

I presume Chip that your 30 games would still include virtually all 23 league games at the Vic.

Of course they won't, there will be a equilibrium point between prices and attendances at which point any further increases will start to have a downward affect on attendances, we are not currently at this point.

No one likes price rises but I think your the one who is being unrealistic here. Would you be happier in a run down stadium, with a crap pitch, crap players and crap managers but with cheap ticket prices ala 10-15 years ago??

You said you couldn't afford to go last Saturday and then you went.
I worried about you all week-end, for nothing

Ali Gibb, Ritchie Humphreys, Lee Bullock and, at a guess, Michael Maidens

I'm personally quite happy with our squad and don't think it's overloaded or lacking depth.

Looking at the squad list on the official site they were they only four that I thought anybody could possibly be referring to when making that kind of statement.

In his last interview Wilson held Bullock up as an example of a good (sic) player who couldn't even get a place on the bench. He then went on to say something like circumstances would no doubt combine to make him an indispensable replacement at some point in the season and he was delighted to have a squad that made this possible.

But the pile of shite under Scotty was surely unforseen?? He WAS the popular choice of manager although disastrous and most of the squad he inherited did OK the season before. There was no reason for anything but optimism until we actually saw what he did. The injuries to Boyd and Porter were a major factor as well as his signings being the emperors new clothes..

I also didn't say we would have a worse squad and get relegated with reduced revenue. I said other people would pay more over the piece and we would go into a slow decline. We do have some good talent who the less prudent clubs would snap up at the end of contracts.

That's about right - the difference is the amount of spare capacity BCFC have got. A 25,000 all-seater compared to 7,500 (of which only about 4,000 is seated) means Pools have got to keep prices up to generate the money.
If the ground is expanded, there is obviously the scope for a bigger family area etc, where such groups can attend at cheaper admission.

We are in League One, agreed?

So it's fair enough to expect to pay League One prices?

If anyone has access to the prices charged by other League One clubs please put it on here.

Last time we were here the following clubs cost £20 or more to get in:

Forest
Swindon
Oldham

And they are just 3 I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm pretty sure they won't have dropped their prices. You can add Leeds and Luton to that list, so at worst Pools will be 6th most expensive in League One to watch.

I have a hunch that Orient is £20 or over, and I'd be surprised if Huddersfield, Gillingham, Brighton and Southend were any less.

Bit of regional difference perhaps, but the fact remains that we are watching probably the best Pools side ever in a ground which is just about big enough for now.

In my earlier post I said that the age of Poolies is changing, so in 3 or 4 years we should be looking at being able to hold 8,000 (predominantly younger) home fans. That of course depends on what IOR are willing to do if the Council won't sell them the ground.

it has to be said that there is a healthy number of young 'uns around town these days wearing Pools shirts, on any given day of the week.
Contrast that to 93-96 time when everyone was wearing skunk-castle shirts.
Those people are lost forever because they are clueless w***ers, along with the previous generations who encouraged them and taught them the ways of clueless w***ers.
In the future though, the new wave of Poolies will create more Poolies (hopefully), and the club's fan base will hopefully outgrow its current capacity.

Well unfortunately Chip it won't be happening. IOR already chuck good money after bad into the club and they won't really be looking at personal circumstances when they do it, they'll be looking at what's good for the club, not what's good for the odd supporter in a certain set of circumstances, cruel though that might be.

The bigger picture dictates that, like you've said, the average attendance is the same and as someone else said, the younger set and the female attendance is growing. It's an established fact that the female of the species runs the domestic budget and therefore the trend is a growing one dictated by the person that allocates the budget.

They lost me and I haven't heard a single word from them, the heartless bastards.........

Had a quick look on the other clubs sites, all prices are for the home fans though

Bournemouth £14-£31 dependeing on match category
Brighton £23.50-£27.50
Bristol Rovers £17-£25 Away fans £17
Carlisle £16-£20
Cheltenham £13-£18 Away fans £18
Crewe £19
Donny £15-£22 depending on match category
Gillingham £20-£25
Huddersfield £19-£22
Leeds £15-£30 depending on match category
Orient £20-£35
Luton £17-£28
Millwall £20-£27
Northampton £18-£19 Gold games £21-£22
Forest £26
Oldham £17-£20 (last seasons prices)
Port Vale £19
Southend £20
Swansea £16-£19 depending on match category
Swindon
Tranmere £12-£21 depending on match category. We are B and it will cost us £16.50
Walsall £14-£18
Yeovil £18-£19

A fair few of the clubs offer a couple of quid discount if they are bought before match day

Cheers for the info Fensy. It confirms what I said, that we are paying the going rate to watch League One footy.

I don't have kids and I may have more disposable income, but I sacrifice other things so I can do it. I'm giving Saturday night out a miss cos I'm going to Port Vale instead for example.

The price of loads of things is coming down (clothes, electrical goods) while the price of other stuff is going up (petrol, food). I don't know all the complex macroeconomic reasons why, but I do know that entertaintment prices are increasing, and Pools fall into that category.

I totally agree that the club have got the pricing wrong for adult season tickets. I hope next season will see a more sensible pricing structure. Years ago (they may still) Forest used to do a 'half season ticket' in time for Xmas. Basically a season ticket from Boxing Day onwards. If they'd had a good run they used to shift a couple of thousand. Perhaps Pools could follow suit?

Above all I would love to see Pools reward long-term Poolies, particularly those who have bought season tickets for years. Give people an incentive to renew their tickets such as an extra 10% off or whatever.

The club are getting there but they still have a long way to go before the rest of it catches up with the standard of the team.

And we neatly come full circle.

I know, but in the Premiership, Bradford used to attract 20+ thousand fans, now they attract a quarter of that. We on the other hand have had steadily increasing gates. Bradford asked the fans who don't come anymore, presumably by lettering their entire database. I would guess that most of our database come to the games on a regular basis and therefore charging them less would be plain daft from a business angle.

I suppose a coupon in the Mail is an option but it's hard to see who you'd write to??

this one is going to run and run...................

Had this conversation with my dad, who goes to, on average, two games a season but who also went to Sunderland and to Cardiff.

Also had this conversation with the in-laws who attend maybe half a dozen matches a season but who also went to Sunderland and Cardiff.

None of them would go every week if the season tickets were £50.