The psychological factor of exceeding £10 for non-league football is a very good point. There is no better indication of underlying support for a team than the first home game of the season. Here are the attendances from last three years:
'03 - 2003 vs Leigh RMI on a Wednesday night (adult ticket price: £10)
'04 - 1705 vs Burton on a Saturday afternoon (adult ticket price: £10)
'05 - 1012 vs Canvey Island on a Saturday afternoon (adult ticket price: £12)
There was no bigger example of a problem with attendances than on the opening day. Just over 1,000 people turned up to watch the start of a new season. We can't blame holidays as it would have been no different to the last couple of years. We lost 700 people or over 40% of last year's opening day attendance this year. That's where the problem started and answers needed to be found. The psychological factor of exceeding £10 for an adult ticket would certainly explain some of this shortfall of 700 spectators, but not all of it.
Just out of interest, in our last season in the Unibond Premier we opened with 602 against Runcorn on the first Saturday of the season. We won our first nine League games and that turned out to be the lowest home league gate of the season. If we had decided to move the Woking home to Friday night rather than 1pm before the England game, we would certainly have got more than 959 in the ground and our opening day gate would remain the lowest of the season ... as it had been in 2002, the last time we won promotion
There has been a lot of points made about the ground ... open to the elements, standards and queues for toilets and catering facilities and the mud outside the ground ... and most people would agree with them. The point is that if they were an issue, attendances should start to fall once the colder, wetter weather sets in (and hopefully rise again by Easter if the Club has something to play for).
Taking attendances for the last four seasons, here are the median number of people attending the games up to this stage of the season (I use 'median' as a measure of the average to counter figures being distorted by teams with very a large travelling contingent, e.g. over 3,000 turned up to watch Carlisle at a midweek game at the IES last year):
'02 - Aug/Sept = 1114; Oct-Dec = 942
'03 - Aug/Sept = 2012; Oct-Dec = 1627
'04 - Aug/Sept = 1507; Oct-Dec = 1357
'05 - Aug/Sept = 1142; Oct-Dec = 1506
The point is that we traditionally lose 150-400 people (or 10-19% of early season attendances) once the colder weather sets in and that does include the 2002-03 season when we started the season by winning every game. By contrast we have GAINED 364 people (or 32% of early season attendances) on average, which is something that we have not done before now. And let's face it, the number of visiting fans has been laughable at most games this season.
The conditions in the ground could certainly be improved and an improvement on the underfoot conditions outside the ground would be most welcome, but unlike previous seasons it has not deterred as many 'fair-weather' fans as in previous seasons; the problem was that they decided not to return at the start of this season. The club must make sure that does not happen again next season.
Full credit to Coley and his attacking style of play as it does keep the crowds coming back and full credit to the Ultras for the atmosphere that they bring to the game as it is certainly bringing younger fans to the games. We now have a higher number of 'core' supporters than we did twelve months ago.
So it's not all doom and gloom about attendances. Yes, if stadium conditions were better and more effort was put in by the club in targetting the local schools with players and ticket offers, attendances would be higher, but we're attracting as many people to the IES as we could expect to do so at this stage of the season. Over the Christmas/New Year period and from March onwards, attendances will start to rise again very rapidly and next season we'll have a ground and attendances fit for the Football League!