Attendances

Average crowd this season in the League has gone down from 452 to 411, with one game still to play. Not a positive, but I think there is a reason.

I've broken the figures down into Saturday games (and I've included Bank Holiday afternoon fixtures in that) and midweek games for last season and this season. I've also only included the games played at Amblecote.

2012/13

Saturday average 452 (16 games)
Midweek average 386 (4 games)

2013/14

Saturday average 493 (12 games)
Midweek average 319 (8 games)

So the Saturday average has gone up significantly and the midweek average has gone down, added to which we've played twice as many midweek home games largely due to the Cup and Trophy runs this season.

Also, looking at last season, we only had one midweek home game after 18th September - Totton on 12th February. So just one home game on a cold winter's night (attendance 260, in line with some of this season's winter midweeks). A "benefit" from getting knocked out of the Cup early!

It does show what a difference it makes to play as many games as possible on a Saturday when parents will bring their kids. Perhaps also the obvious factor of European football on the box most Tuesday nights. I wonder if it would be worth thinking about switching to a Monday night? No other local sides play on Mondays other than Redditch who have changed from Tuesdays this season. St Albans have also changed from Tuesday to Monday. Just a thought.

I did my bit for average attendances by bringing the whole family!

Bloody hell Ricardo..... you've time on your hands.  

It makes sense to play your home midweek games on a Monday because then you get an extra day of rest before your next weekend game.

If Saturday gates are boosted by a higher proportion of kids, then the proportional increase in income from playing at the weekend won't be as great as the proportional increase in attendance.

TRM wrote:Average crowd this season in the League has gone down from 452 to 411, with one game still to play. Not a positive, but I think there is a reason.

I've broken the figures down into Saturday games (and I've included Bank Holiday afternoon fixtures in that) and midweek games for last season and this season. I've also only included the games played at Amblecote.

2012/13

Saturday average 452 (16 games)
Midweek average 386 (4 games)

2013/14

Saturday average 493 (12 games)
Midweek average 319 (8 games)

So the Saturday average has gone up significantly and the midweek average has gone down, added to which we've played twice as many midweek home games largely due to the Cup and Trophy runs this season.

Also, looking at last season, we only had one midweek home game after 18th September - Totton on 12th February. So just one home game on a cold winter's night (attendance 260, in line with some of this season's winter midweeks). A "benefit" from getting knocked out of the Cup early!

It does show what a difference it makes to play as many games as possible on a Saturday when parents will bring their kids. Perhaps also the obvious factor of European football on the box most Tuesday nights. I wonder if it would be worth thinking about switching to a Monday night? No other local sides play on Mondays other than Redditch who have changed from Tuesdays this season. St Albans have also changed from Tuesday to Monday. Just a thought.

I think the thought of playing on Monday's is a terrible idea unless the previous match was either an away or home Saturday match 9 days earlier,the thought of Saturday followed by Monday will lead to the inevitable complaint's of tiredness.

Personally i'd rather we played on Sunday afternoon so that we'd clash with less local league action on Saturday's but i doubt that will ever happen.

If we had to play on any odd day in the week i'd rather use Thursday as it's always a "dead" night for sport but you then only have that same 2 day gap that you would if you utilised a Monday night.Perhaps we could consider Wednesday as less games are played on that day than a Tuesday for some reason,personally i hope Lye Town revert to Wednesday's next season as i enjoy watching them too but many of their matches clash with Stour games.

A couple of reason's may explain the drop off in home attendance this season,

1/ We've had some poor home results and performances this season up until recent weeks and as usual a good number will only watch a winning team.

2/ Expectation level's have increased,a lot of people thought we were going to "walk it" this season after coming close last year and once Hemel started running away with it i think interest level's wained a bit.

3/ Quite a few midweek games have been versus team's with virtually no travelling support.

Truro,Biggleswade,Hungerford,Chippenham and others add virtually nothing to the gate especially when you play them midweek yet we seem to add 30-60 to every away gate as a minimum when we travel.


My gut feeling now is that due to these ease of "run in" for our rival's that we may just miss out on promo this year BUT i think we'll really be ready to push on next year.

Going back to the attendance issue i do think the club misses quite a few tricks to improve home gates but that aside,winning matches is always the biggest pull and if we were in Hemel's position i think our average would be around 550+ AND if we shared the same division as Halesowen and had the Boxing Day fixture that average would push up towards 600 if both teams were doing well.

Devil's Advocate wrote:

I think the thought of playing on Monday's is a terrible idea unless the previous match was either an away or home Saturday match 9 days earlier,the thought of Saturday followed by Monday will lead to the inevitable complaint's of tiredness.
.....
If we had to play on any odd day in the week i'd rather use Thursday as it's always a "dead" night for sport cut you then only have that same 2 day gap that you would if you utilised a Monday night.

When you play on Monday the opposition (having played on Saturday too) will be equally tired, so there's no disadvantage. Then you have extra rest (and injury recovery time) before your next Saturday game which is an advantage.

OTOH when you play on Thursday you gain no advantage because the opponent has the same rest as you and then you have the disadvantage of having to play on Saturday against a team which isn't playing twice in less than 48 hours (Thursday evening is actually considerably closer to Saturday afternoon than Monday evening is to Saturday afternoon).

i'llgetmeamblecoat wrote:

Devil's Advocate wrote:

I think the thought of playing on Monday's is a terrible idea unless the previous match was either an away or home Saturday match 9 days earlier,the thought of Saturday followed by Monday will lead to the inevitable complaint's of tiredness.
.....
If we had to play on any odd day in the week i'd rather use Thursday as it's always a "dead" night for sport cut you then only have that same 2 day gap that you would if you utilised a Monday night.

When you play on Monday the opposition (having played on Saturday too) will be equally tired, so there's no disadvantage. Then you have extra rest (and injury recovery time) before your next Saturday game which is an advantage.

OTOH when you play on Thursday you gain no advantage because the opponent has the same rest as you and then you have the disadvantage of having to play on Saturday against a team which isn't playing twice in less than 48 hours (Thursday evening is actually considerably closer to Saturday afternoon than Monday evening is to Saturday afternoon).

Yes but you're continually playing two matches within a couple of days.

Is it no coincidence that Hitchin never make a decent run at this division?

Yes I think it is a coincidence. Hitchin are a mid table side. I'm sure Rich will be able to prove me right or wrong on this, but one of the recent seasons they had an excellent record on Monday nights. Purely down to teams not being used to it. I

Devil's Advocate wrote:A couple of reason's may explain the drop off in home attendance this season.

1/ We've had some poor home results and performances this season up until recent weeks and as usual a good number will only watch a winning team.

2/ Expectation level's have increased,a lot of people thought we were going to "walk it" this season after coming close last year and once Hemel started running away with it i think interest level's wained a bit.

3/ Quite a few midweek games have been versus team's with virtually no travelling support.

Points 1 and 2 slightly ignore the fact that our attendances on a Saturday have RISEN by about 40. The general points are undoubtedly true but don't actually completely reflect the facts in this case.

I can't remember a single "initiative" at a Saturday home game this season (other than the Community Day) that has boosted the figure artificially. And of course we had a CD last season, so it's still a like-for-like comparison.

Last season there was some sort of initiative for the St Neots game which boosted the crowd to nearly 750, though I'm blowed if I can remember what the initiative was.

I also can't recall any significant travelling support this season, apart from maybe Hemel (60-70?) and Redditch on Boxing Day perhaps (50?). Last season we had Leamington (maybe 150?).

And we had some poor home results last season too. Kettering 0-0, St Neots 0-1, Bedworth 0-1, Gosport 1-1 (poor at the time), Frome 1-1, Bedford 0-1.

Saturdays and Tuesdays are two different beasts to me. Other than winning more matches I don't see there's a lot you can do to increase attendances in midweek - I don't even think dropping the prices would make a huge difference on a freezing cold Feb night with the European Cup on the telly and when the kids have school the next day and homework to do.

Saturdays are different and there is perhaps more that could be done there. However, it's worth bearing in mind that the League set a minimum charge (not sure what it is) and I think you're only allowed three "special" days per season to vary from that. Eg. The Community Day.

Jack wrote:Yes I think it is a coincidence. Hitchin are a mid table side. I'm sure Rich will be able to prove me right or wrong on this, but one of the recent seasons they had an excellent record on Monday nights. Purely down to teams not being used to it. I

Don't know about Hitchin, but switching to a Monday hasn't harmed St Albans this season.

Look, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but people are fond of saying we don't try things...

Personally, I can't do Mondays or Wednesdays so I'm saying stick to Tuesdays.