Just to add, just looked some figures up to compare cost of football (and associated costs) v wages.
in 1986 the average wage was circa 10k per annum, now 27k. So that’s a multiplier of 2.7.
Apply that to average cost of getting in to watch Walsall… £1 (adult standing student or DHSS) £2 adult standing-£3.50 Main stand would now be £2.70, £5.40, £9.45.
Program 50p would now be £1.35.
Beer 65p a pint £1.75 now.
Edit: Just to tie that in with the thread about the “walk-up” experience. Back in the day an average bod - part-time Saddlers fan, on a budget with his Saturday afternoon play-time money (say the modern day equivalent of £15-20) could have quite happily jumped on a football special from almost anywhere in the borough and rolled up at 2.30 with enough wriggle room for admission, program, pie and a few beers before being conveniently dropped back by another football special, with money left over.
Skip to this generation, the same budget sees you enough cash for a few beers in a back street boozer or a Wetherspoons. No football specials, a pain in the bum getting in (even if you could stretch to the admission cost) etc etc. So the demographic that would typically make up the large swings in attendances when things were “on the up|” back in those days, simply isn’t tapped into in this day and age.
The Bonser effect might account for a few, but I reckon the above factors are more likely preventing casual fans attending.
Think that’s spot on - but also think the fact that it can cost the same if not more than it does to watch one of our neighbours in a higher division is absolutely ridiculous. It makes it nigh impossible to attract new fans.
I think the club should do some proactive research to talk to “smaller” clubs who have had success in bolstering their regular attendance figs and see if they’ve done anything specific to boost numbers through the turnstiles.
Notts County (6k last weekend whilst 92nd in the league) and 17k turned up for s match last year on the £1 promo. Lincoln City are getting 9k to 10k regularly and there will be others.
As has been said in recent history even our 2003-04 team attracted 6k to 7k home fans. In that position comparable clubs, Brentford and Bournemouth were pulling in 10k and Brentford have a number of bigger clubs in their catchment, like us.
I completely agree Geordie. Our far poorer away attendances can also be accounted for by the same method. For three or four years in the late eighties I would go everywhere on the coach. We’d take a minimum of four coaches everywhere, often more and sometimes many more (remember Roper Park in 1988, we took about 15 coaches).
The coach prices were flat I.e no concessions but still really cheap. A local trip (e.g Vale), £2.50, a bit further (Bristol say), £3.20, London £4.50, Gillingham £5 and that Sunderland game the most expensive at £6. It would cost no more than £2 to get in anywhere and often was cheaper for “kids” (I was at an age of playing fast and loose with my age at that point. I would go from being 18 at 2 o’clock to 15 by 3 o’clock. Magic). I remember going to Bristol City and having change from a fiver.
According to the Bank of England inflation calculator in 2018 that would equate to getting change from a tenner for a trip to Vale, £11.50 for Bristol and even Sunderland giving you change enough for a pint from £20. So watching Walsall home and away in the late 80’s was by no means an extravagance. By way of a comparison the £43 Barnsley would have cost for coach and entry last week would have been nearly £20 in 1988. Now that would have been extravagant!!
I think all this marks the demograph shift that football tried to manufacture post 1990. And it did it quite well. Subtly leaving behind it’s working class roots and working its way into the hearts and wallets of the middle class. Villa turning its attention from Lozzells, Washwood Heath and Erdington towards Sutton, Aldridge and Streetly. It worked well. It all got a bit less rough, sweary and drunk. Tory politicians declaring their love of the game. Literally a “whole new ball game” as the Sky people told us.
But it kind of past us by. The posh bits on the wings of the borough went either claret and blue or gold and black. Brands far more in line with the badges they aspired to on their motors than “ Walsall” - the Skoda of West Midlands football. Our ground move at that time - it’s still not “us” and it definitely isn’t “ours”. Like the working class folk who were shipped out of their homes in the “slums” and then finding themselves on the fifteenth floor of a tower block and being told to enjoy the “progress”. Give me those breeze block bogs and give me the heart and soul of “our” Fellows Park over the breeze block house we’re forced to rent.
We’re a blue collar club. Always have been. Always will be. Football found a new audience with deeper pockets. In my opinion it made it worse. Walsall could never ride that wave. We’re never going to be fashionable. If we’re going to grow our fan base we need to reconnect properly with the communities of Walsall and make it accessible and affordable for them. A good start would be the current custodian of the club evoking the spirit of H L Fellows and gifting the town a football ground. Throwing that gift away was a wrong that will never be righted but maybe partly compensated for.
If we’re going to grow our fan base we need to reconnect properly with the communities of Walsall and make it accessible and affordable for them.
I agree with your post but feel the demographic of Walsall has changed a hell of a lot over the past 30 or more years and a huge part of the Walsall population aren’t interested in football, especially 3rd tier English football.
It’s a huge shame, I live in Chesterfield now and struggle to get to home matches but as soon as my two year old son is old enough we will be back at Walsall. There’s no way he’s supporting the Spireites or the Blunts like most do around here (not as if playing Dover is appealing at the moment anyway). He was born in Walsall and I’ll make sure he has a connection with the club.
On a side note I reckon Chesterfield are matching or bettering our attendances in the National League. Historically they are a third tier club with less time in the 2nd tier as ourselves but they were getting bigger attendances than us in League One a few seasons ago. I can only put that down to less competition up here, I see a very small amount of Sheffield Utd or Wednesday shirts but see a lot of kids wearing Chesterfield tops around the streets even though they’re in the 5th tier. I can’t remember the last time I saw a kid wearing a Walsall shirt around Walsall, it’s almost seen as an embarrassment. It’s just the way it is but I’m proud to drive around here with the Walsall badge on the back of my car, we’re Premier League at the moment compared to this lot if they don’t get a grip on the National League this season they could be joining Stockport and Hereford facing the likes of Spennymore Town and Curzon Ashton, how deperessing.
Sad thing is if we were playing the likes of Spennymore or Curzon we would not be pulling attendances of 3k+ like Stockport do despite being in similar location.
Clubs like Stockport, Hereford seem to have become are part of their communities where as despite some attempts by the club to get involved we have failed to achieve the same. How many season have Wrexham been outside the EFL yet they still get 5k + regularly to games.
I don’t know what the solution is but it seems sometimes the club made a success of the commercial side of Bescot by neglecting the essence of the footballing side and it’s roots.
Their is a strong local pride in being from the black country in many of us , christ I haven’t lived in the black country for 45+ years yet it is still part of who I am. Market ourselves to the community as being there club, give discounts to locals to get them to come along, get the football specials back at a buck ago, link into black country day, get the local schools down to the training ground to train and practice with the lads a couple of hrs a week, get the senior pros out and about, do something to make coming to supporting Walsall unique .
The rest of football, as someone pointed out went middle class and we tried to follow suit and failed, we need to make ourselves the pride of the black country by being ingrained in the community, by making it a community responsibility to go along on a Saturday without breaking the wallet of the community.
Problem is for the club however much desire there is 4000 @ 24. Pounds is more than 6000 @ 15 pounds
I think the club should add some student options for season tickets at least, some of my mates pay a lot less for their season tickets at the baggies and dingles than I do for mine simply because they offer good student discounts. There’s so many colleges and universities locally that surely it would pull in some numbers?
If there are no special offers on for the match next week it is quite possible that we’ll get a sub 4,000 crowd for the visit of Accy, given they’ll probably bring less than a couple of hundred with them.
Something is wrong somewhere. If Doncaster can attract 7.5k and Tranmere 6k, we should be able to do similar, especially after a good start.
Part of me wonders if it’s not to a issue with the region as a whole. Villa and Birmingham currently attract about 55k between them. For a city of 1 million people that’s not great, especially when you consider Newcastle and Sunderland bring in a combined 82k, and one of them is in League One!
The Dingles are flying high, but only have space for 30k, while the Baggies bring in 23k. This is a football mad region, but across the board, I think the crowds could be higher considering the population.
but you all know what I meant 
if they don’t get a grip on the National League this season they could be joining Stockport and Hereford facing the likes of Spennymore Town and Curzon Ashton, how deperessing.