Coach Travel to Workington

http://www.stourbridgefc.com/news/workington-afc--admission-pri-1069531.html
 
Apologies about being lazy and just posting a link but I'm off to catch up on the Irish League game on Sky Sports.

Put me down for a seat please Jim

Yes, I'm in as well.

You can add my name as well please, as we need to go there and make as much noise as possible  

Hardly the cheap price I'd have hoped for....Lets hope my 50/50 offer of a lift comes good. 

And before people start chirping at me....that would be £56 travel and then £22 entrance fee for myself and two children both under 10....OK???

Definitely more than I hoped it would be, and in the scenario TT paints, it's an expensive day out for a family with a couple of young kids, possibly prohibitively so. £20 down to £18 doesn't sound much of a "concession." I know every bum takes up one seat but I would have thought half price for kids and OAPs would be much more sensible. Do we want people to travel and support the team or not?

Before people pounce on this, my point is not whether it is a "fair price" or not, it's simply that it is a lot of money for a father and two kids (for example).

Tricky Tree wrote:Hardly the cheap price I'd have hoped for....Lets hope my 50/50 offer of a lift comes good. 

And before people start chirping at me....that would be £56 travel and then £22 entrance fee for myself and two children both under 10....OK???

As i said Trickey you're welcome to come with me,Neil and Baz but theres no room for kids.

A 424 round trip is a hell of a trek for your nippers,i wouldn't have wanted to suffer that with my three when they were young,have your's really been so naughty that they have to be made to come? :-]]

If it's just you mate you're welcome to hitch with us and no payment is required,i'd be going anyway so i don't take money off passengers.

As for the coach price.

I think a coach costs around £750 plus VAT to hire for a journey of that length,i stand to be corrected on that figure though.

If the club are charging £18 a head that will obviously be including VAT so in essence they are merely covering their actual cost's.

I do think a free coach for regular's only or a subsidised trip for a tenner would have been a nice touch from the club though considering the prize fund money is already £15k plus extra gate and food money earned.

I'm sure there will be 100+ of us there come what may and we'll make plenty of noise but if we could have taken 200-250 i do think we'd really have created an atmosphere.

You have my number Ethan and there's a place for you with me and the other guys if you can change you visitation day with your boy's.

Do agree with all the above comments,£20 for adults isn't too bad considering it's £75 on the train but a concession price of £18 is laughable,surely a concession should be half price,a big dayout (although a long one) for some kids and the club aren't exactly helping parents with that sort of pricing,these kids are the fans and future of the club let's please have a rethink if only on the concession price!

It is the concession price that I have a gripe with....I think £20 is fair enough for an adult but £18 for a four year old and a nine year old is a bit of a joke....why are Stourbridge so far behind the times with such things...This isn't the first time I've had an issue with coach travel as Jim and Nath can testify...Yes I've got the hump over this.

Regarding your kind offer Devil...my ex is very rarely flexible when it comes to swapping dates unless it suits her....I'm hoping another offer of a lift comes good.

Firstly I have no idea how much the coach costs, but on the basis that I was told the coach for Truro in January was going to cost £800 odd then Id guess a similar price, if not higher for this. Secondly I don't set the prices either.

People with issues regarding prices etc should address them to the committee rather than just moaning about it on the forum. There are always committee members down the club on a Thursday night and they are always very approachable.

The club are planning to travel up to Cumbria by coach on the Friday night to give the players every chance of success, which I'm sure we all applaud. The cost of the team coach may well come out of the match takings, but I'm sure as hell all the hotel expenses wont come out of it.

To cut a long story short what I'm trying to say is we don't know what total costs the club is incurring and how much they are losing (if any) on coach hire. They certainly lose money on the coach hire for the normal league matches. I agree it would be nice to charge a lot less for the concession tickets, but without knowing how much the supporters coach and hotel costs are Id be reluctant to say what a fair price should be.

Can't disagree with any of the above Jim and doubt if anybody else would and I am certain nobody thinks for a minute that you set the prices,I do think the £20 fare for adults is fair enough just think the club could have been a bit more flexible as regards concessions even if it does mean taking a bit of a loss,BTW didn't even know you were "off" the beer  how out of touch am I!  Will get you one lined up on Saturday mate!

Ulster being the proverbial bull in a china shop!!!

As I good will gesture to the fans who try to support the club as much as possible it wouldn't hurt to offer a good will gesture every now and then by offering reasonable concessions...

Ulster.....unlike your good self I don't live within a stones throw of the ground.
So if you'd like to voice my concerns on a Thursday night it'd be very much appreciated.
You wouldn't need to leave the confines of your living room...you could open a window and offer my concerns with you booming Irish tones. 

£20 for an Adult is fine. As already mentioned, it's a lot more to go on the train! However, using an example, that I'm only going to cost £2 less than Mom, is ridiculous, even more so, that one of Tricky's kids would cost the same as me! I guess the club would come back with well it's a bum on a seat, which is fair enough. But I just think the club may have dropped the ball on this. We've made enough already on this Cup run as it is to justify losing a few hundred pound if it meant making an extra 50/60 fans get there. No doubt the regulars will all be there though!

Say the concession price was £10 instead of £18.

How many concessions on a 50 (ish) seater coach, including over 60s? Say 20?

That's 20 x £8 lost. £160. Give or take. Per coach, of course - it would be great to think we could take two.

Worth losing for the sake of a bit of goodwill? Not for me to decide, just putting the rough figures out there.

Tricky Tree wrote:Ulster being the proverbial bull in a china shop!!!

As I good will gesture to the fans who try to support the club as much as possible it wouldn't hurt to offer a good will gesture every now and then by offering reasonable concessions...

Ulster.....unlike your good self I don't live within a stones throw of the ground.
So if you'd like to voice my concerns on a Thursday night it'd be very much appreciated.
You wouldn't need to leave the confines of your living room...you could open a window and offer my concerns with you booming Irish tones. 

That's a great idea regarding Jim Trickey........but he probably would only arrive half way through the committee meeting  :-]]

As i've stated previously i do think that the club could have helped a bit more on this but i've got my "Devil's Advocate" hat on and i can see both sides.

£15k prize money plus added gate cash and bar/food revenue is seen as a bonus in many ways and thus we think fan's should get some payback in terms of a reduced coach price,i see that logic and i think it would be a nice gesture but how far do you extend this and to how many travellers?

Maybe a "family ticket" could have been thought about,i.e..Trickey and two little chaps for £30.

What i would say in the club's defence is that at the start of the season we would never have dreamed that we'd have seen Rowey and Macca back in a Stour shirt.

If most of us had been offered a scenario of being promised a 4th qualifying round tie at Workington ( with the pain associated in terms of distance and cost ) and those two lads back in our squad most fan's would have have accepted those terms.

The cost of employing the pair again have to be put into the equation if we're being fair about this.

I'm personally taking people up in my car,i'm sure other's will be making their own way as well so if everyone work's together on this i can't see why we can't help out those who's financial constraint's are making this tough for them.

Maybe a special post could be set up on the board to allow for arrangements to be made so that people with spare capacity can be linked to people deserving of a free seat in a car or a share of petrol costs where they put a tenner in or something.

It seems daft that people might miss out whilst cars with 3 or 4 spaces are making the trip.

Just a thought,i'll leave it to Jack to put up a post if he feel's it's a worthwhile idea.

We would of not needed a coach if were playing Southport at home!!

baz wrote:We would of not needed a coach if were playing Southport at home!!

Pity Andy Hill wasn't in charge of the draw then Baz :-]]

@DA, there's an away travel sticky. If you want to plonk what you deem to be necessary in there! Would be good to get as many Stour up there as possible really.

Maybe an idea to encourage those supporters with children to book up for coach travel to Workington would be to offer some form of incentive,such as concessions being reduced by £5 upon the club filling two coaches? This should easily enable us to guarantee two full supporters coaches.....IF advertised enough. The club will then be in a better position to take the "hit"

NATHAN.....look everybody it's NATHAN

Yes Tricky,I'm here at last! Thought I would join you all in the modern world on this interweb thingy.......It's not as hard as it looks is it!

Nathan Gulliver wrote:Yes Tricky,I'm here at last! Thought I would join you all in the modern world on this interweb thingy.......It's not as hard as it looks is it!

I take it you'll be setting up the "Dating" area on the site Nathan?

baz wrote:We would of not needed a coach if were playing Southport at home!!

Unless the game ended in a draw, and a replay was required  

UlsterJim wrote:Firstly I have no idea how much the coach costs, but on the basis that I was told the coach for Truro in January was going to cost £800 odd then Id guess a similar price, if not higher for this.  Secondly I don't set the prices either.

Workington's actually a shorter journey than Truro (by about 35-40 miles) so I'd have thought would be a similar cost.