Theyre not local might think you mean buy a butchers.
Agree - and there were times under the old regime when it cost a similar amount or sometimes even less to watch those teams play at a higher level: a self imposed cap on attendances. We have to be cheaper.
I’m sure it was said a few years ago prices here were pretty much the same as West Brom. And they were playing premier league at the time!
I went to watch them play Arsenal in early 2018 and think I only paid 25 quid for a ticket.
They’re up and down but generally always in the mix for promotion to the premier league so not sure what this club can market to people around Wednesbury to come here instead up to now with the minimal price difference.
Luton also done the non league thing to regalvanise their support. Bonser type owners gradually ran them into the ground and they went from championship to non league in three seasons which takes some doing.
Then new consortium with Nick Owen as the public figurehead. Took them a few years to escape non league but then they went back up the leagues very quickly. Also got a new stadium coming up right in the town centre opposite the train station so that will attract more interest.
Geordie hits the nail on the head. You can do all the special offers and marketing campaigns in the world but ultimately it comes down to what happens on the pitch and having one serious promotion challenge and cup run every decade isn’t very exciting at all so hopefully this year is the catalyst for more exciting seasons coming up.
I’d say Wycombe is a good template now. They have 5-6k crowd but been in championship recently and now having a brilliant go at getting automatic promotion up against Blues, Huddersfield and Wrexham. Spending some decent money on new signings so they’re far from a minnow at league one level now.
I can see a upturn in fan numbers over next few years, we have to remember the last 15 years we have been constantly playing relegation football. So why would the young or not so young now want to watch walsall. As they have been bored senseless and let be honest so was most of us on this group. Not long ago all i read was how many season ticket holders were not returning. We do need a good run of seasons to get some fans back in the ground, from a personal note would live to see this club spend a little on players instead of wandering how long before the players we start to love get recalled to parent clubs. Like lowe ok what a player and we cannot afford a player of his quality but already heard a conversation about walsall selling several of there best asset, which i hope isnt true, otherwise forget getting new fans. Come on walsall nows the time to show a bit of money on the playing side.
Discussed this in a thread a month or two back.
The international weekend rearrangements and TV deal have increased the non-Saturday 3pm games.
I’ve said before I don’t think the audience at a Walsall FC really truly represents the fine people of the borough of Walsall, it’s still very white, male and middle aged.
We should do more to try and engage with other communities, I think there are some old preconceptions amongst those communities that they are not welcome, which may have been the case 30-40 years ago but not now. There is still plenty of untapped potential for me to be able to add another 30%+ to the size of our audiences, success on the pitch will be the ultimate catalyst but there are certainly other things we can do to try and engage with the people of the town who are not represented at our games.
I don’t know what age the school tickets are targeting, but I think if it’s under 11’s then we’re missing the ideal target audience. 7-9 year olds are just interested in eating the sweets alongside their dads. What we need to attract with their mates are the 12 to 15 year olds who can shout and get involved with the atmosphere and go back to school and tell their other mates how great it was.
This age group is absolutely pivotal to growing a fanbase imo and we have totally neglected it for as long as I can remember.
It’s lovely being a family club but it only takes you so far. From the age of 12 onwards I wanted to attend games wjth my mates and call the ref a w*****r without the threat of a clip round the ear
If we did all the little things we could to help ourselves combined with success on the pitch there is absolutely no reason we shouldnt be sitting pretty in the mid region of the league 1 average attendances
I echo the sentiments of others, this has been a cracking thread. I think the belief that we now have owners that will do something has got many additional fans thinking about improvements, rather than just knowing we could makes suggestions until the cows came home under past regimes, and would be treated with utter contempt
Anyone know the discount you get on match day tickets for membership.
Anyone think family tickets would work? £22 Adult and under 18. Or perhaps an under 18 group concession, you’ll bring more mates if it’s cheaper to get them in together.
Would these 12 to 15 year-olds come with their mates rather than their dads? The club might be a bit nervous about giving free/cheap tickets to hundreds of unsupervised local adolescents.
Crewho don’t seem to mind even if they do end up on their backsides at the end of the game.
Stick them next to the away fans in the family stand liven Bescot up a bit
I’m sure the club do an in-depth analysis on special offers,like who returns after receiving a free ticket etc.
They do now I doubt very much whether there was much data reviewing done previously. There was no growth mentality at the club. Fans were an inconvenience, especially those with opinions!
Most clubs do cater for ‘young adults’ and have a specific discount ticket. At Birmingham City 16 - 24 year olds can go to a game for £20. Adult tickets are £32.50 and junior tickets are £17
Membership advance tickets are £1 cheaper than standard advance tickets which are £2 cheaper than matchday tickets.
So £3 cheaper for members and £2 cheaper for anyone else, than buying on the day.
It appears there is no discount for members on matchday itself, only if you buy in advance.
It’s also worth noting that advance tickets have to be bought 48 hours in advance. It used to be the day before matchday, not sure when this changed.
Dunno why we are worrying about this so much tbh our fanbase is what it is it may grow slightly (championship seasons in the early 2000s) but we will never fill the ground on a regular basis thats just us and has been for about 40 years now at least.
Continuous improvement isn’t something to avoid. More supporters means we can compete financially higher in the league pyramid.
If we address this now when we’re doing well we could capture new fans for the future. No harm in trying so why not.
I hope this isn’t Trivela’s attitude! Just because something hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen in the future. Besides, things are improving. We’ve had just 21 league turnouts of over 6,000 home fans since 2006…but 10 of those have been in the last 3 seasons.
This season is a golden opportunity for Trivela to capitalise on the success of the team and what they do for the ‘early bird’ could be make or break. I’d love to see a staggered pricing structure based on how many we sell - go bold and target 6,000 season ticket holders - if we hit the target we get rewarded with greatly reduced pricing.