Following a somewhat long and indepth meeting last night gate prices for next season have been revised as follows:
Adults £8.50
Concs £5.50
14-16 & students £4
U14’s Free
With admission you will also now gain a free raffle ticket.
Mixed views I expect will follow this no doubt, the club accepts we are playing at a lower level and £9 for that standard of football is high. Sadly due to expected league placing we face rapidly falling income and increased expenses resulting in a direct hit on the playing budget which we obviously want to keep as competitive as possible.
We will be holding a kind of chairmans financial forum in the near future when Mark and other memebers of the board, and myself will be available to go through “the numbers” of how the club has budgeted for the forthcoming season. If you question any aspect of costs at the club I would urge you to attend and air your views.
As a follow on from that season tickets are now available at:
Adults £150
Concs £80
Students £40
These obviously offer good savings on the gate prices and help the club over the summer so why not invest now?
Renewal letters will be on their way to current holders over the next week or so.
Finally a date for everyones diary - FA Cup preliminary round - August Bank Holiday Monday I’m told.
Now when do those fixtures come out…
Jeez Eli - Lay off it!!! Lets have no negativity on here!
I think thats a positive move by the board, and if we could reduce the programme price to £1.50 that would make a net saving to the supporters, of £1 per game or £2 if you normally buy a draw ticket.
By the same token the concessions season ticket is great value for money if you divide it pro rata in comparison to the Adult Season Ticket.
Neil - is there any easy payment options? £75 pre season and balance in December for instance? Would also aid cash flow (Shoot me I sound like an accountant).
Neil does say he expected mixed views - so he got one.
I will be buying my last Adult ST @ £150 ( Senior Citizen 20010-11 )plus Car Park @ £20 plus Half-time draw ticket @ £1 plus Golden Goal @ £1 plus Predictions @ £2 Plus Coach ST @ £100 plus Tracey’s bucket contribution next season.
It was a very very difficult decision regarding prices next season, just to give an idea, for every 50p we take off the entrance price over £2000 is taken off the playing budget over the season. Thats working on an average gate of 220. I know there are lots of arguments to say we may get more people attending at a lower price but lets be honest we can’t be sure of that. We are not expecting many traveling fans in this division so it is a very fine balancing act. We have decided to give the ‘free’ half time raffle ticket to all who come in as a small token with the idea of a decent prize to be won each game.
Eli’s idea of a season ticket for traveling on the players coach was put forward and everyone agreed it was a very good idea and further details on that will follow.
Gary Finley has expressed his wish to stay with us next season and we will be working very hard to give him the best possible backing to get a winning team on the pitch.
The forum is not the place to put our finances for all to see but as Neil has said we will be holding a forum soon where yet again we will be as open with supporters as we have been all this season, or should I say last season because 2009/10 has already started for us!
I sympathise with the decisions that the board have to make on things like admission prices. My own thoughts were that £9 was too high for the standard of football last season, and £8.50 is probably too high for next year.
I understand why we have to keep the prices high inorder to meet costs etc. My only concern is that we are again hitting the same hardcore support in the pocket - the same people who contribute so much of their own time and money on top of the admission price.
But I trust Neil et al to get the figures right, so i will be renewing my season ticket immediately.
Happy with the gate prices to be honest. I’d rather pay a couple of quid more and watch a competitive team going for the play offs than a bottom half to mid table side.
I think the gate prices are fine at £8.50. What is the currnet highest gate price in div 1 south?
Think it is really good for the club that gary wants to stay, and said so early, now he can have a full summer to get some good players in.
[quote]I fully support the gate prces as i have done the following two seasons.
We cant expect to go forward unless we provide the money for a good team-simple as.
Looking forward to next season already, great to see Gary has expressed an interest in staying on as manager.
COME ON WITTON![/quote]
Great post Ched, we have to generate the funds to be able to compete. One of the things (of many) that cost us last season was that clubs at the top had £5k/£6k weekly budgets, which although is ludicrous at Unibond level, it gives them more opportunity to buy themselves promotion.
We cannot reduce the ticket prices any lower, if we go to £7 it would not increase the size of the gate sufficiently to overcome the loss and therefore less money would be available for the playing budget. Less money equals lower quality players and we want to build a side that will compete.
Personally I think that despite the travel and gate reductions Unibond 1 South is an easier league to get out of than the North. The best opportunity to get back out is at the first time of asking.
