PM don't disagree with in any way. I was responding specifically to the point of 'it says a lot about this site' and the ever changing thread title telling people to stop moaning and do something, and why it had only attracted a muted response.
Indeed. Way too much moaning (and worse) going on generally between Lifers with fundamentally a common interest.
Agree with both these points - perhaps time to work on a positive agenda, starting with an appraisal of the reality of FFP And please do contribute ideas about what's next or even a proposal as to how we can work together to weather what are surely going to be some stormy seas
even if we win 5-0 i genuinely don't think the follow thru would be that great but it may entice a few so can't knock these sort of efforts for a push and it's definitely better than doing nothing...
the general malaise regarding Charlton and football is what will see our crowds continue to dip no matter what is served up imo Premiership football will be the only thing that will buck the trend
Valley every time. Guess it depends on why you follow plucky charlton. Personally, i support because i (and my dad) were initially attracted.to the unique community spirit around the club in the late 80s. Agree that does seem to be being eroded by the single aim of winning.
win or loose, i still support CAFC as my.local team. I like to watch football. There seems to be a growing breed of fan who pay their money so they can spend their weekends moaning and behaving in ways they couldnt get away with at home/office.
CAST are doing great work and the efforts of some are magnificent. As others have said, dont wait until doomsday before trying to build the trust into a real significant stakeholder in CAFC.
Keep up the great work but don't get down on yourselves if attendances aren't great, I genuinely believe that football is going in to a lull attendance wise and numbers will drop off no matter how good our team are doing
Agree with Ooh Aah (he is the attendance expert after all!) but his thoughts are 100% spot on
Have just purchased 27 tickets for my son's U9 school team, am working tirelessly to brainwash all the kids now that my son has been well and truly "Charltonized". They are all local kids so I hope it's a decent game. Many of the parents have taken their kids to the odd game at the Valley and always talk positively of the whole experience (apart from a few who saw the FA Cup v Huddersfield last season).
It's a real dilemma. I fully understand the points @Redchaser and @Huskaris are making. Days like last Saturday are just disastrous, both for marketing efforts and for developing the Trust.
I have a personal theory that only about 15% of fans want to have any 'involvement' with their club beyond going to the footie, at least when things are normal. I keep banging on about Swansea and German clubs, but the fact is that Swansea have Trust membership built into their season tickets, while, when I tried to find out more about the German system from my buddy who actively supports Frankfurt, I was surprised to learn that he has never figured out why he should be a member, and none of his mates did either. So on that basis it looks like, yes German fans hold 51% control of their clubs, but they still rely on a relatively small number of active fans to make it all work. Then I think about when we had a supporters director, and only about 1500 of us bothered to vote. So maybe that's as much as the Trust can aim for for now (1500), and with 700 already signed up, I reckon they are more than halfway there, and it has been achieved by sheer hard work and effort by people who only want the best for CAFC.
But they have to keep at it, because the lesson from other clubs is that while Trusts only really flourish when the shit has hit the fan, that is the point, the shit has already hit the fan and the new thing called the Trust has to scramble around, hardly knowing each other, to find some way of saving the club. I did wince at this thread title, but I put that down to extreme frustration after Saturday's horror show, which negatively affected all of us. AFKA does a great job in having a quiet word here and there, and I understood his reaction above. But I'm not clear overall AFKA whether you think there should be a Trust at all, and if you do, how should it go about both building member ship and showing those that have joined, that the Trust is actually doing active and constructive things (if not regularly being visible on this site, which is far and away the biggest gathering of CAFC fans)?
But its a stupid loaded question se9 because of course the answer is never going to be no. It's like saying should our strikers score goals.
But the question was why was the response so muted and that is probably because of two reasons. 1. There is nothing new here, the club has.been doing this game for years now and organising volunteers to target local areas, stations etc. You're just doing that for then now, and 2. There is a huge overload of Trust pushing messages on here, which is probably why the ones that are clearly tTrust ones see poor readership and have to be slyly bumped or provoked into debate by the 7-9 of you heavily involved.
As for the game, it is not a new event anymore and history has shown that the novelty of seeing the ground full at kick off soon wears off when you find the atmosphere worse than normal, and half the people there not really into it. Ultimately it appears to have virtually no impact on increasing our crowds either in the short term following the promotion, or in the long term after if recent crowds are anything to go by. I have brought a number of non-fans to this game in recent years, not a single one has returned for a single game as a paying customer. For the past five years our club have been giving away tens of thousands of free tickets, yet the ratio of one of those going on to be a regular is minute.
Of course there is promotional and marketing work that can be done, but while the offering on the pitch is on a bit of a lull, its effectiveness is going to be ten times more difficult, and people shouldnt be made to feel they don't care just because they don't answer every rallying call.
I hate to pee on anyone's bonfire but it is tough to disagree with this and with Ooh Aah
What in God's name is the logic of playing the worst quality football seen on Sky Sports in since the last time we played on Sky Sports and then trying to offload cheap tickets on neutrals a few weeks later? Commercial madness in my view and we don't have cash to give away.
I know season ticket holders who probably wont turn up for Wigan unless we stop playing hoofball. The scheme also seems to be a curse on our home performances and alienates more than it inspires.
All due respect to AB but I have never seen the point of this scheme and the only way of getting the casuals in is with big home wins and enthusiastic regulars exuding about the free flowing football at the Valley..
If we must give away cheap tickets what about freebies for any under 12's with an adult? If you can get the kids enthused you might win a lifelong fan even if we do play hoofball and some parents might feel more inclined to bring their youngsters.
I will tolerate the NWQ full of posh looking children asking Papa which team is Chelsea but can't see how it does the club any good.
In term of the timing allow me to make two quick points which might enlighten... The Trust have been in discussion with the club since the end of last season about doing "something" around attendences - so the Millwall game is just sheer good fortune in terms of showing dedication to the cause! If we had free flowing football and an established marketing/promotional element to the club then this would be redundant... As Prague states some don't care about the club behind the scenes and some will only come out after an event...but an effective supporters Trust requires more participants and more activities to stay vibrant...as well as reaching ever deeper into the fanbase... Once we get to 1,500 members will we set the bar higher?!
But its a stupid loaded question se9 because of course the answer is never going to be no. It's like saying should our strikers score goals.
But the question was why was the response so muted and that is probably because of two reasons. 1. There is nothing new here, the club has.been doing this game for years now and organising volunteers to target local areas, stations etc. You're just doing that for then now, and 2. There is a huge overload of Trust pushing messages on here, which is probably why the ones that are clearly tTrust ones see poor readership and have to be slyly bumped or provoked into debate by the 7-9 of you heavily involved.
As for the game, it is not a new event anymore and history has shown that the novelty of seeing the ground full at kick off soon wears off when you find the atmosphere worse than normal, and half the people there not really into it. Ultimately it appears to have virtually no impact on increasing our crowds either in the short term following the promotion, or in the long term after if recent crowds are anything to go by. I have brought a number of non-fans to this game in recent years, not a single one has returned for a single game as a paying customer. For the past five years our club have been giving away tens of thousands of free tickets, yet the ratio of one of those going on to be a regular is minute.
Of course there is promotional and marketing work that can be done, but while the offering on the pitch is on a bit of a lull, its effectiveness is going to be ten times more difficult, and people shouldnt be made to feel they don't care just because they don't answer every rallying call.
I hate to pee on anyone's bonfire but it is tough to disagree with this and with Ooh Aah
What in God's name is the logic of playing the worst quality football seen on Sky Sports in since the last time we played on Sky Sports and then trying to offload cheap tickets on neutrals a few weeks later? Commercial madness in my view and we don't have cash to give away.
I know season ticket holders who probably wont turn up for Wigan unless we stop playing hoofball. The scheme also seems to be a curse on our home performances and alienates more than it inspires.
All due respect to AB but I have never seen the point of this scheme and the only way of getting the casuals in is with big home wins and enthusiastic regulars exuding about the free flowing football at the Valley..
If we must give away cheap tickets what about freebies for any under 12's with an adult? If you can get the kids enthused you might win a lifelong fan even if we do play hoofball and some parents might feel more inclined to bring their youngsters.
I will tolerate the NWQ full of posh looking children asking Papa which team is Chelsea but can't see how it does the club any good.
There are lots of reasons why you might do Football for a Fiver but your main assumption why you wouldn't do it - "we don't have cash to give away" - is flawed, because as I've said many times it doesn't cost anything. As long as you do the work to make it successful and choose the right fixture, it should be a modest earner over and above what the club would otherwise make from the game, allowing for extra costs.
If ten or fifty or 100 people come for the first time and come back, and a handful go on to become season ticket holders then that's a bonus. You get data about people you can target in future. But it is is never going to add thousands to the average crowd and if you judge it by that criteria it will always fail.
The Wigan fixture was the only sensible choice this season, as I said when the fixtures were published. The club, including the trust, is doing what we've done before, so I would guess it's unlikely the crowd will be much under 20,000, albeit you really need to get towards 25,000 to make it worthwhile. The effect of charging £6 is an unknown.
I don't think this fixture would provide much excitement or interest as as run-of-the-mill game and I don't see the harm, ever, of selling seats if you are not reducing net revenue (taking into account costs). Football for a Fiver makes the fixture an event - you can never predict or rely on the product, that's the nature of football as against the cinema.
As for the "we always lose" mantra that gets trotted out, that's not even factually accurate. It's nothing more than superstition, as far as I'm concerned.
No one has ever said that Football for a Fiver is a magic way of increasing other crowds or that it's the only thing to do, but I don't accept that it's a negative.
The club is in the business of selling seats at every game. That doesn't change because the team is in poor form or might be expected by some to lose. And you can't know that in time anyway.
Trust you know what your talking about Airman but there must be some cost involved based on the club losing £14 on every £20 ticket like mine that is now available for £6.
Trust you know what your talking about Airman but there must be some cost involved based on the club losing £14 on every £20 ticket like mine that is now available for £6.
a. You sell 3,000 x £20 = 60k b. You sell 10,000 x £6 = 60k
I believe in all these one off initiatives so far, b has always outstripped the regular a.
Trust you know what your talking about Airman but there must be some cost involved based on the club losing £14 on every £20 ticket like mine that is now available for £6.
People make a lot of false assumptions about revenue - for example, the club doesn't get £20 from your ticket - it gets £16.67, net of VAT, as opposed to £4.17 from a fiver. So straight away the loss on your ticket is down to £12.50 (ignoring the donation).
Then there's the fact that there's no reduction in U11 tickets (in fact they are dearer with the donation), while the loss on a £10 U18 ticket is only £4.17.
Looking at the gates this season and results, I'd expect to sell about 2,000 standard priced home matchday tickets for Wigan and maybe 500 aways. Say the average net home ticket revenue is £15 and the average away £20 on standard prices, for argument's sake.
That's £30k home revenue and £10k from aways. It means in round numbers you've got to sell 10,000 tickets at £5 gross to match the income you would have got. So, a gate of about 21,000 allowing for comps is breakeven.
Then you've got extra staffing and marketing costs, but these will be more than offset by extra profit from ancillary activities, especially catering.
Obviously if you actually sell 15,000 seats you've made a profit that you weren't ever going to make selling the game at standard price.
And the one intangible not mentioned-reminding people what a packed Valley looks and feels like... I thank you Airman for the maths and the point that footy for a fiver can only be one part of a marketing strategy... If this pilot is a success in terms of leaflet drops (and Sheffield is in scope!) then there is a distinct possibility of more Trust/club collaboration... Some of our members have actually done a fair bit of work in the football industry so we have vision, strategy as well as tactics... But we are on the first leg of a long journey so gently does it!
Lets see if this flies and if CAFC and Trust can find a way to engage further?
a few days a go i was discussing with some the trust and opinions on it, then this thread has appeared and everything that was discussed is summed up in one thread
for a point of reference to those on the trust
You need to calm down a tad and stop imposing it upon people as its the right thing to do if you are a real cafc fan it only costs 5 quid its easy to do
Yep we all know that but some want to sit back and watch how you the Exec of the Trust behave and what way you are pushing things forward and that you are NOT and this is the most important anything other than Fans of CAFC
your elected place on the board of the trust is amazing and a credit to you but you are no more of a fan than the man next to you
you are just doing something that you have found time and passion to do so i doff my cap
but and its a big BUT if you gauge reaction from those that are your Trust you may find that some are uncomfortable with the tone and demeanour that sometimes you come across as especially on here,
The first post that stated something like Sums up this site was exactly what some we talking about on Sat
The fact your threads don't have great input should send an alarm bell that your communication is missing its target market
Why
who knows but for me i don't feel that you see yourselves as CAFC you see yourselves as the CAFC TRUST not the same thing really
i might be miles off point but from my circle of friends that don't post here or only look on here that is the summary view of the CAFC trust
the trust is very worthy in name and of support financially and you guys need to prove your worth and gain the Trust of all you require to make this work take two steps back and look at what way your communicating
some good comments there NLA ... I have joined the Trust and fully support it ... but do feel that sometimes there is a bit of 'overkill' in the approach
a few days a go i was discussing with some the trust and opinions on it, then this thread has appeared and everything that was discussed is summed up in one thread
for a point of reference to those on the trust
You need to calm down a tad and stop imposing it upon people as its the right thing to do if you are a real cafc fan it only costs 5 quid its easy to do
Yep we all know that but some want to sit back and watch how you the Exec of the Trust behave and what way you are pushing things forward and that you are NOT and this is the most important anything other than Fans of CAFC
your elected place on the board of the trust is amazing and a credit to you but you are no more of a fan than the man next to you
you are just doing something that you have found time and passion to do so i doff my cap
but and its a big BUT if you gauge reaction from those that are your Trust you may find that some are uncomfortable with the tone and demeanour that sometimes you come across as especially on here,
The first post that stated something like Sums up this site was exactly what some we talking about on Sat
The fact your threads don't have great input should send an alarm bell that your communication is missing its target market
Why
who knows but for me i don't feel that you see yourselves as CAFC you see yourselves as the CAFC TRUST not the same thing really
i might be miles off point but from my circle of friends that don't post here or only look on here that is the summary view of the CAFC trust
the trust is very worthy in name and of support financially and you guys need to prove your worth and gain the Trust of all you require to make this work take two steps back and look at what way your communicating
your opinion Red in others it is exactly what they are doing
Like i said its a great cause and hats off for what they are doing but like the word TRUST
you need to earn trust and that takes time, the one thing that was said more than any other was that we all hope they remain independent and do not fall to the traps that players like TJ and MS are very very good at
if anyone wants to inbox me with feedback so that I can clarify any points I'd welcome it that, other than that I am personally going to leave this debate to others - same time I don't want people to think I am ignoring comments.
Comments
;-)
There are still the usual two or three extra coming along for the social aspect as much as anything.
And please do contribute ideas about what's next or even a proposal as to how we can work together to weather what are surely going to be some stormy seas
the general malaise regarding Charlton and football is what will see our crowds continue to dip no matter what is served up imo Premiership football will be the only thing that will buck the trend
Valley every time. Guess it depends on why you follow plucky charlton. Personally, i support because i (and my dad) were initially attracted.to the unique community spirit around the club in the late 80s. Agree that does seem to be being eroded by the single aim of winning.
win or loose, i still support CAFC as my.local team. I like to watch football. There seems to be a growing breed of fan who pay their money so they can spend their weekends moaning and behaving in ways they couldnt get away with at home/office.
CAST are doing great work and the efforts of some are magnificent. As others have said, dont wait until doomsday before trying to build the trust into a real significant stakeholder in CAFC.
I have a personal theory that only about 15% of fans want to have any 'involvement' with their club beyond going to the footie, at least when things are normal. I keep banging on about Swansea and German clubs, but the fact is that Swansea have Trust membership built into their season tickets, while, when I tried to find out more about the German system from my buddy who actively supports Frankfurt, I was surprised to learn that he has never figured out why he should be a member, and none of his mates did either. So on that basis it looks like, yes German fans hold 51% control of their clubs, but they still rely on a relatively small number of active fans to make it all work. Then I think about when we had a supporters director, and only about 1500 of us bothered to vote. So maybe that's as much as the Trust can aim for for now (1500), and with 700 already signed up, I reckon they are more than halfway there, and it has been achieved by sheer hard work and effort by people who only want the best for CAFC.
But they have to keep at it, because the lesson from other clubs is that while Trusts only really flourish when the shit has hit the fan, that is the point, the shit has already hit the fan and the new thing called the Trust has to scramble around, hardly knowing each other, to find some way of saving the club. I did wince at this thread title, but I put that down to extreme frustration after Saturday's horror show, which negatively affected all of us. AFKA does a great job in having a quiet word here and there, and I understood his reaction above. But I'm not clear overall AFKA whether you think there should be a Trust at all, and if you do, how should it go about both building member ship and showing those that have joined, that the Trust is actually doing active and constructive things (if not regularly being visible on this site, which is far and away the biggest gathering of CAFC fans)?
What in God's name is the logic of playing the worst quality football seen on Sky Sports in since the last time we played on Sky Sports and then trying to offload cheap tickets on neutrals a few weeks later? Commercial madness in my view and we don't have cash to give away.
I know season ticket holders who probably wont turn up for Wigan unless we stop playing hoofball. The scheme also seems to be a curse on our home performances and alienates more than it inspires.
All due respect to AB but I have never seen the point of this scheme and the only way of getting the casuals in is with big home wins and enthusiastic regulars exuding about the free flowing football at the Valley..
If we must give away cheap tickets what about freebies for any under 12's with an adult? If you can get the kids enthused you might win a lifelong fan even if we do play hoofball and some parents might feel more inclined to bring their youngsters.
I will tolerate the NWQ full of posh looking children asking Papa which team is Chelsea but can't see how it does the club any good.
The Trust have been in discussion with the club since the end of last season about doing "something" around attendences - so the Millwall game is just sheer good fortune in terms of showing dedication to the cause!
If we had free flowing football and an established marketing/promotional element to the club then this would be redundant...
As Prague states some don't care about the club behind the scenes and some will only come out after an event...but an effective supporters Trust requires more participants and more activities to stay vibrant...as well as reaching ever deeper into the fanbase...
Once we get to 1,500 members will we set the bar higher?!
If ten or fifty or 100 people come for the first time and come back, and a handful go on to become season ticket holders then that's a bonus. You get data about people you can target in future. But it is is never going to add thousands to the average crowd and if you judge it by that criteria it will always fail.
The Wigan fixture was the only sensible choice this season, as I said when the fixtures were published. The club, including the trust, is doing what we've done before, so I would guess it's unlikely the crowd will be much under 20,000, albeit you really need to get towards 25,000 to make it worthwhile. The effect of charging £6 is an unknown.
I don't think this fixture would provide much excitement or interest as as run-of-the-mill game and I don't see the harm, ever, of selling seats if you are not reducing net revenue (taking into account costs). Football for a Fiver makes the fixture an event - you can never predict or rely on the product, that's the nature of football as against the cinema.
As for the "we always lose" mantra that gets trotted out, that's not even factually accurate. It's nothing more than superstition, as far as I'm concerned.
No one has ever said that Football for a Fiver is a magic way of increasing other crowds or that it's the only thing to do, but I don't accept that it's a negative.
The club is in the business of selling seats at every game. That doesn't change because the team is in poor form or might be expected by some to lose. And you can't know that in time anyway.
b. You sell 10,000 x £6 = 60k
I believe in all these one off initiatives so far, b has always outstripped the regular a.
Then there's the fact that there's no reduction in U11 tickets (in fact they are dearer with the donation), while the loss on a £10 U18 ticket is only £4.17.
Looking at the gates this season and results, I'd expect to sell about 2,000 standard priced home matchday tickets for Wigan and maybe 500 aways. Say the average net home ticket revenue is £15 and the average away £20 on standard prices, for argument's sake.
That's £30k home revenue and £10k from aways. It means in round numbers you've got to sell 10,000 tickets at £5 gross to match the income you would have got. So, a gate of about 21,000 allowing for comps is breakeven.
Then you've got extra staffing and marketing costs, but these will be more than offset by extra profit from ancillary activities, especially catering.
Obviously if you actually sell 15,000 seats you've made a profit that you weren't ever going to make selling the game at standard price.
I thank you Airman for the maths and the point that footy for a fiver can only be one part of a marketing strategy...
If this pilot is a success in terms of leaflet drops (and Sheffield is in scope!) then there is a distinct possibility of more Trust/club collaboration...
Some of our members have actually done a fair bit of work in the football industry so we have vision, strategy as well as tactics... But we are on the first leg of a long journey so gently does it!
Lets see if this flies and if CAFC and Trust can find a way to engage further?
a few days a go i was discussing with some the trust and opinions on it, then this thread has appeared and everything that was discussed is summed up in one thread
for a point of reference to those on the trust
You need to calm down a tad and stop imposing it upon people as its the right thing to do if you are a real cafc fan it only costs 5 quid its easy to do
Yep we all know that but some want to sit back and watch how you the Exec of the Trust behave and what way you are pushing things forward and that you are NOT and this is the most important anything other than Fans of CAFC
your elected place on the board of the trust is amazing and a credit to you but you are no more of a fan than the man next to you
you are just doing something that you have found time and passion to do so i doff my cap
but and its a big BUT if you gauge reaction from those that are your Trust you may find that some are uncomfortable with the tone and demeanour that sometimes you come across as especially on here,
The first post that stated something like Sums up this site was exactly what some we talking about on Sat
The fact your threads don't have great input should send an alarm bell that your communication is missing its target market
Why
who knows but for me i don't feel that you see yourselves as CAFC you see yourselves as the CAFC TRUST not the same thing really
i might be miles off point but from my circle of friends that don't post here or only look on here that is the summary view of the CAFC trust
the trust is very worthy in name and of support financially and you guys need to prove your worth and gain the Trust of all you require to make this work take two steps back and look at what way your communicating
Keep up the good work guys!
Like i said its a great cause and hats off for what they are doing but like the word TRUST
you need to earn trust and that takes time, the one thing that was said more than any other was that we all hope they remain independent and do not fall to the traps that players like TJ and MS are very very good at
Thanks