2,010 for 2010

[brandon]

i cant regularly go 2 saturday games anymore because of local 2pm kick offs, they need 2 be earlier, i bet there would be many more there if it was to happen

[Always Ultra]

That would work if we didn't train in Salford. This is one of the down sides of our training model at present.

If you can pinpoint an equally good facility in Barrow I'm sure the lads would happily train there (CLUE: There are no decent sporting facilities in Barrow).

-

As for ways of drumming up attendance, I always thought the Radiohead model of 'Pay what you want' was something that could be transplanted onto football. Its interesting that Mansfield did it with massive success this weekend. People payed from 3p to £50 and they actually drew a much bigger gate financially and got double the regular number of people through the turnstiles.

Another issue is exposure. Where do you ever see the club's next fixture advertised properly? No-one reads the Mail.

I live in Lancaster now and even the, relatively tiny, club here have a sizeable billboard on the main road, which happens to be near the train station, that has the next opponent and ticket price on it. Morecambe have a similar thing on the main route into Lancaster too. I've never seen Barrow's equivalent, if it exists. How expensive is a big lump of wood with writing on it?

The, albeit, bigger than Barrow, Morecambe even rented out an entire bus to advertise on when they played Carlisle in the cup. It had pics of the players and the Eric Morecambe statue on it etc. etc. and drove around Morecambe and Lancaster for awhile before the game.

Is Barrow's official website ever even plugged anywhere? Is it advertised in the ground? That's a good way of giving people something AFC related to do straight after leaving Holker Street. The tannoy dude should be telling people not to forget to go to AFC's site and social networking pages (if they exist) to read about/comment on the match they've just seen. That would trap people in a little bit. Or am I too new fashioned?

[Lancaster Branch]

I live in Lancaster now and even the, relatively tiny, club here have a sizeable billboard on the main road, which happens to be near the train station

You sure about that?

They do have the ones on the one way system though, as do the other lot, which must be seen by umpteen thousand people every day. Not sure what the Barrow equivalent would be?

[Zak]

The, albeit, bigger than Barrow, Morecambe

Give over.

[blueballs]

we have a one way system too !!

[mickmike wilson]

This is an article lifted from the site- "The Political Economy of Football". The last paragraph hits home. Yes ticket deals are great and we need to bring new fans in but we also need those fans coming in at a price that is going to balance the books. The seriousness of this cannot be underestimated. We will not reach the 3rd round of the FA cup every year and to sustain our position in BSP we need to break even with the gates. - Article reads-
"However, non-league clubs defeated in the 3rd round have benefitted from their cup run. York normally lose £300,000 a year and received a £150,000 boost from their trip to Stoke City. Luton's trip to Southampton earned them about £150,000 which will be used to reduce budgeted losses. Barrow made £200,000 from this year's cup run. However, the club's regular attendance of 1,000 - 1,300 at home games is not really enough to support Conference football, let alone promotion to the Football League. 1,600 - 1,700 is needed for the club to break even, but they are aiming at an average of 2,010 for the remaining games of the season to help them financially"
http://www.footballeconomy.com/

Our Attendances are good when you consider that yesterday we were the 4th best supported fixture in our league, with TEN lesser supported fixtures, thats right (( 10 )) less supported fixtures ( some of them had less than 500 ffs)
E Boro hosted Wrexham who were on a winning streak and would have took a fair few, Same as title chasing York visiting Kettering,they are well supported away from home, Both CUFC & S Boro had fairly shot journeys and would have took a lot of support also, yet all of these fixtures all had less than we had.

With ONE home league win since mid October the long suffering 1277 home fans want applauding into the ground by the BoDs. Were still in a building period, keeping a workable budget, Stay up and push on next season

[philmac]

This is an article lifted from the site- "The Political Economy of Football". The last paragraph hits home. Yes ticket deals are great and we need to bring new fans in but we also need those fans coming in at a price that is going to balance the books. The seriousness of this cannot be underestimated. We will not reach the 3rd round of the FA cup every year and to sustain our position in BSP we need to break even with the gates. - Article reads-
"However, non-league clubs defeated in the 3rd round have benefitted from their cup run. York normally lose £300,000 a year and received a £150,000 boost from their trip to Stoke City. Luton's trip to Southampton earned them about £150,000 which will be used to reduce budgeted losses. Barrow made £200,000 from this year's cup run. However, the club's regular attendance of 1,000 - 1,300 at home games is not really enough to support Conference football, let alone promotion to the Football League. 1,600 - 1,700 is needed for the club to break even, but they are aiming at an average of 2,010 for the remaining games of the season to help them financially"
http://www.footballeconomy.com/

Our Attendances are good when you consider that yesterday we were the 4th best supported fixture in our league, with TEN lesser supported fixtures, thats right (( 10 )) less supported fixtures ( some of them had less than 500 ffs)
E Boro hosted Wrexham who were on a winning streak and would have took a fair few, Same as title chasing York visiting Kettering,they are well supported away from home, Both CUFC & S Boro had fairly shot journeys and would have took a lot of support also, yet all of these fixtures all had less than we had.

With ONE home league win since mid October the long suffering 1277 home fans want applauding into the ground by the BoDs. Were still in a building period, keeping a workable budget, Stay up and push on next season

Good post, Mike.
The BoD should be applauding those in attandance rather than setting ridiculously high targets and when we don't achieve this figure, then what........criticism, perhaps.

[watfordfc]

there a number of reason why barrow dont get high gates but the main to reason for me is the ticket prices and standed of football on offer at the moment.

the reason behind me saying ticket prices is because i feel £13 is alot of money one reason why i dont go to many home games. i understand like every club in england they have to set prices high so they can keep running as a buisness and make money but the other night like barrow watford have been finding it hard getting people though the gate ( we do have the likes of aresnal,spurs,chelsea around us) so watford lowered there ticket prices to £14 adult and £9 for u16 and it worked as they got 14000 though the gate for a midweek game i cant see why barrow can not do this for one or two games and see if it makes any different.

also another main reason behind the low gates is how the team perform if they play well one week then the gate number will go up a little play bad it will go down i think it will allways be like for barrow.

at the end of the day i dont think barrow will hit the 2000 mark just because where they are in the league and how there playing at the moment.

[donny bluebird]

You really don't go to home games becasue £13 is too much???

[Richard Ingham]

The, albeit, bigger than Barrow, Morecambe even rented out an entire bus to advertise on when they played Carlisle in the cup. It had pics of the players and the Eric Morecambe statue on it etc. etc. and drove around Morecambe and Lancaster for awhile before the game.

I thought the fans paid for that?

[ant]

The town' needs to decide whether or not it wants to support its team back into the Football League or stay sat on its collective arse watching Soccer Saturday and having a 'day out' once every blue moon.

I feel that it's probably the latter, and is likely to remain so until facilities are improved at Holker Street. Whilst the die-hard supporters may be prepared to put up with uncovered terraces and toilet facilities that were primitive when the ground was built and haven't been improved since, casuals will expect something better - perhaps not on a par with the Riverside or the Stadium of Light but something more than a roof on one side and a wall to have a leak against.

Also, with the inexorable move towards all-seater stadia - or even grounds with a higher seat-to-terrace ratio than before - the club probably needs to consider whether the existing stand is big enough for future requirements ( I say this as someone who far prefers to spend 90 minutes upright than sat on my backside).

Unfortunately, its a Catch-22 situation; without the extra income we can't improve facilities, and without the improved facilities we won't attract casual supporters. Perhaps the feasibility study will highlight areas where cost-effective improvements can be made - we shall wait and see.

It's worth noting, though, that even in Football League days, we were one of the poorest supported clubs.

Lots of good points.

[watfordfc]

You really don't go to home games becasue £13 is too much???

if you read it right i said it one of main reason why i dont go plus i work saturdays and enjoy away games more.

im speaking not just for myself but other friends of mine who dont go because of the price. some people are not made of money and i think all football clubs forget that times are tough at the moment. also i could watch championship football for £13. i could probs watch premiership football for £15 a ticket i know bolton and a couple of other teams use to do pretty cheap tickets (not sure if they still do)

[ant]

Always advocated the theory that AFC should drop prices drasticaly for one or two matches in a season and see what happens.(always a way around this)Was disapointed we fans were never given a next to nothing entrance goodwill gesture by the club in one of our latter home games of last season to show goodwill after a tough season of watching what has to be regarded as a bit dross on the pitch.Works both ways and im sure money from cup runs would have been a worthy and available op to have rewarded fans. If for no other reason then to just see what difference gate would be.

[donny bluebird]

So do you think there are a lot of fans who don't go because of the cost?
I find it difficult to believe - over the last 20 years I reckon our average attendance is probably 1200 so I can't see that lowering our prices will suddenly make more fans appear.
Yes, we may seem expensive when compared to Bolton, Blackburn etc but in our league our prices are fairly cheap.
At the end of the day I don't think £13 is too much to ask to watch the top tier of non-league football. We could all pay a pound, increase attendances by 1000 and be out of business in 6 months. I think the BOD have it just about right.

[Optimism]

That would work if we didn't train in Salford. This is one of the down sides of our training model at present.

If you can pinpoint an equally good facility in Barrow I'm sure the lads would happily train there (CLUE: There are no decent sporting facilities in Barrow).

-

As for ways of drumming up attendance, I always thought the Radiohead model of 'Pay what you want' was something that could be transplanted onto football. Its interesting that Mansfield did it with massive success this weekend. People payed from 3p to £50 and they actually drew a much bigger gate financially and got double the regular number of people through the turnstiles.

Another issue is exposure. Where do you ever see the club's next fixture advertised properly? No-one reads the Mail.

I live in Lancaster now and even the, relatively tiny, club here have a sizeable billboard on the main road, which happens to be near the train station, that has the next opponent and ticket price on it. Morecambe have a similar thing on the main route into Lancaster too. I've never seen Barrow's equivalent, if it exists. How expensive is a big lump of wood with writing on it?

The, albeit, bigger than Barrow, Morecambe even rented out an entire bus to advertise on when they played Carlisle in the cup. It had pics of the players and the Eric Morecambe statue on it etc. etc. and drove around Morecambe and Lancaster for awhile before the game.

Is Barrow's official website ever even plugged anywhere? Is it advertised in the ground? That's a good way of giving people something AFC related to do straight after leaving Holker Street. The tannoy dude should be telling people not to forget to go to AFC's site and social networking pages (if they exist) to read about/comment on the match they've just seen. That would trap people in a little bit. Or am I too new fashioned?

Some good, thoughtful suggestions, Always.

Barrow Raiders have a promotional billboard outside their ground which they're much better at updating these days. It's right outside the ground, in a central location, prominent to folks in cars that are slowing at a roundabout and set of traffic lights. I wonder how much this sways floaters and people in the centre of town on matchday to attend? As well as a well-sited board in Barrow, would it be an option for us to site billboards in fields alongside the A590 to grab the odd fan from further round the peninsula?

Recently, we've seen many times over how ideas spread across social networking sites can spread rapidly, reaching the young and newer-media savvy. I congratulate the admins of a Barrow AFC-themed Facebook group who regularly remind/'invite' its members to the next home game. Would it be feasible for Barrow AFC to set up and run an official page, with links to video etc? For many, these networking sites are often the first page accessed, and for some, the only online place visited regularly.