Stickied League 2 Away Support Thread 2024/25

[The_Viking_Magpie]

We definitely have had no boost from a glorious televised cup run, in fact we don't have any run in cup competitions but totally agree hitting rock bottom has been beneficial.

Going into the non league#stain allowed us to reset and win consistently , especially at home, with entertaining football and that meant the attendances never fell to the levels some melodramatic fans predicted. They said similar over the summer because of Maynard. Quite the opposite in fact and being a playoff side each season in NL allowed momentum. We never dropped to chesterfield levels during our time in NL.

However the biggest reason for the huge increase in home support are the owners, pure and simple. Fans can see what they are trying to do, what they have achieved, the long term plan, big money spent on infrastructure etc and combined with success on the field it's done wonders.

We are at support levels I wouldn't have even imagined in the Championship tbh let alone L2.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

That is of course still a very good following.
I did wonder whether your attendances may drop slightly into your second season at this level but that of course has not happened, I believe all your attendances so far have been 10-12 thousand.

That's correct even playing Fleetwood and Accrington with understandably low levels of away support all 3 home games have been 10,000+

In the old days at this level 6,000+ was seen as a good attendance

 

[Jimmy Anderson]

I went notts county around 2003/2004ish and the crowd was only about 4500 so crowds have trippled since then. Having looked it up that was a relegation season so maybe the reason for lower notts county crowds. Also went Wrexham similar era and crowd was again only 4000ish whereas now it's always sold out and could probably fill the ground if it held 25000.

 

[Alfie]

Fleetwood 2-2 Morecambe att 4025
Can't find any away support.

 

[F!RTHY]

Fleetwood 2-2 Morecambe att 4025
Can't find any away support.

Nor could Fleetwood …

 

[Scum.]

“MK Dons' final allocation of 500 away tickets have all been sold ahead of Saturday's fixture.“

Like every other club should do, we’ve sold out for Bromley.

 

[jacobncfc]

Good numbers from County there, seem to be doing "a Lincoln" where a decent season or two in the NL see's fans come in numbers and carry it on through into L2.

Show's us that DC's 10,000 target he had for us isn't unrealistic as a similar club, smallish city with a bigger disliked red and white neighbour doesn't have to hold you back. (rather we dont go down to increase further mind!)

It’s just been a perfect storm really. Going down did sort of help - we had four seasons in a row in the NL where we would win 75% of home games and committed to an attractive, attacking style. We’ve been up and down results wise, but you always get entertained.

The takeover just seemed to give us a new start and we’ve been run ultra professionally since. They’re the first who’ve properly used the big ground to our advantage - two or three times a season we have our offers where you can get in for basically nothing, but they’re the first who’ve done it where you aren’t paying it on the gate, the club are getting your details in exchange for your £3 ticket. And then you get hammered with more offers, hit up at season ticket time etc, it’s basic marketing stuff but it’s worked.

What’s going on at Forest has also, counter-intuitively, been brilliant for us. They were always a much bigger club obviously, but when they were knocking about at the bottom of the second tier and in the third tier, there wasn’t that dividing line between us. Since they’ve made it to the Prem, their prices are outrageous but they’re sold out every single game. If you’re new to the area or a young kid who wants to start going to football in Nottingham now you’ve only got one choice really. We’ve always had the deserved rep of an ageing fanbase but it’s completely turned the last few years and so much younger.

It’s all good stuff, we just need to keep the momentum up. It does seem sustainable - we didn’t have a great season last year but we comfortably sold a load more season tickets again this summer.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Forgot to mention the surprising benefit of our neighbours across the water doing so well. That's definitely helped

After the shock at the huge increase in support the next most notable thing is the change in demographic of fan in particular at home games and at Wembley for the play off final it was very pleasing to see a high proportion of young fans. Historically that's never been our thing , quite the opposite in fact lol but not any more.

Even if momentum is lost as it will no doubt at some point the drop back in attendances will now to be a very healthy level of 7,000-8,000.

Only one thing can truly change / ruin that.

 

[valefan16]

Sorted my ticket for the away game, 3 blocks on sale first and after the day for the highest loyalty point holders (ST + a few away/cup games this season) and they look close to selling out, next level which pretty much opens up to ST holders went on sale at 12 so should be onto the other 3 blocks soon so hopefully can get those gone.

We had just under 1500 when we were at our lowest point in 2018/19 so would be disappointed if we don't muster the 1900 here.

 

[BlackHaddock]

To be fair to the Bromley fans they had Palace, West Ham and Spurs games they had to go to yester

 

[Bianconeri 1862]

It’s just been a perfect storm really. Going down did sort of help - we had four seasons in a row in the NL where we would win 75% of home games and committed to an attractive, attacking style. We’ve been up and down results wise, but you always get entertained.

The takeover just seemed to give us a new start and we’ve been run ultra professionally since. They’re the first who’ve properly used the big ground to our advantage - two or three times a season we have our offers where you can get in for basically nothing, but they’re the first who’ve done it where you aren’t paying it on the gate, the club are getting your details in exchange for your £3 ticket. And then you get hammered with more offers, hit up at season ticket time etc, it’s basic marketing stuff but it’s worked.

What’s going on at Forest has also, counter-intuitively, been brilliant for us. They were always a much bigger club obviously, but when they were knocking about at the bottom of the second tier and in the third tier, there wasn’t that dividing line between us. Since they’ve made it to the Prem, their prices are outrageous but they’re sold out every single game. If you’re new to the area or a young kid who wants to start going to football in Nottingham now you’ve only got one choice really. We’ve always had the deserved rep of an ageing fanbase but it’s completely turned the last few years and so much younger.

It’s all good stuff, we just need to keep the momentum up. It does seem sustainable - we didn’t have a great season last year but we comfortably sold a load more season tickets again this summer.

I think they had the offer once last season and it was a tenner for adults

 

[Bianconeri 1862]

All attendance figures are welcomed to be discussed on this thread.

It wasn't the widely reported in the media 14,747. It was eleven and half thousand. Great attendance, very good following.

Of course it was the 14,747, we're so massive

 

[CFC91]

“MK Dons' final allocation of 500 away tickets have all been sold ahead of Saturday's fixture.“

Like every other club should do, we’ve sold out for Bromley.

We won't do next Tuesday. On TV< been there a million times in the NL it seems like and always get tonked. Probably take 300 odd

 

[Cloudy]

We won't do next Tuesday. On TV< been there a million times in the NL it seems like and always get tonked. Probably take 300 odd

Bromley is far from an attractive away fixture for those who have been previously. ( more so if the weather is wet).

Bromley board representatives, perhaps naively, openly said that they announce the official attendance at a significantly lower level that those in the ground. Seems a tax, vat fiddle to me??

 

[Valeite]

Bromley is far from an attractive away fixture for those who have been previously. ( more so if the weather is wet).

Bromley board representatives, perhaps naively, openly said that they announce the official attendance at a significantly lower level that those in the ground. Seems a tax, vat fiddle to me??

The old fashioned way of doing things unlike the modern way of exaggerating gates to look like a big club, you know who you are.

 

[OneDecentLester]

Had it confirmed no extra tickets from Donny this weekend after we sold out our initial allocation of 3,000. Hard not be rattled by that when there’s gonna be a fair amount of empty seats as it holds 3,400 + the away end doesn’t it?

Home end it is. Rovers fans, is pay on day available for home fans on a matchday usually?

 

[AdamStag]

Had it confirmed no extra tickets from Donny this weekend after we sold out our initial allocation of 3,000. Hard not be rattled by that when there’s gonna be a fair amount of empty seats as it holds 3,400 + the away end doesn’t it?

Home end it is. Rovers fans, is pay on day available for home fans on a matchday usually?

We’ve taken 3,300 there the other year and i know bradford have taken more (4,000 or so) so maybe it’s in SYP advice rather than the club?

 

[Pie and chips]

“MK Dons' final allocation of 500 away tickets have all been sold ahead of Saturday's fixture.“

Like every other club should do, we’ve sold out for Bromley.

Notts sold out there 2 weeks ago but Bromley's first home game against afc Wimbledon they only took 391 out of there allocation of 450 tickets

 

[GTFCfish]

Notts sold out there 2 weeks ago but Bromley's first home game against afc Wimbledon they only took 391 out of there allocation of 450 tickets

No chance Wimbledon don’t sell that out, if that’s what they took then that’s all they will have been given.
Or a load of no shows but with tickets sold out.

 

[jacobncfc]

We’ve taken 3,300 there the other year and i know bradford have taken more (4,000 or so) so maybe it’s in SYP advice rather than the club?

Yeah I think we took more than 3,000 there last season. They might be taking our view of being slightly less accommodating to giving teams basically unlimited allocations because of a big ground (albeit we did with you lot on police advice).

 

[AdamStag]

Yeah I think we took more than 3,000 there last season. They might be taking our view of being slightly less accommodating to giving teams basically unlimited allocations because of a big ground (albeit we did with you lot on police advice).

Yeah, i think the police strong arming the clubs to the point where you make no extra money, if not a loss by selling more.

I know a notts copper well and they said you giving us 4,000 last season when others got significantly less was purely down the police.

For me though if we had a decent away end and the police didn’t interfere you’d be wanting to sell as many as possible for the money / but just my take.

 

[Scum.]

No chance Wimbledon don’t sell that out, if that’s what they took then that’s all they will have been given.
Or a load of no shows but with tickets sold out.

I mean they were certainly no shows when it mattered back in the day. 391 out of 450 sounds about right.

We’ll be taking the full 500 we have been given either way

 

[GTFCfish]

I mean they were certainly no shows when it mattered back in the day. 391 out of 450 sounds about right.

We’ll be taking the full 500 we have been given either way

At least they are showing up on the pitch this season, unlike yourselves.

 

[ROVERS⚽️]

Had it confirmed no extra tickets from Donny this weekend after we sold out our initial allocation of 3,000. Hard not be rattled by that when there’s gonna be a fair amount of empty seats as it holds 3,400 + the away end doesn’t it?

Home end it is. Rovers fans, is pay on day available for home fans on a matchday usually?

Yeah the north stand away end holds about 3300/3400, it’s a strange one that people miss out because it’s a big stadium, even though 3k is of course a good allocation I’m sure we could accommodate a bit more. We’ve gone a bit over the top for me in recent reasons with restricting attendances due to safety reasons. Last season our play off game was a sell out vs Crewe aside from a couple of hundred unsold in the away end at most, people were turned away who wanted tickets. Once announced the crowd was just 12.8k so the real capacity is in fact about 13k and not 15.2k anymore. Also, as the South stand (home end behind goal) is unallocated seating a decision was made which means around 500 seats are left empty to enable safety in that stand, so this may now mean our away end is no longer able to accommodate the numbers seen a few years back as I presume that is unallocated too. Since Bradford in the 22/23 season, the bigger away followings were between 2-3k last season. They sell on the day for the home end but apparently turn away people without prior history or Doncaster postcode so just a heads up mate. They may be on high alert with you selling out.

 

[F!RTHY]

Interestingly, our final away game is Doncaster. It’s a long old season, but if there’s anything riding on it, we’d comfortably shift anything you give us.

 

[chipmunx]

not seen an official figure for the number of away fans at the Chelsea game, but over 2600 tickets sold - so approx 2600 Barrow fans at Chelsea.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Had it confirmed no extra tickets from Donny this weekend after we sold out our initial allocation of 3,000. Hard not be rattled by that when there’s gonna be a fair amount of empty seats as it holds 3,400 + the away end doesn’t it?

Home end it is. Rovers fans, is pay on day available for home fans on a matchday usually?

You’ve been given the North stand and some of the East stand so that says 3,400 to me so no idea why you are being told 3k

 

[Scum.]

At least they are showing up on the pitch this season, unlike yourselves.

It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. In Lindsey we trust.

 

[AdamStag]

You’ve been given the North stand and some of the East stand so that says 3,400 to me so no idea why you are being told 3k

Decent trip Doncaster, will miss that and Bradford this season - have your crowds picked up a little given the run you had towards the end of last season?

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Decent trip Doncaster, will miss that and Bradford this season - have your crowds picked up a little given the run you had towards the end of last season?

Looks like it, we certainly are giving actual attendance rather than tickets sold now