Hartlepool Match Thread

[Revived Red]

Originally Posted by bdc

I paid £19 for Leicester the other week and £25 for West Brom. Stoke is £25, Hull is £16, Arsenal is £27, all Premier League teams and not much more than Accrington for pricing. In my eyes £20 is a completely wrong price for League 2 football, I wont pay it and its not hard to see why attendances are lower as we are looking at a pricing structure purely aimed at getting as much money as possible from away fans. This is to the detriment of attracting home support due to price.

Were the crowds flooding in when we had a cheaper pricing structure?

[VALAIRIAN]

No

[cjrk]

To my mind there are two things that Stanley could do to possibly up the gates and these are: play some home matches on Friday nights and secondly, lower the ridiculously high entrance fee. Thee are few people in my local who would like to watch Stanley, especially if they played on Friday but are put off from going on a Saturday because of the cost.

[deeayess]

Originally Posted by cjrk

To my mind there are two things that Stanley could do to possibly up the gates and these are: play some home matches on Friday nights and secondly, lower the ridiculously high entrance fee. Thee are few people in my local who would like to watch Stanley, especially if they played on Friday but are put off from going on a Saturday because of the cost.

I disagree, travel for a night game is far harder especially for me and a lot of away fans. There may have been more at the game had it been a Saturday especially from Hartlepool. I would hazard a guess that Morecambe would probably be a bigger crowd on a Saturday as well plus more people in the Crown for longer.

It's been argued many times about the high price but if you lower it too much then it defeats the purpose. We would have needed nearly 2000 there last night to generate the same income and that was never going to happen.

[smobile]

I think the £20 walk on price was primarily aimed at generating more money from away fans on the premise that a fiver won't stop them coming and the core 1200 Stanley would be either season tickets or would come regardless.

100 hartlepool fans last night drew in £2000 tops as opposed to £1500 tops if it was £15.

that £500 is 35 walk ons at £15 for the home end. Would we have done that. More than likely.

[bdc]

Originally Posted by Revived Red

Were the crowds flooding in when we had a cheaper pricing structure?

Wouldn't dispute that but putting prices up is purely aimed at skimming away fans and that wont help increase gates in the long term, only way to start growing attendances is to charge a reasonable price and put some marketing into it as well as continuously plugging away at getting kids from schools in with their parents.

Simply increasing walk ons to £20 will alienate Burnley fans who support Accy as their second team. I am in that category and I wont pay £20 to walk on as I think its too expensive.

[lancsdave]

Over the past few years I've taken an interest every incentive going has probably been tried.

First and foremost a succesful team is the biggest crowd puller.

The question then becomes how to increase the revenue to pay for that. The odd few extra on the gate isn't going to do that.

[deeayess]

Originally Posted by smobile

I think the £20 walk on price was primarily aimed at generating more money from away fans on the premise that a fiver won't stop them coming and the core 1200 Stanley would be either season tickets or would come regardless.

100 hartlepool fans last night drew in £2000 tops as opposed to £1500 tops if it was £15.

that £500 is 35 walk ons at £15 for the home end. Would we have done that. More than likely.

And the home fans without season tickets didn't pay the extra fiver too? now you could be up to over 100 extra fans needed. Do you then go back to categorising games and charge less for games like last night all to get a few extra who may or may not come again.

Attendances are always going to be affected by people who cant get there for various reasons. I said when the prices were announced that I thought it was too high but financially what else can they do to raise money given that we have a core support, away fans and however many may want to come on the night.

You can't base the business plan on half a dozen people who might decide to leave the pub on a cold night with Champions League football for a fiver less than just now.

The club tried a fiver for wimbledon two years ago and while there was a bigger crowd than usual the gate money would have been more at £20 with the usual crowd.

[andyd]

I like a lot of others don,t no the fix to increase walk on,s apart from being top of the league, but I do think our facilities as said by others don,t entice people on a cold Tuesday night, but how do we improve these when you are always skint,plus other clubs midweek suffer poorer gates look at Morecame last night in the play off,s no idea how many York fans but only 400 more on than us.

[andyd]

Just to add to last post off to Newport Saturday excellent day out with excellent facilities for away fans £20 sat down with own away clubhouse bar and food and hopefully 3 points.

[choirboy]

Great result last night for John, Jimmy and the team and for the FANS who turned up to support the team.
The bad weather over the previous 36 hours had clearly put some fans off!
When we got onto the ground though the weather had become quite benign...very little wind...no rain.... and a SUPERB GREEN CARPET OF A PITCH ON WHICH TO PLAY FOOTBALL.....Massive credit to BUZZA and his helpers!!!! Big thankyou to BUZZA!!
Yes! Stanley did play some great football! Two of our goals were absolutely SUPERB and the third was a Poacher's' goal.
Hartlepool played some good passing football too, particularly for a 20 to 25 minute spell in the second half when we just couldn't get the ball off them. Luckily they left their 'shooting boots' at home though!
The first goal was a CRACKER from Mc Carten! He showed great skill and drive when he ran at their defence, beating several defenders skilfully, picking his way through and finally finishing really well! Shay looked really sharp in the first half!
Rob Atkinson notched another headed goal which he 'powered in' from a corner. He is beginning to make this look like a welcome habit that he is developing.! More plese Rob!
As Coley said in his interview on the Fishy site, the changes that he made were to try and stop Hartlepool dominating and it worked well. Joyce looked really good at right back and with Deano going to left back it allowed Moly to move into midfield. Moly does quite well at left back but it does stifle his wizadry going forward somewhat. He occasionally gets caught in possession too, which at left back can have more serious consequences than if it happens in midfield. I prefer him to have a free reign across the middle of the pitch and to allow him to forage down the wings too.
In a way it was a similar home performance to that against Dagenham except that we stuck the goals in and played the game out properly to the final whistle.
Talking of 'whistles', the Ref had a strange match? He seemed to let a few too may over zealous tackles go unpunished early on and then made, (or didn't make), some strange decisions !?*! The worst of these was giving Hartlepool a free kick late on for what looked to me like a super tackle just outside the 'D' of our penalty box! It was quite central too, (in Moly territory), but their lad hit it over the bar again!
Overall though it was a GREAT PERFORMANCE FROM STANLEY and the 'stay away fans' missed a treat!
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS WITH THE BOYS IN RED.

Finally, I am a season ticket holder and I always make every effort to get on and support the team....
Come rain, shine or hell and high water!

My recommendation is for supporters, who have not yet bought a season ticket, to get down to the office and buy one of the FLEXITICKETS for TEN matches of your choice and then use it frequently....and then buy another!!!

ON STANLEY ON