And not everyone has the same disposable income either. We have to be careful not to price out the average fan, which is what is happening in the Premiership etc. OK, £9 may not be alot to most people, but to teenagers etc who don’t have a wage coming in then the more we charge, the less likely they are to come down. My personal circumstances are that i’m trying my hardest to get on the property ladder, that i may mean i have to pick and chose my matches a bit more carefully next season. We need to be realistic and not follow the likes of Man U etc who keep up-ing ticket prices and finding the true football fans are pushed out in place for the prawn sandwich brigade - ok, thats at the opposite end of the spectrum, but the same principle still applies. At the end of the day non-league football needs the to embrace the local community, it needs to be family-freiendly, and most of all it needs to be affordable. If we keep up-ing the price then more people will just sit in the pub and watch United, Chelsea, Liverpool etc and have 3 or 4 pints for the same price it is going to cost them to get into Witton. We need to offer a ‘value for money’ product, and putting the price up by £1 despite being in the same league isn’t really sound business sense. We are not offering a higher value product, and the price increase is well above inflation!
Alot of the playing budget was covered by the efforts of the fans in fundraising activities. With an extra £1 per home game - and as Mike says this could be 3 in a week - then does this reduce how much people can afford to put into these fundraising initiatives?? Or into buying a program, or a golden goal ticket?? In my opinion the club should of either kept prices as they are with the understanding that the fundraising events bring in a figure equal to last year - even with an agreement to raise prices at xmas for example if this doesn’t appear to be happening. Another option would of been to keep prices at the same level and maybe charge 50p for parking?? This would bring in extra revenue without affecting every fan, every week.
As said before, we’ll still all be there every week regardless of the price - which possibly means we are taken for granted somewhat!!. But that isn’t really the point is it. Gates were steadily rising last year, keeping prices the same would of been a better way of seeing this trend continue - which ultimately is what we need to increase revenue streams in the long-term and ensure that the future of OUR TEAM is a positive one.
With excellent relations between the club and the fans this year maybe it would of been an idea to float the proposed increases to fans with a few alternatives before going ahead with this? But maybe i’m overstating the importance of the fans here?? Afterall, if the price increases did stop us coming down, i’m sure there would be no negative impact to the football club? Right??
Football clubs - regardless of their level - cannot keep expecting fans to shell out more and more money each season. At some point this has to stop. Non-league football is in an excellent position to take full advantage of the backlash that top level football is currently facing, it will lose this opportunity if clubs at this level follow the same route and abuse the true football fans. You can watch Carling Cup games for a tenner. You can watch Super League Rugby for £14 or £15, and you could say this is better value for money than we will be offering if we end up with a season that doesn’t live up to last year. £9 for mid-table Unibond League, or a fiver more to watch international Rugby players?
Hopefully we’ll be setting the pace at the top of the league next year and we’ll see further increases in attendance. Hopefully the extra pound will be excellent value for money and the team will benefit from it. Maybe the extra money can go towards ensuring the pitch is kept playable - or better still, maybe the extra money means we wont have to have 18 charity matches a week played on it. But the fact remains that we will be the most expensive team to watch in our league next year - bar Scarborough. There will be alot of fans from other clubs that will be used to paying £7 to watch their team every other week, and will not be willing to support things like our golden goal and half time draw being as they are having to shell out an extra £2.
Anyway, that’s how i fell about it. But regardless of that; Neil i’ll see you for a season ticket when i get chance.
