[maccawozzagod]

the simple answer is that something has to be done about the lack of marketing. The club has for too long relied on the goodwill of the name and expected things to happen on the back of that and free advertsing in the newspapers.

Driving to work in a morning I hear two adverts on the radio for Burnley's 'early bird' initiative (that had more notice given). Now I realise that we don't have the money that other clubs have to aim for blanket media coverage, but even a partial amount of the money would be a start. 5 times a week during drive time? We now have fantastic prices for students, but are probably missing out because we are not aggressively marketing them.

Stay away fans are not necesssarily 'staying away' they may simply be just not interested in us. Lets accept that and move on.

We don't necessarily need them to come to games. We can get money out of them via things like scratchcards. Rovers or Burnley have little plastic merchandisers on the counter of many local shops, pubs, butchers throughout the borough. Next time you see one in your local ask the owner why. More often than not they will tell you it is becasue it was there when they came or because they asked. We should do them.

I personally think that no matter how successful the Gold Bond may or not be it could be done differently. It could be something that the whole town plays as opposed to the National Lottery (well maybe not) but should be something that the whole town knows about and has access to play. Did you know the the Supporters Club in the forties and fifties were making around £150,000 a year through the lotteries? Translate that to todays money and it is probably more than the entire turnover of the club.

Two problems we have though.

No money from the club to fund or promote any ideas like these
Not interest from the existing fans to inititiate them.