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Whalley Red · 28-04-2005, 20:45

A lot of development on the ground has taken place in recent years ... extending the terracing, seated areas on the clubhouse side of the ground and so on. All of this has been done on the basis that attendances will rise in the future because (1) the club is progressing on the pitch and (2) the facilities are a lot better for the people who come to games. Putting a roof on the Clayton End will improve attendances because, as has been said, it does very cold and wet in the winter. I can't get my lad to come when the weather's bad. He loves coming to the matches, but not to the point of getting soaked or having to sit down and watch the game from the sidelines.

Maybe the roof will add 100 to the attendances, maybe more in bad weather, but it depends much more on what happens on the pitch.

IMO our attendances have been at their 'true' level this season. It was last season that attendances were abnormally high and largely because of the FA Cup run. It was our first season in the Conference with a side that had been very successful on the pitch, we had a lot of TV coverage from our first Conference game to our Cup match against Huddersfield and so it was easy to get people interested in coming to Stanley games.

It was always going to be harder in the 2nd season and without the lure of FA Cup glory, we've gone back to our base support. A roof and another FA Cup run will help, but the club need to do a lot more to get people to Stanley games and particularly kids. Put Stan the Monkey and the Junior Reds debacles behind us and get the players into a different school each week armed with free kids tickets for the next Stanley match.

28-04-2005, 20:45	#61
Whalley Red Full Member+ Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 669 Liked: 82 times Rep Power: 1653	Re: Players in, Players out???? A lot of development on the ground has taken place in recent years ... extending the terracing, seated areas on the clubhouse side of the ground and so on. All of this has been done on the basis that attendances will rise in the future because (1) the club is progressing on the pitch and (2) the facilities are a lot better for the people who come to games. Putting a roof on the Clayton End will improve attendances because, as has been said, it does very cold and wet in the winter. I can't get my lad to come when the weather's bad. He loves coming to the matches, but not to the point of getting soaked or having to sit down and watch the game from the sidelines. Maybe the roof will add 100 to the attendances, maybe more in bad weather, but it depends much more on what happens on the pitch. IMO our attendances have been at their 'true' level this season. It was last season that attendances were abnormally high and largely because of the FA Cup run. It was our first season in the Conference with a side that had been very successful on the pitch, we had a lot of TV coverage from our first Conference game to our Cup match against Huddersfield and so it was easy to get people interested in coming to Stanley games. It was always going to be harder in the 2nd season and without the lure of FA Cup glory, we've gone back to our base support. A roof and another FA Cup run will help, but the club need to do a lot more to get people to Stanley games and particularly kids. Put Stan the Monkey and the Junior Reds debacles behind us and get the players into a different school each week armed with free kids tickets for the next Stanley match.