It's 2am and I'm randomly surfing the net, not looking for anything in particular, when I come across this page on the football league website http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/AttendanceStats/0,,10794,00.html At the bottom of the page are links to various different breakdowns Average Attendance Highest Match Attendance Average Travelling Fans Travelling Fans (as Percentage of Home Fans) Highest Travelling Fans Visiting Fans What I have found that interested me is concerning the away fans. For example we took an average of 483 fans to away games but only had an average of 197 come to Priestfield, which is one of the lowest . That's like we take nearly 2.5 times as many fans as come to us! It's a shame because I like it when there is a decent away following in the town end but it just doesn't happen very often. Our average attendance was good (6th overall in league 2) which considering the lowly away following is rather surprising. Can anything be done by the club to get more away fans to come to Priestfield? Surely we are losing out on revenue here! Is it price? Location? Both I daresay. An idea I had a little while ago was maybe doing train and game tickets. Discounted train tickets for people who have purchased match day tickets? This could work so well for all every club and for the rail companies who would get extra passengers at the weekends when it's quieter. For this to happen I feel it take the football league to get involved, negotiate with the rail companies and come to arrangement. Never going to happen though. Anyone have any other ideas? What things influence your decision on whether or not to go to an away game and what could be done to change your mind? Within reason of course. UTG
Put a roof on the away end would help!! Our Awayticket prices are some of the most expensive and you get wet! Joking aside reading comments on other clubs forums the fact the away end is open to the elements and the price of a ticket not reflectithe fact you are going to get cold and wet does put many away fans off. UTG!
Yeah to be honest if you put yourself in the shoes of a Crewe fan for example. To come to gillingham you have to travel about 4-5 hours each way to sit in a uncovered stand with the rain lashing down and to be honest this year you are likely to get beat. It doesn't sound too inviting! Idea's? My idea is to give Half of the Gordon Road Stand to traveling fans, giving them cover from the element's, and sell ticket's to the Brian Moore Stand to Gills fans at discounted rates (15 quid or something like that). Therefore you will get more away fans coming down because they have cover from the wind and rain. Plus you will get more home fan's coming down because they might fancy it a bit Moore (pun very much intended) if they can get in cheaper! You would have to balance the prices carefully of course to make sure on a sunny Saturday the Rainham End isn't empty and the Brian Moore bursting at the seams!!
i think its obvious to all gills fans were going nowhere soon. even if we make it into the championship in the next few year (please god let it happen) priestfield, well 3 sides of it, won't be that out of place and I can't honestly see us filling it completely even if we do. however priestfield does have scope for improvement, both the gordon road and brian moore (obviously) could be upgraded to the same standard as the rest of the ground. in doing so increasing capacity and attendance from away fans. lets be honest bar the brian moore stand priestfield makes a lot of stadiums in league 2 look like bomb sites.
Just trying to refresh my memory on this one but does the Gordon Road stand have certain planning (height) restrictions on it, compared to the rest of the ground. I can only assume because of the close proximity of the facing properties behind? I must agree with gfcluckey's idea though, place the away fans in a section of the Gordon Road stand (accept for large away followings), whilst selling cheaper tickets to home fans for the BMS. I never did see any feedback from the club, on how it worked out financially when opening up the BMS for some games to home fans last season.
thought it just couldnt expand backwards due to the road but this also means it cant go upwards as you have to go back to go up
Basically the Priestfield is as developed as it is going to get. If we do get back into the championship in the next 5 years (I think that is the plan anyway) we may well put the plans into action to move us outside the town and into the country side. Recently Mr. Scally has been trying to squeeze as much as he can out of the Priestfield by re-decorating the Blues Rock Cafe and bringing in new caterers (who's Pie's are a marked improvement over last years). Also we are trying to make it into a Concert venue! It is obvious that we are trying to do the best with the ground we have but I feel if we are trying to do all this now there is little else we can do with the Priestfield once we reach the championship. I hope we do what Brighton did, steady themselves in League 1 and start building a new stadium.
It has to be mainly the cost - for watching a league 2 fixture. Our prices have been towards the upper end in the division ( L1 & L2 .) Although the lack of roof on the BMS doesn't help- when we were in the Championship we were getting 9000-10000 for most home games. The away support was healthy - sometimes the half of the town end that was given to visiting fans was insufficient for the demand. This could indicate that people ( including home 'fans' ) WILL come to Gillingham to see a more attractive fixture. We need to get a couple of quick promotions.
Cost, facilities, location (particularly M25 or train change in London) all contribute. It is exactly what you would expect!
Seems like a sensible suggestion to me as so far (all two games of it) we're not exactly selling out to the home fans. I think the only problem with this is towards the end of the season, if we continue as we've started, then more home fans will arrive and might have a thing or two to say about being stuck in the BMS and the rain. If (or when) we are back in the championship we'll have to either finish developing BMS or move. Would be sad to leave Priestfield but would you sacrifice the stadium for Championship football? I think I probably would.
A lot of northern clubs are within 20 or 30 miles of their rivals, traveling time 1 hour or less, cost for travel under a tenner. Most of the southern clubs are over 2 hours from rivals, cost of travel £15 too £30. if you look at Rotherham on Saturday £27 for coach travel alone.
I think one of the reasons we get reasonable crowds is because we are in the town. The Brian Moore stand could be developed giving some or all of the Gorden road side to away fans and although new there is a lot of land behind the Rainham end so the stand could be deeper. I reckon if clever over time the site could be increased to 15-18k and I dont think we would ever need anything bigger . I see no need to move
We could adapt the strategy Bradford use for their home fans but for our away end. For example, if a team could guarantee bringing 600 fans they can have tickets at 33% discount. Thus we still get the equivilent revenue from 400 and the better atmosphere. We could play around with figures for each team depending on their support.
Check out the attandances for the last 30 - 40 years and you will see that even in days where segregation was not an issue attendances were not great or deserving of a new ground. During the miners strike in 1974 there were 13000 for a home game against Peterborough on a Sunday. This is a ground that held 23,0000...................ok no chance now. The inference is: OK Brighton were stuffed into the Withdean Stadium and had crowds of 7000 max yet in the Goldstone Ground had REGULARLY crowds of 20000+ in the 70s and the catchment area is huge. This is reflected in the attendance of 17000+ for the first round Carling Cup against the 'Minnows' Gillingham FC their former landlords. Gills will never get more than 12000 for a home game, this is due to prices, catchment area and disposable income, proximity of 'more attractive' clubs to visit (although to me ....what can be more emotive than attending your home town's ground????? It's a tribal thing...). It's down to the people of Medway to wake up and realise how lucky they are to have a league club at all. And how lucky they are to have a manager like AH AND a supportive chairman like Paul Scally............I live 50 miles away and still passionately believe in the Gills. Do we need another ground?????? Let's fill this one first!!!!!
