I used to go away a lot mid to late 80’s and I would say 300+ a game as an average. Although I didn’t do the long trips.
You can’t argue with average figures lol. I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but we used to be top, or near the top of the % of home gate that travels - we are now near the bottom of the whole football league. That is not a gradual loss of a 100 or so…its a huge, huge drop. It’s a generation or more of fans that have stopped travelling.
Northampton last year was a case in point. A traditional, localish game; a game that always got the adrenaline flowing as a Walsall fan no matter how we were doing. Even struggling in Division 4 there were 1000 Saddlers there. Last season we didn’t even top 400. Before the Scott & Dann debacle it was very rare there would be less than 200-300 Saddlers at an away game, any time, anywhere - as PT has correctly said - it was even more in the 80’s.
For any fan from the 80’s or 90’s, 124 on a Saturday is hard to believe. Does anyone remember singing “is that all you take away” every Saturday at Barnet, Colchester, Darlington or Wigan’s 100 or so battle hardened coach load of fans - now thats us! Its heart breaking.
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First time I went to Gillingham was 1975 as a 14 year old. Even then we took 4-5 coaches.
Remember a bunch of us getting ambushed outside waiting for the ground to open. The adults were in the pub.
Club is dying. End of.
We are losing fans every week. I used to go with about 30 friends and family, at our last game it was down to 3.
I remember going on Royston’s travel in the 90’s , there was always two coaches from him and a couple from the club…
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Stevenage took 45 to morecambe so that can’t be right
Here’s some footage from Carlisle away in 1992. Us lot are to the left of the yellow fence opposite the camera.
The previous four seasons we had finished bottom of the second tier, then bottom of the third tier then 17th in the fourth tier then 17th in the fourth tier. I think this was the first away game of the 92/93 season.
I’d say 450 of us there watching a very bizarre/exciting game. As an aside, I love the way the players just run past Wayne Clarke after he gets our first. Don’t think he was too popular with his team-mates.
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I’m not really arguing about 90s or early parts of 00s as there was at least hope back then, cheaper ticket prices, more feeling of connection etc.
Just feel things have remained pretty stagnant last decade and if there is data somewhere not sure aways would differ so much to 07/08 and 08/09.
Now home attendances declining is something we can all agree on and that will obviously be flagged up tomorrow night.
BTW @P.T
Sure this article will be of interest to you as it’s word for word the points you’ve been making
Not published last season or the year before…but May 2010!
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Cheers HQ.
So nearly 9 years later the same issues still rumble on and Boner is now sitting on a bigger pile than then.
Clearly Hutchings didn’t get it either.
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When I first started going away in 06/07 we had some fantastic followings. Chester on a Friday, Wrexham, Notts County, Torquay, Swindon, Hereford etc (helped by us winning the league) but even in subsequent seasons we seemed to be better supported on the road than we are now.
I was there yesterday and it was incredibly flat even after we had a 3-0 lead. Something’s not right.
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We are never going to entice kids from other local towns and city’s to support Walsall fc. What we can do is get the youngsters from Walsall who are born and bred to the games and the only way to do that is better advertising around the town and initiatives . KIDS GO FREE ( take a hit for the future of our club ) . This might also bring a few of the stay aways back who now have kids . Everyone’s a winner.
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I can’t remember a time where I’ve seen Gillingham bring as few to our place as we took to theirs yesterday on a Saturday at any time of the year. Needless to say, it’s exactly the same distance and exactly the same perennially ‘unattractive’ fixture. They’re a similarly sized club to us too, so that speaks volumes. In fact, I think they’re actually quite poorly supported considering they’re the only Football League club in the whole of Kent. We’ve got 4 other more successful clubs in the same region.
The way I see it we should be hoovering up disillusioned top flight fans - those who have been priced out of supporting teams miles away from them for glory and instead want the traditional football experience at a reasonable price. As you mentioned in another post @P.T, we contrive to be in a situation where we’re offering League Two football at Championship prices in a venue that was last fit for purpose in 2002.
£15, cash on the gate, unreserved standing. ‘Radical’, I know, but we have to have a USP. Northampton last season it was £5 and we had about 7,000 home fans there. Your move WFC.
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Excuse my intelligence but what does USP stand for 
Unique selling point 
I was one of around 100 travelling saddlers at Crawley in 2014 when we missed around 30 chances to lose 1-0 to a last minute free kick and drop to bottom of League on as the calls for Smiths head reached a crescendo.
I genuinely don’t believe the ticket prices come into to , it certainly doesn’t seem to effect the other teams in the area.
For me I now find it very difficult to build a connection with the team. The continuous flow of journey men or basement bargain signings means I l always turn up with a negative mind frame on a match day.
Use the 15/16 team as an example , we had some real quality in that side which meant the fans bought into it and built a connection with the players … we also had some very healthy away followings that season averaging around 800 .
In the end of the day it’s the product (Football) that sells , not the ground , not the pies and not the beer.
P.s the ground was still crap in 15/16 but I can’t ever remember it being mentioned.
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I don’t think we are much worse off than ‘normal’ for the last 10 years or so at the moment. 2009-2011 our home and away attendances were far worse than now but if we carry on with no success on the pitch or fresh impetus off it then we will be back there before long.
Home average (Away average)
07/08 4828 (562)
08/09 3808 (349)
09/10 3336 (233)
10/11 3310 (319)
11/12 3644 (351)
12/13 3653 (469)
13/14 4012 (503)
14/15 3742 (384)
15/16 4660 (807)
16/17 4235 (444)
17/18 3951 (383)
18/19 4009 (328) so far with Coventry, Burton and Shrewsbury away to come.
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Interesting figures there. So far our average home attendance is just 600 down compared to 15/16 when we were playing some super stuff, had some really good players and a decent Manager. Shows the mountain we have to climb to get people to come and watch us these days. We have started to offer longer contracts so that should help but we also need as others have said a ticketing policy that encourages youngsters to our games as well as the casual fan. I hope those that go to the meeting tonight really push the point home. I was going but now cannot much to my regret.
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Some really poor figures. Even our promotion attempt in 15/16 had some ■■■■ poor followings, lets not forget that the figure is propped up by 3k going to Port Vale on the final day. Just looking on this thread, 100 at Crawley, 114 & 124 at Gills. Let’s not also forget that during these years football became a commercial monster, with all of our rivals bypassing us while we seem to have regressed.
Do you have the figures prior to 07/08? This is where the drop off occurred and we have never recovered?
I can see the 18/19 home figure nose-diving for the remainder of the season. It’s hard looking at those figures in the knowledge that even Wrexham, Leyton Orient and Tranmere last year in the National League attract substantially more home fans than us!
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