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Post by timberwolf on May 12, 2021 7:44:43 GMT
True, I just don’t want us to end up with some ridiculous sized ground. I look at teams who for some reason built massive grounds and there just never seems to be an atmosphere as it’s never full. Give me a few games a season where capacity can’t keep up with demand over that any day of the week. totally agree. 15k capacity with a decent number for away fans. take away the city games when we were in the second tier when did we get 5 figure home crowds who had trouble obtaining tickets. clubs like us and as previously mentioned barnsley end up with a certain number of fans once their side eventually setles down in a division. people never interested in football are not going to just start watching their local side and others who have watched other sides for years are not going to ditch their clubs. most of us have not ditched County even though they have gave us plenty of reasons to do so. |
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karl
Frequenter
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Post by karl on May 12, 2021 13:21:18 GMT
Edgeley Park is still listed as an asset of community value according to the coop so any purchase of EP presumably we'd hear about well in advance?
Not sure it makes sense for Stott to own EP outright though. Probably a deal to be done on other land in return for the development & ongoing maintenance of it.
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Post by Imposter on May 12, 2021 13:56:18 GMT
True, I just don’t want us to end up with some ridiculous sized ground. I look at teams who for some reason built massive grounds and there just never seems to be an atmosphere as it’s never full. Give me a few games a season where capacity can’t keep up with demand over that any day of the week. totally agree. 15k capacity with a decent number for away fans. take away the city games when we were in the second tier when did we get 5 figure home crowds who had trouble obtaining tickets. clubs like us and as previously mentioned barnsley end up with a certain number of fans once their side eventually setles down in a division. people never interested in football are not going to just start watching their local side and others who have watched other sides for years are not going to ditch their clubs. most of us have not ditched County even though they have gave us plenty of reasons to do so. That's a little short-term. If we get youngsters in particular and families in before the youngsters get a fixed footballing allegiance then they will come again and become ardent fans. As will some adults. There's plenty of people in Stockport and surrounds (Tameside, High Peak, North and East Cheshire, South Manchester etc...) to build a decent fanbase with a lot of hard and innovative work on and off pitch and some patience. In truth we've actually underperformed in that respect historically. |
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Post by m20hatter on May 12, 2021 14:25:37 GMT
totally agree. 15k capacity with a decent number for away fans. take away the city games when we were in the second tier when did we get 5 figure home crowds who had trouble obtaining tickets. clubs like us and as previously mentioned barnsley end up with a certain number of fans once their side eventually setles down in a division. people never interested in football are not going to just start watching their local side and others who have watched other sides for years are not going to ditch their clubs. most of us have not ditched County even though they have gave us plenty of reasons to do so. That's a little short-term. If we get youngsters in particular and families in before the youngsters get a fixed footballing allegiance then they will come again and become ardent fans. As will some adults. There's plenty of people in Stockport and surrounds (Tameside, High Peak, North and East Cheshire, South Manchester etc...) to build a decent fanbase with a lot of hard and innovative work on and off pitch and some patience. In truth we've actually underperformed in that respect historically. I’m not so sure. We wouldn’t be the first club to have a real push to try and win more fans and I’m not really sure there’s been too many success stories, regardless of how high up the divisions the club gets. We’ve been bordering playoffs at championship level and 15K would have easily been fine even then. Only way to get crowds up properly would be a reduction in prices IMO, but it’s a gamble i.e. the logic of having 5K fans @ £20 vs 10K @ £10. It’s boom or bust really as you then need the bums on seats. The one way I am ignoring is getting to the Prem… but can’t see that ever happening in my life time at least! |
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Post by gibbo on May 12, 2021 14:45:17 GMT
Only way to get crowds up properly would be a reduction in prices IMO, but it’s a gamble i.e. the logic of having 5K fans @ £20 vs 10K @ £10. It’s boom or bust really as you then need the bums on seats. We missed a big chance in 97/98 with the pricing structure IMO. More sensible pricing at that point could possibly have seen us push towards the 10,000 mark on a regular basis, but from memory it was more a consistent 7,000 with the 10 for the bigger (City) games. |
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Post by Imposter on May 12, 2021 15:37:11 GMT
That's a little short-term. If we get youngsters in particular and families in before the youngsters get a fixed footballing allegiance then they will come again and become ardent fans. As will some adults. There's plenty of people in Stockport and surrounds (Tameside, High Peak, North and East Cheshire, South Manchester etc...) to build a decent fanbase with a lot of hard and innovative work on and off pitch and some patience. In truth we've actually underperformed in that respect historically. I’m not so sure. We wouldn’t be the first club to have a real push to try and win more fans and I’m not really sure there’s been too many success stories, regardless of how high up the divisions the club gets. We’ve been bordering playoffs at championship level and 15K would have easily been fine even then. Only way to get crowds up properly would be a reduction in prices IMO, but it’s a gamble i.e. the logic of having 5K fans @ £20 vs 10K @ £10. It’s boom or bust really as you then need the bums on seats. The one way I am ignoring is getting to the Prem… but can’t see that ever happening in my life time at least! on the other hand look at what we started with in the 90s and what we ended up with in the 90s. Our base supporter base is now 2 or 3 times that. Imagine if we grow at the same rate. |
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Post by Durango95 on May 12, 2021 16:13:31 GMT
Get the ground up to around 18,000 proper growth but not too big. Daft that the biggest and best facilities are behind the goal and have been for so long.
Have a grand stand at the Pop Side with plenty of money making facilities, boxes, stuff on the outside and and something smaller but with a better setup
And facilities at the RE to follow, have that as the designated away end. But mainly get the ground up to date and into the modern era, done properly.
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Post by m20hatter on May 12, 2021 17:56:20 GMT
I’m not so sure. We wouldn’t be the first club to have a real push to try and win more fans and I’m not really sure there’s been too many success stories, regardless of how high up the divisions the club gets. We’ve been bordering playoffs at championship level and 15K would have easily been fine even then. Only way to get crowds up properly would be a reduction in prices IMO, but it’s a gamble i.e. the logic of having 5K fans @ £20 vs 10K @ £10. It’s boom or bust really as you then need the bums on seats. The one way I am ignoring is getting to the Prem… but can’t see that ever happening in my life time at least! on the other hand look at what we started with in the 90s and what we ended up with in the 90s. Our base supporter base is now 2 or 3 times that. Imagine if we grow at the same rate. Is that not just retained fans from that period though? I started going in the 90s not cos of the success, purely because of age and following in my family’s footsteps. But I know there was a lot of newly attracted fans in that period. I personally highly doubt we’ve attracted many “new” fans between now and then. I reckon most of it will be generational and will have also benefited from larger population/families. |
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Post by HTC on May 12, 2021 18:52:18 GMT
Tying into the HS2 thread, the big difference now is the general movement of people out of London / demographic change in Stockport.
People who were historically Spurs / Arsenal / Chelsea, and who move to Stockport / south Manchester and like watching live football are definitely a group we can tap into over the next few years.
They aren’t suddenly going to start supporting one of the evil twins up the road, but going along to their new local team, watching a few games, and slowly turning into County fans is very possible, particularly if the anger around corporate / ESL football remains.
Given the relative attractiveness of the areas, we are far better placed to take advantage of this demographic shift than most of the other Greater Manchester clubs - given the choice between Stockport or Rochdale, most will be choosing the former.
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Post by Imposter on May 12, 2021 21:08:56 GMT
on the other hand look at what we started with in the 90s and what we ended up with in the 90s. Our base supporter base is now 2 or 3 times that. Imagine if we grow at the same rate. Is that not just retained fans from that period though? I started going in the 90s not cos of the success, purely because of age and following in my family’s footsteps. But I know there was a lot of newly attracted fans in that period. I personally highly doubt we’ve attracted many “new” fans between now and then. I reckon most of it will be generational and will have also benefited from larger population/families. You're misunderstanding what I said. At the end of the 80s/very early 90s we were getting around 1800 home fans roughly by the late 90s that had ridden to 6000-7000. A rise of around 250-280%. This time round we're starting at a base rate of around 3k but two divisions lower. If we have a similar growth we'd be looking at 11,000-12,000 home fans. That's before you add in away fans, those on ticket initiatives, freebies, etc... On away fans, away fan numbers at the top end of League 1 and the Championship have risen massively in recent decades, remember playing teams in our Championship days like Forest who you'd expect to bring 2k-3k bringing less than 1k. I'd say for away fans you'd need a stand or space holding a minimum of 2k - and preferably 3 or 4 k. Add in kids ticket initiatives Which I like to think would be around 1k or more a match (let's keep the fanbase growing). Based on all that and the fact you don't want to reach a point where tickets are regularly hard/tricky to get as you still want the casual fan, then easy to see how a ground of 15k-20k may be needed. It'll take a lot of hard work, a buzz, marketing etc...on/off pitch, and some luck, and patience. But it's possible, and we have that potential to grow. |
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Post by Imposter on May 12, 2021 21:17:49 GMT
Tying into the HS2 thread, the big difference now is the general movement of people out of London / demographic change in Stockport. People who were historically Spurs / Arsenal / Chelsea, and who move to Stockport / south Manchester and like watching live football are definitely a group we can tap into over the next few years. They aren’t suddenly going to start supporting one of the evil twins up the road, but going along to their new local team, watching a few games, and slowly turning into County fans is very possible, particularly if the anger around corporate / ESL football remains. Given the relative attractiveness of the areas, we are far better placed to take advantage of this demographic shift than most of the other Greater Manchester clubs - given the choice between Stockport or Rochdale, most will be choosing the former. Very true. Also one of the reasons I think it's a good idea to market properly towards the university student population in Manchester. Whilst they're at University County are an "inoffensive" compared to the Mancs option. When they graduate many of them settle in South Manchester, Stockport, etc...from where we're easy to get to. When they have kids they might think back "I go to/used to go to the odd Stockport game, I'll take the kids there" And maybe Dad/Mum is a Spurs, Norwich, Newcastle, Forest, Argyle fan who adopted County as a 2nd team - but the kid(s) become home and away County First diehards. We need to do it properly though not half-arsed last time we tried when we were shit, it was depressing, and we said "a fiver to get in but only if you go in the open air seats in the Railway End, and no alcohol on sale in that stand". |
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Post by Bredburyhatter on May 12, 2021 21:32:26 GMT
Tying into the HS2 thread, the big difference now is the general movement of people out of London / demographic change in Stockport. People who were historically Spurs / Arsenal / Chelsea, and who move to Stockport / south Manchester and like watching live football are definitely a group we can tap into over the next few years. They aren’t suddenly going to start supporting one of the evil twins up the road, but going along to their new local team, watching a few games, and slowly turning into County fans is very possible, particularly if the anger around corporate / ESL football remains. Given the relative attractiveness of the areas, we are far better placed to take advantage of this demographic shift than most of the other Greater Manchester clubs - given the choice between Stockport or Rochdale, most will be choosing the former. We need to do it properly though not half-arsed last time we tried when we were shit, it was depressing, and we said "a fiver to get in but only if you go in the open air seats in the Railway End, and no alcohol on sale in that stand". Giving neutral/potential new fans a "County experience" by putting them in the uncovered Railway End with shite facilities was certainly embarrassing to say the least. |
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Post by tgttiw on May 12, 2021 21:46:15 GMT
We need to do it properly though not half-arsed last time we tried when we were shit, it was depressing, and we said "a fiver to get in but only if you go in the open air seats in the Railway End, and no alcohol on sale in that stand". Giving neutral/potential new fans a "County experience" by putting them in the uncovered Railway End with shite facilities was certainly embarrassing to say the least. OK I would ensure that kids tickets are affordable pocket money level. I started going in 95 as it was £3 for kids. My Sunday paper round paid that. £2 on the train and going to County was pocket money level for me. My dad and myself were Liverpool fans but not a regulars. I simply started going as I could rock up pay my £3 and get in. No planning like city or United just pay on the gate. That's got to be our usp compared to city and united. I'm not knocking the work the co op did in the pop side far from it, but if someone had a free ticket one week and saw it was pocket money level they might be back the next. Then after a couple of times you've got them. The way the ground is set up the upper ties tiers in the Cheadle get a good atmosphere. So what I'm saying is maintain a good entry level price like brendan did back in the 90s. |
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Post by Bredburyhatter on May 12, 2021 22:00:52 GMT
Giving neutral/potential new fans a "County experience" by putting them in the uncovered Railway End with shite facilities was certainly embarrassing to say the least. OK I would ensure that kids tickets are affordable pocket money level. I started going in 95 as it was £3 for kids. My Sunday paper round paid that. £2 on the train and going to County was pocket money level for me. My dad and myself were Liverpool fans but not a regulars. I simply started going as I could rock up pay my £3 and get in. No planning like city or United just pay on the gate. That's got to be our usp compared to city and united. I'm not knocking the work the co op did in the pop side far from it, but if someone had a free ticket one week and saw it was pocket money level they might be back the next. Then after a couple of times you've got them. The way the ground is set up the upper ties tiers in the Cheadle get a good atmosphere. So what I'm saying is maintain a good entry level price like brendan did back in the 90s. 26 years later(just to make you feel old) then its only £5 now for under 17s... Good value imo, and still pocket money. |
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Post by m20hatter on May 13, 2021 7:13:01 GMT
Giving neutral/potential new fans a "County experience" by putting them in the uncovered Railway End with shite facilities was certainly embarrassing to say the least. OK I would ensure that kids tickets are affordable pocket money level. I started going in 95 as it was £3 for kids. My Sunday paper round paid that. £2 on the train and going to County was pocket money level for me. My dad and myself were Liverpool fans but not a regulars. I simply started going as I could rock up pay my £3 and get in. No planning like city or United just pay on the gate. That's got to be our usp compared to city and united. I'm not knocking the work the co op did in the pop side far from it, but if someone had a free ticket one week and saw it was pocket money level they might be back the next. Then after a couple of times you've got them. The way the ground is set up the upper ties tiers in the Cheadle get a good atmosphere. So what I'm saying is maintain a good entry level price like brendan did back in the 90s. I’m pretty sure a season ticket for a kid at the time was £23. I certainly remember it being something ridiculous like a £1 a game & also our dad blagging we were kids for a couple more seasons than we probably should have done. |
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