Barrow AFC.net

Ralph wrote:

Perhaps they could ask those who attend the forum if they are aware of people who used to watch Barrow, and no longer go, and if they know why? And, or, could they be put in touch with them, so they can ask them?

Thanks for the suggestion Ralph, do you know of anyone who used to watch Barrow and now no longer go? This could be very helpful in our research and we would be very grateful if you could put us in touch with any of them.

Bombadel wrote:

PRR wrote:I guess to understand why people don't go you first have to understand why people do go?

hmmm deep man, deeeeeppppp.

Surely its all to do with upbringing, growing up in the town, at school most people picked a top team to support and banter was and is a big part, maybe that's why buses leave the town every weekend as Cassen stated, I personally go to Barrow because you cant beat a live match and a live crowd, and i have a lot of hope for Barrow playing in the 2nd division (Carlisle (if the to**ers don't get promoted that is), Blackpool, Morecambe away would be great). But take a Monday morning at work,in the yard for example its, liverpool, city and united fans, loyalties that go back a lot of years and rivalries at work that are formed by only supporting a premier league club.

I know people (including myself, at one time) who attend matches at Holker Street AND who also attend games at Old Trafford, Anfield etc etc. There's many Barrow AFC fans who ALSO follow Premier League clubs. In fact, I'd say MOST. I think you'll find that in other parts of the country too, not just here in Barrow.

Bugger all to do at the clubhouse.

The club aren't proactive enough with different ticket offers, either publicising or targeting groups or games. (Although it is better than it has been, which was abysmal previously)

It needs to be sold as something real life and connected to the area..as an antidote or alternative to the Premiership

Some facilities need to be improved so those that prefer the sit down, non swearing alternative have better areas to go to

Stewards and Police need to steward and police rather than immediately ban people, and certainly not for swearing.. it's ridiculous! There has to be areas where people can jump around, go nuts, shout, swear and wind up the opposition fans without being filmed, banned and demonised (and no I don't mean we just let them throw stuff and fight)

So different areas for different types of fans so we can self select

Better opportunities and reasons to spend longer before and after at the club

LancasterUniversity wrote:Hi guys,

We are the Lancaster University students who have been commissioned by Barrow to carry out market research. We have a couple of research objectives. Firstly, we want to increase ticket sales at Barrow. To do this, we want to find out what is stopping fans attending home matches, what people think of the brand of Barrow and what is the awareness of Barrow in the surrounding areas.

We cannot successfully conduct this research without the fans help! We would really appreciate if you would engage with us and attend such opportunities for Feedback such as the focus group before the Forest Green game on Saturday 28th January. Any data that we receive will remain anonymous and will not be able to be traced back to any person. Once we have acquired all our data, we will compile it and present it back to Barrow, from this we can suggest improvements and progress can be made. But we can't do it without you! Please do not hesitate to ask any questions as we will happily answer them!

Lancaster university students,
Adrian, Harry, Ollie, Michael and Nathan

I believe the current problem - regarding attendances at Holker Street - which seems to be the underlying objective of Lan Uni - could be related to the deflation of 'optimism' in the town.

When Paul Casson introduced his five year plan at the Forum presentation, the venue was buzzing! And in Barrow, many more people began to take an interest in the club, ranging from ex fans from our old Football League days to young newbies - becoming excited at the prospect of MONEY (always a sexy 'tool') being brought into the club and the prospect of a brand new stadium being built... etc etc.

THAT Optimism has now been firmly 'diluted'.

We now have a team challenging for honours, with a good manager in charge. However, the stadium and the facilities leave a LOT to be desired. Watching Lincoln City last night impressed upon me how far we are behind when it comes to 'Presenting' a football match.

All of us on here would probably go to games even if they were played on the The Park.
However, it's not US that the club are trying to attract.

Lancaster Uni mention 'Brand' in their post. Urrhhh! What a term to describe our beloved game.
However, it is a FACT of life in today's game.
And Branding is related to Advertising.
Having worked in the field of Advertising I know that GOOD Advertising doesn't come cheap! BUT it pays off...in the end.

Instead of paying (if they are) to research the thoughts and feelings of an already CAPTIVE audience - ie US.
Barrow AFC might be better off: Paying good money for good advertising.

ie
1) RADIO air-play (Morecambe do it - as do most clubs).
2) Football Specials (buses to transport fans to Holker Street) - could also be used as Mobile Advertising around the town.
3) Billboards - all over the town - with match day posters (we used to see them when we were in Div3/4).
etc
etc
etc

AS I say...GOOD ADVERTISING doesn't come cheap. BUT it might pay off!
+ a new stadium.


p.s. Good Luck with your research, guys!

Thank you so much guys, this is the kind of stuff that we need to be told. This has helped identify key areas in which we can improve. Ticketing, facilities, separate areas for different fans, advertising. Also another issue that we need to look into is the threat of the Premiership and how we can counter this.

We will use much of this information to base our focus groups on and we cannot stress enough how useful this in-depth form of data collection would be, so please sign up! We will also be releasing a more in-depth survey where we can try to further address some of these issues.

Thank you so much for all your contributions and in the meantime please keep them coming!

To understand what is stopping football fans attending Barrow matches you surely have to ask the fans who don't go to Barrow matches.

There will.be 900 or so here no matter what happens! I think you need to get out into the local town centres at 14:00 on a Saturday to ask why they don't go to the football it would be a start, then the pubs and clubs with the big TVs showing the big premiership games.

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Just some of the things discussed on here in fairly recent times. We usually go off topic after a few posts.

I think Hoss did a bit of an unofficial survey a few years back (I contributed to it) if you ask him verrrry nicely he might have it tucked away with his "Jezza for PM" leaflets and be willing to share it with you.
From what I remember of it, it would've had similar answers to what you are asking supporters/ex supporters/non supporters for.

I will indeed look out those details and forward it if I still have them. May be interesting to see if anything has changed opinion-wise.

As if by magic...here is the summary e-mail (from October 2011) I sent into Martin. In case you don't get to the end, I will also say I still (STILL) think it is very short-sighted of the club not to have already implemented a loyalty scheme for unbroken seasons of buying a Season Ticket. That suggestion went into Martin, then Tony Keen, and then Emma. I think only Martin ever bothered even responding to say that he had gotten it. It's a bit poor that many of the concerns back then are still, or more, relevant now.
Anyway...


Martin, I don't have Tony Keen's e-mail address but he told me he would be interested in the results of this mini-survey. Can you forward them on to him please?

The two people who are cc'd, Dave and Ian, are the only two people who requested to also see the results. Only myself, Ian and one other (Al Boyle as it happens) actually contributed any responses to this and I think you will find that apathy is one of your biggest problems.

I wanted to conduct this survey because of the variety of opinions being offered for non-attendance. Keeping the regulars happy is another matter. I am a reasonably happy regular so I leave that to others to deal with.

The questions were directed at people who had once been regular or semi-regular attendees and who no longer go to the matches. There were only two questions asked.
1. If you don't regularly attend the football, why not?
2. What would entice you to start going?

There were seemingly 37 individual responses and they are all captured on the attached Excel spreadsheet.

As a summary, and only addressing the facts rather than offering an opinion at this stage, the main response was that the cost of entry was too much for the standard of football on show. 9 of the 37 respondees gave this reason.
Also high on the agenda was the standard of amenities at the ground (I took this to mean toilets and catering mainly). 6 people cited this one.
I know that there is also a gripe about not being allowed into the ground after a certain time which prevents people who are playing in local leagues from attending at all.
Several people bemoaned the point that there seems to be very little local involvement with the club. This seems to be a) few or no local players in the set-up and b) poor local club relationships.

I would say that the other reasons given are in the 'apathetic' range.

As for what would make them come back...
Lower pricing (although I think the levels that most of the respondees are talking about are well below reasonable).
Better family deals.
Better amenities at the ground.
More publicity about what is happening and what the next match is. Many people have said that aside from the two websites there is little or no exposure around the town (more in my personal opinion section following).
Extra admittance time. People would like to pay a slightly reduced amount up to half-time.

And that pretty much sums up the responses.

As for my own personal opinions...
I think the club is probably priced at the lower end of the allowed gate fees. I don't know what could be done to appease people on this one. The whole country is skint and Barrow more so than a lot of other places. I agree with many people and think that the better way to get new or lapsed fans into the ground is mainly through the kids pricing. Get the kids in and the parents should/would follow.
Make the two weeks before and two weeks after xmas free entry for the kids. It's the hardest time of the year for the parents and it should make the kids want to keep coming. Make the first 3-4 weeks and last 2 weeks of each season free for kids too.

I have already sent you some thoughts on Season Ticket loyalties Martin, I do think it is an issue worth some consideration and tweaking.

The amenities...can nothing be done about them in the short term? I know much will be waiting on any redevelopment scheme/awards but the toilets and the catering have been abysmal for such a long time. It really is a very depressing state and, as you can see, is a reason for people staying away.
The Popular Side bogs are third world and the outside caterers should be hung by their heels for their appalling service and customer relations.

One last opinion...I think it might be worthwhile somebody from the club responding to these points in a very public level. There is certainly apathy outside of the club but that can only be countered by increased energy and enthusiasm from within.

I hope the opinions and responses you found here are of some use. Just get them to put butter or marge on the bacon buns and I will be a little happier.

Gary Bundy - Popular Side at the end of the pressbox or right behind the managers if on a freebie

Get other bar that can be used on when The crossbar gets busy get that stuff in the shop and get The website up-to-date so we can make money out of it

Hope you manage to get decent results, lads. Then get yourselves to Sugar for the celebrations.

Just a thought. Why do some clubs get good support when they are on the edge of London, say, with several premier clubs on their doorstep. Recently Woking were getting strong gates, although it has recently dropped off. I don't think they played any better than BAFC. So what was their bit of magic? Boston United used to get strong gates also (2,000+ previously but not now) although it could be argued there is nothing to do there except watch Lincoln - that may be the answer why they went to Boston U on their door step. The same could have been said for Yeovil when they were non-league.

The other question could be asked, why do some non-league clubs on the doorstep of big catchment areas get insignificant attendance even when they played good football?

Maybe some clues can be found by extending your analysis to other clubs as well and do a bit of a benchmarking exercise. Again just a thought.

For me the facility's are a big problem regarding attendance's, we have been trying to play the "Family club" card for a while and to be honest who is going to take their family as the toilet facilities alone are awful especially for women & children nevermind us