Release Lists

[Eastleigh Fan]

You didn't have enough stewards to accommodate us and open the rest of your ground.

Laughable & you clearly wasnt there. You bought less than 200. So why on earth did we need a mass of Stewards to open up another area.

 

[rudebwoyben]

That would still register as Eastleigh's largest ever away following though!

 

[Andy Harrier]

Whild says he has held positive talks with Danny Wright and Gurjit Singh. Wright would be good if we can afford him. Singh has been training with Harriers for the last couple of months while playing for Tipton Town.

Reece Hales and 4 Academy players will be training with the club in pre-season to try and earn contracts.

There hasn't been any mention from the club on the futures of Jake Green, Akwasi Asante, Josh Gowling or Lee Hughes. I suspect Gowling will leave after the play off final, which is disappointing. Hughes is apparently to leave the club. I guess he may be retiring, but he's probably still fit enough to have one more season. Asante probably hasn't done enough to earn a new deal considering the number of strikers we already have and I'm undecided on Green.

 

[Sparrow]

Laughable & you clearly wasnt there. You bought less than 200. So why on earth did we need a mass of Stewards to open up another area.

According to Cardsfan's away attendance spreadsheet we had 400 at yours, which I know is right as I was there. Just admit it, you're not fit to operate at this level. Going to be hilarious when you go bust and turn into a Sainsbury's. Suddenly you'll be nowhere to be seen on here and you'll go back to supporting Southampton.

 

[Greenacres]

Something that doesn't seem to have been considered with regards to Eastleigh is that their Chairman was trying to make the point that football fans are paying excessive amounts to watch the game. At a far higher level we have seen Liverpool fans effectively boycotting their recent game against Hull, due to the amount they were being charged to watch the game. Tune in to 606 (other football related chat shows are available) and you will often hear fans talking about how much it costs to watch football, that they have been priced out of the game. I recently heard a Chelsea fan comment that many of the people watching games at Stamford Bridge are tourists, not people who have supported the team for years, maybe this is just confirmation that the game at the highest level in England is now a global entity.

Back to Eastleigh and the wish of their Chairman to make the game affordable once more. I know that many of you, who follow teams other than Eastleigh, view that club as a massive experiment, that has an almost synthetic feel to it, a sort of Nylon United. Please consider this view - If the approach of their Chairman forces clubs to review their pricing structure and make the game affordable once again...who will be the beneficiary? The simple answer is all of us, you, me and the average football fan. In the long term the clubs may also gain, if they start to fill up their grounds once again, no more vast expanses of empty terrace (or seats). We have all benefited from things in our life because someone was brave enough to try something different, to experiment and confound opinion. For that reason I applaud the approach of the Eastleigh Chairman, and Dale Vince, as one day more of you may see their efforts as a benefit rather than a threat.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

According to Cardsfan's away attendance spreadsheet we had 400 at yours, which I know is right as I was there. Just admit it, you're not fit to operate at this level. Going to be hilarious when you go bust and turn into a Sainsbury's. Suddenly you'll be nowhere to be seen on here and you'll go back to supporting Southampton.

Wrong yet again. Do you really think 400 away fans was the most we had at the Lake this season?
Plenty of teams brought a lot more than that and most of those "bigger real clubs" were very complimentary. But as usual Woking are all BBB. That's why you are a club going downhill and we are on the up.
FWIW - I have never supported Southampton. But i bet you have supported a London club.

Greenacres cant be the only one who sees whats really going on?
Take your heads out the sand and see where your club is heading in the next 5 years, then look at us. See the gap appearing?

 

[Sparrow]

Wrong yet again. Do you really think 400 away fans was the most we had at the Lake this season?
Plenty of teams brought a lot more than that and most of those "bigger real clubs" were very complimentary. But as usual Woking are all BBB. That's why you are a club going downhill and we are on the up.
FWIW - I have never supported Southampton. But i bet you have supported a London club.

Greenacres cant be the only one who sees whats really going on?
Take your heads out the sand and see where your club is heading in the next 5 years, then look at us. See the gap appearing?

Eastleigh's record vs Woking - 2014-15 Season:

Played: 3
Won: 0
Drew: 2
Lost: 1

All that money for your owner's Project and nothing to show for it.

 

[Southern Shayman]

Interesting comment about clubs ending up at their natural level. We have been in this division for the best part of two decades, so you would have to say that our natural level at least in recent times is the Conference National, but there is nothing wrong with having an ambition to play at the next one.

There is undoubtedly a lot of hard work being performed, largely behind the scenes, by unsung volunteers at all of our clubs. It might be that it is more evident, or even important, at clubs like Eastleigh and Forest Green who are still on their rise. Over the past few weeks a number of initiatives taken by both these teams have been highlighted on this forum, what is to stop anyone else from any other team copying them, if it can increase your fanbase then what do you have to lose. You will need those fans just as much when you return to the Football League as we will if we get there for the first time. Our crowds last season were up by a modest 25% in comparison to the improvement shown by Eastleigh, but that represents a lot of hard work, some of those people will keep coming back.



I was one of those fortunate enough to get into a game at Silverlake for free last season, my understanding was that it was a gesture by the Chairman to thank the fans for their support in the previous season, but also in the hope that they might attract new fans. I was stood largely with Southampton fans, many of whom said that they attended occasional games at Eastleigh, but might go to more in the future due largely to the cost of Premier League games.

The Chairmen of both Eastleigh and Forest Green are taking a new approach to the way they run their clubs, although radically different they are both successful businessmen. I don't have a problem with this as there is no proscribed method, what works for one team will not work for another. I know this will probably be met with a rash of comments along the lines of "if you throw enough money at a club it will succeed", but this isn't always the case, success often comes by just trying to do something differently. If your club keeps doing things the same way then it is likely that it will stand still.

Apologies if I didn't explain my point properly. It was more of an objection at Eastleigh Fan holding up their model as one for others to copy, rather than disputing the impact its had. The vast majority of clubs in this league cannot afford to let people in for free all the time, or offer stupidly cheap season tickets. (this is further impacted by Eastleigh's wage spending, so in fact Eastleigh's owner is making football more expensive for everyone).

So my point was that Alty's efforts at community engagement and the one's at your own club, highlighted by Chris FGR, are the true levels of outreach that clubs need to be aspiring to and can look at the model and copy. Eastleigh's 'subsidise the admission cost so people actually turn up' is not a model that is either sustainable nor a blueprint for others to copy. So whilst it's a nice little experiment, it's not a beacon of community engagement that all clubs should follow like the pied piper - despite what Eastleigh fan suggests.

 

[Southern Shayman]

Back to Eastleigh and the wish of their Chairman to make the game affordable once more. I know that many of you, who follow teams other than Eastleigh, view that club as a massive experiment, that has an almost synthetic feel to it, a sort of Nylon United. Please consider this view - If the approach of their Chairman forces clubs to review their pricing structure and make the game affordable once again...who will be the beneficiary? The simple answer is all of us, you, me and the average football fan. In the long term the clubs may also gain, if they start to fill up their grounds once again, no more vast expanses of empty terrace (or seats). We have all benefited from things in our life because someone was brave enough to try something different, to experiment and confound opinion. For that reason I applaud the approach of the Eastleigh Chairman, and Dale Vince, as one day more of you may see their efforts as a benefit rather than a threat.

As I alluded to in my earlier post, if this is the Eastleigh chairman's intention - he is either very thick, or very short sighted. He has no interest in the expenses of the wider football fan. If he did, he wouldn't be artificially inflating the wage costs across the league, thus meaning others have to spend more to compete. Given (despite Eastleigh fan's idiotic argument to the contrary) the vast majority of lower league football clubs make the majority of their income through ticket revenue. This means prices are always going to rise.

Long story short. The Eastleigh owner is not some messiah like football philanthropist, he's just a bloke with a lot of money - that wants to see his personal hobby team rise as high as possible and do as well as possible. While it's up for debate whether that's right or not, he certainly doesn't care about the price of football!

 

[Luke Imp]

Something that doesn't seem to have been considered with regards to Eastleigh is that their Chairman was trying to make the point that football fans are paying excessive amounts to watch the game. At a far higher level we have seen Liverpool fans effectively boycotting their recent game against Hull, due to the amount they were being charged to watch the game. Tune in to 606 (other football related chat shows are available) and you will often hear fans talking about how much it costs to watch football, that they have been priced out of the game. I recently heard a Chelsea fan comment that many of the people watching games at Stamford Bridge are tourists, not people who have supported the team for years, maybe this is just confirmation that the game at the highest level in England is now a global entity.

On the subject of Liverpool, anyone else find it ironic that they boycotted the Hull match due to ticket prices yet fast forward a few weeks, home fans are selling tickets for the weekend game for up to £2,000...!

 

[Si Robin]

As I alluded to in my earlier post, if this is the Eastleigh chairman's intention - he is either very thick, or very short sighted. He has no interest in the expenses of the wider football fan. If he did, he wouldn't be artificially inflating the wage costs across the league, thus meaning others have to spend more to compete. Given (despite Eastleigh fan's idiotic argument to the contrary) the vast majority of lower league football clubs make the majority of their income through ticket revenue. This means prices are always going to rise.

Long story short. The Eastleigh owner is not some messiah like football philanthropist, he's just a bloke with a lot of money - that wants to see his personal hobby team rise as high as possible and do as well as possible. While it's up for debate whether that's right or not, he certainly doesn't care about the price of football!

This is 100% correct. It's great that FGR and Eastleigh reduce their prices, but would they be doing it if the gate receipts were crucial to the income of the club and paid the astronomical wages of the players? Absolutely not.

Our ticket prices are shocking, for League 2 football let alone Conference, but the club know that we have a hardcore support that will pay them. If they reduced the prices by a fiver then there is no way that the increased attendance (and it would increase slightly) will be enough to cover the difference. As a club, we can't afford to reduce prices to next to nothing, save for the once in a blue moon game.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

So think about this:-
4000 fans come in for free (this was just 1 game).
How much in secondary spends do you think 4000 people made on the day?
Lets just say for now that the 4000 only spent an average of £3 per person on secondary spends, that would be £12k.
So if it wasn't free, lets say we get 1500 in the ground, paying an average of £8, that's a total of £12k.
However, i know for a fact that on that day, the club shop took the equivalent of the entire previous seasons taking in that one day!
And bar and food outlet takings were through the roof. And all the time, we have exposed a larger number of local people to Eastleigh Football club, which it is hoped would benefit us in the longer term.
So i suspect that the average spend of those 4000 was more like £10 each (there were hundreds of kids there, with a lot of them forcing their parents to buy shirts/scarves etc), which gives you a days takings of £40k, instead of the £12 we would have took. Even if you said it was only an average of £5 secondary spends, then that is £20k and we are £8k better off.
I believe we also offered a "6 game mid season ticket" that day and there was a high take up of that offer too. The majority of those taking up that offer, will come back next season.

Foolish for letting people in for free?...or very cleaver business sense/economics, with one eye on growing our fanbase?

 

[Southern Shayman]

So think about this:-
4000 fans come in for free (this was just 1 game).
How much in secondary spends do you think 4000 people made on the day?
Lets just say for now that the 4000 only spent an average of £3 per person on secondary spends, that would be £12k.
So if it wasn't free, lets say we get 1500 in the ground, paying an average of £8, that's a total of £12k.
However, i know for a fact that on that day, the club shop took the equivalent of the entire previous seasons taking in that one day!
And bar and food outlet takings were through the roof. And all the time, we have exposed a larger number of local people to Eastleigh Football club, which it is hoped would benefit us in the longer term.
So i suspect that the average spend of those 4000 was more like £10 each (there were hundreds of kids there, with a lot of them forcing their parents to buy shirts/scarves etc), which gives you a days takings of £40k, instead of the £12 we would have took. Even if you said it was only an average of £5 secondary spends, then that is £20k and we are £8k better off.
I believe we also offered a "6 game mid season ticket" that day and there was a high take up of that offer too. The majority of those taking up that offer, will come back next season.

Foolish for letting people in for free?...or very cleaver business sense/economics, with one eye on growing our fanbase?

You've missed one big thing from your "excellent business case" the secondary spends of the 1500? It's easy to say you made a load of money. when you only add up half of the alternative - you absolute melon.

In addition, £10 of secondary spends it's absolutely ludicrous. There's budgeting, then there's making it up.

Oh and finally, I'd like to bet that the profit margin on entry is a whole lot higher than it is on shirts as a % and there's the fact that this "crazed spending spree on merchandise" only happens once, not the other times you let people in for free - it's not like Southampton - people don't get a half and half every game.

So once again, it can clearly be seen that you're talking bollocks. Whilst I don't argue that it may assist in growing your fanbase, it DEFINITELY made a loss and isn't a sustainable almighty model for others to copy. I never thought I'd find someone more deluded than B2TF...

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

Lol you really believe it made a loss?
You are deluded to the extreme. I guess that's why you are supporting a club that is on a huge downward spiral.
Wake up before its too late (oh sorry it already is to late, your club went bust 7 years ago).

 

[Southern Shayman]

Lol you really believe it made a loss?
You are deluded to the extreme. I guess that's why you are supporting a club that is on a huge downward spiral.
Wake up before its too late (oh sorry it already is to late, your club went bust 7 years ago).

You've missed the key part in any one person's support. It's not a choice. You don't fuck off when it get's tough - as you and the other recipients of the almighty vision inevitably will.

 

[BeesKnees]

I'm going to need to make this VERY simple.
1500 pay entrance @ £10 gives £15k revenue.
4000 pay £10 on goods with a 20% profit margin gives £8k revenue.

Assuming the 1500 would've spent maybe £5k on top then the net loss to a club surviving on gate receipts would be £8k. The is no point trying to claim profit if you ignore cost.

I'm not saying offering free/reduced entry is a bad thing for boosting numbers and increasing support but to claim there is no cost to achieving it and that it guarantees long term future revenue is wrong. We regularly offer bring a friend for free to members and local resident have been given opportunities to come for a pound. The cost of advertising and marketing these offers must also be factored in.

The success of a team is by far the largest factor of encouraging more people to come.

 

[Greenacres]

This is 100% correct. It's great that FGR and Eastleigh reduce their prices, but would they be doing it if the gate receipts were crucial to the income of the club and paid the astronomical wages of the players? Absolutely not.

Are ticket prices are shocking, for League 2 football let alone Conference, but the club know that we have a hardcore support that will pay them. If they reduced the prices by a fiver then there is no way that the increased attendance (and it would increase slightly) will be enough to cover the difference. As a club, we can't afford to reduce prices to next to nothing, save for the once in a blue moon game.

In answer to your first point, about the gate receipts being crucial, maybe not. Clearly none of us have access, at least I assume we don't, to the decisions being made by the Boards at either Eastleigh, Forest Green or any other club, but I am sure they all have a business plan that considers the future of their club. In our case we haven't just opened the gates without charge but had initiatives like letting in U-10s for free, as long as they were accompanied by a paying adult. So, maybe not a total freebie, but reasonable to assume that the club is making money on other items from people who might not otherwise have attended the game. When I first started watching FGR ten years ago I would say that the age demographic amongst supporters veered towards the older range. Now that is no longer the case, so whatever the club have been doing to attract younger supporters appears to be working very well indeed.

I think we could keep debating until we are blue in the face, this matter seems to have polarised opinion. I acknowledge that our financial position is nowhere near as precarious as some and we are able to do some things that others could not, but even at a smaller or cheaper level it is sometimes necessary to take a financial hit to try and increase or maintain support to move your club forward.

As to ticket prices, having visited Whaddon Road last season for the cup game against Gloucester, I was shocked to see how much Cheltenham charged their supporters. There is a fine balance between what people, such as regular supporters, are prepared to pay and what will stop them. I guess the balance has to be struck finely to offer value for money, but also to pay the bills, I am glad that it isn't me trying to make those decisions.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

You've missed the key part in any one person's support. It's not a choice. You don't fuck off when it get's tough - as you and the other recipients of the almighty vision inevitably will.

So your club has never lost a fan down the years eh?
What a joke your club is. Its gone bust, lost thousands of fans, and when i went there this season it was soulless. Hardly any home fans there, not one song, no atmosphere & your team couldnt be bothered to even try and play football, they just hoofed it high. So yeh, your club are being run really well, im glad you are happy with that. I understand you have no choice, you are a true fan of a club that is 7 years old, that takes a lot of dedication.....FWIW, i have supported EFC for over 30 years.
So moving on, EFC will continue to grow and rise. I'll leave you to support your "new" club and hope you are able to wake up and see how its done very soon, otherwise you could find yourself even further down the footballing pyramid and with less fans coming to games than ever before (in your 7 year history).

 

[Southern Shayman]

So your club has never lost a fan down the years eh?
What a joke your club is. Its gone bust, lost thousands of fans, and when i went there this season it was soulless. Hardly any home fans there, not one song, no atmosphere & your team couldnt be bothered to even try and play football, they just hoofed it high. So yeh, your club are being run really well, im glad you are happy with that. I understand you have no choice, you are a true fan of a club that is 7 years old, that takes a lot of dedication.....FWIW, i have supported EFC for over 30 years.
So moving on, EFC will continue to grow and rise. I'll leave you to support your "new" club and hope you are able to wake up and see how its done very soon, otherwise you could find yourself even further down the footballing pyramid and with less fans coming to games than ever before (in your 7 year history).

Well we never had many to start with, so no we haven't lost thousands

I'll leave you in your deluded little world where having a multi millionaire owner funding your club is a business model

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

Show me a decent club who doesn't have a multi-millionaire at the helm, most do.
Its just that some have drive, ambition & a vision they want to achieve, where as some just use it as a means of inflating their ego's and dont really want to spend too much on the club. I'm glad we have one that is innovative, rather than a fat controller who wants all the publicity & glory but doesn't want to part with a penny.
The sooner your old school clubs realise this the better your clubs will become, as there are plenty of Stewart Donald's & Dale Vince's out there, but investing in stale going nowhere ex giants of the footballing world, is not an attractive proposition for them. Better to buy a smaller club and build it up, than to try and flog a tired old horse to go once more round the running track.

 

[Pliny Harris]

I'm glad you correctly named yourself as "Eastleigh Fan" to distinguish you from the zero other Eastleigh fans out there, but what's this "huge downward spiral" you speak of at FCHT?

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

errmm so our average home fan attendance of around 1600 are figments of my imagination are they?
What a knob, but thanks for your efforts.

 

[Pliny Harris]

You'll be wondering if they were when the moneyman gets bored.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

Yeh yeh yeh, move along now please Pliney, nothing new to see here.

 

[Pliny Harris]

There isn't, which is why we're warning yer.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

lol you couldnt warn a blind man that he had a dog attached to his arm you muppet.

 

[The_Boss]

Love it when old men learn how to use a a computer!

 

[CrazyImp]

Seriously, who is this guy?

#TinpotMeltdown

 

[BeesKnees]

lol you couldnt warn a blind man that he had a dog attached to his arm you muppet.

You are that blind man that fails to listen to warnings.

Dale Vince has pushed FGR so far into debt to him that no one would touch them with a barge pole. So far for his money he has a team playing in the same division as they were when he took over. Their average attendance is liitle different over the past 10 years with this season primarily increasing due to Bristol Rovers. To his credit, if he walked and wiped his debt then they would be in a far better place financially than before he arrived because they now have off field facilities to support a club at conference level anyway. If they got promoted without leaving Nailsworth then it would only be a matter of time before the lack of local population stopped them progressing.

Your set-up is nothing like FGR, Eastleigh is a big town (30% bigger than Grimsby or same as Grimsby\Cleethorpes together) that could support a bigger club than it currently has so it makes sense to provide offers to attract new support, BUT the claim that letting everyone in free is sustainable is just completely laughable. While tickets are cheap and the players subsidised then people will come, if either of those factors change (which at some point they will) and you will discover exactly how many truely support the club and how many are just enjoying the success. So enjoy the ride while it lasts but stop telling everyone that this is some magic formula they've never seen before.

 

[Eastleigh Fan]

I never said we let people in for free every week, you muppet!
Our model is very similar to FGR, the difference being that our owner has had to build the stadium up from what was almost a park stadium.
If he left, we would also be in a far better financial state, with a stadium that is fully paid up with zero debts. And just one level up....Easily sustainable.

Is your club as stable & safe as that?