This post is pulling in the likes but sorry Chazz, it's bollocks. No, people were not saying we'd have 20,000 hardcore fans. That's clearly a very dramatised version of what was said. Actually, there was a lot of caution, talked about for years, that once they did eventually go it would take a long time to get the crowds back up to where they were. It was obvious there'd be a decent bump from day 1, and there was. But nobody said 20,000 hardcore fans. But in any case, for all the negative talk of whether we can get 20,000 in the last couple of pages, we actually did get over 20,000 for the last few, which were dead rubbers. We've since got another 2,000 members in which is good news. The pricing is brilliant, but realistically it already was brilliant before this summer's changes, so to get another 2,000 purely on the back of that is pretty good I'd say. I don't think we should be disappointed in the slightest by the increase in our crowds under Acun. The key now to taking the crowds up another level is to have a bit of success. Home games on the whole have been joyless for a really long time now. From McCann taking over in 2019 to Rosenior coming in last year we lost an incredible amount of home games, 31 home defeats from 56 in front of fans in that time. I think it went under people's radars how bad it really was. Can't be many teams in the country who had a worse time watching home games over that period. Under LR we've stopped losing at home but it came too late for there to be any real excitement, the season was basically already gone and obviously we had trouble scoring goals. A good first half of this season to generate a bit of excitement and belief would go a long way. We've seen glimpses under Acun of what an excited stadium can look and sound like but it's never had a spell of results to make it last longer than a game or two max.
Acun is a showman and is all about the publicity. Very few people invest in a football team to make money. He may sell if it proves too difficult to get promotion but i cant see him selling if we did get promoted.
It would have been just after the takeover but I wouldn't know where to begin to find it, Howden seems to have heard similar so don't think I imagined it.
I'm sceptical. I also think this FPL is a bit of an excuse. If we are near the ceiling it is because of the players they have brought in themselves, so they have paid themselves too much. It looks like they have learnt something from that this season. The £17m we stole off Brentford for KLP seems to have been forgotten about in this equasion. That either bought the club for Acun or funded all those players he brought in last season from clubs he had a vested interest in. Off the field the club has certainly improved, which wasnt difficult, Don Robinson did exactly the same without dipping into his own pocket, ditto Adam Pearson. Why was he in interested in buying Hull City in the first place? When we were a league 1 club at the first point of interest ? Price, we were dirt cheap with no debt. He bought a dream, like us buying a lottery ticket. The only way any owner will get a dividend from this club is to get us in the Premier League then sell. You've got to get lucky. Unless we suddenly inherit a stadium like the Stadium of Light and have 40,000 people clammering for tickets every week. The other way is to develop young players and sell them, ie; Bowen, KLP, Maguire, Clucas, because this club is not substainable at this level, never mind the Premier League on a fanbase of 12,000, which basically is all we have if you discount the freebies. The club could not have banged the drum harder than they have recently to persuade fans to buy into it, and still they are reluctant to sign up for a season, even at prices we last saw two decades ago. Personally I'm happy with mid table Championship and the odd sniff of promotion thrown in and I'd sooner win the FA Cup than spend another season in the Premier League, cheering corners and draws. Because I'm a realist and have seen this sort of ownership before at the club. It doesn't last. On the plus side, I saw some genuine talent in the playing staff on Tueday, we no longer just take to the field and hope for the best, Rosenier does have a plan and the players look to be buying into it. We haven't mortgaged anything, or at least i hope we haven't, to bring in 'blow your socks off signings' which all end in failure and debt and I an genuinley looking forward to the season, because I think we will have a go. If we are successful or not, no-one knows, if we are Rosenier will become a target for bigger, more ambitious clubs, if he fails then 'Houston we have a problem'. Just enjoy the ride, which I'm sure the owner is at the moment, it's when the ride gets rocky the problems start and he may well want to get off. Until then let's not read too much into anything nor expect too much. We are what we are.
You were very bullish on the owner, going on about how we were debt free etc. Can't be assed digging out the posts.
Dig all you like. We were debt free when he bought us which was due to the Allams. If you care to read my post again I could swear I wrote that us being 'debt free' as well as cheap, was one of the reasons why he bought us. I don't need lecturing by someone who wouldn't even pay a fiver to watch a live stream of our games because you found it boring to watch. Which are a bit like your **** stirring posts.
I didn't pay because it was 3.30 in the morning in the middle of the work week. All I said was you've changed your tune on Acun. I'm terribly sorry if that upset you.
I aren’t sure where this negativity surrounding crowds has come from. Go back the McCann/Ehab era we was pulling in 10k. Now we have sold 14/15k memberships and will probably have near on 20k a week. That’s a huge improvement without significant improvements on the pitch. With a few more players who improve us we will be working our way up the table and the excitement will build.
10k was a generous overestimation. The barnsley friendly looked like a late Allam era attendance and that was 5k
Good post. Last paragraph. Not just results (success) but the style of play too. Bar odd glimpses (like Vaughan of late) it's mostly been as dull as dish water for too long. Rosenior has improved the defending but he's yet to show anything in terms of improvement & excitement going forward. Like it or not, dull football will not boost crowds. I hope he gets there with this promised exciting brand of football that nobody else is playing, but as some keep saying, we are yet to see it and there's all of 2 weeks & 2 days before we get underway again.
Bollox!!! You didn't pay because you thought it should be free...And I definitely can't be arsed looking back through your posts to find it.
The point about making it free was entirely separate. It could have been free and I still wouldn't have been up at 3.30am on a work night. Just as I didn't watch last year's friendly live despite it being free. Hope that's OK with you.
Arsenal always got good crowds when they were winning 1-0 under Graham. It would be the same with us, bigger crowds drawing 0-0 or winning 1-0 and top of the league than we would have being mid table winning some 4-3 and losing some by the same score. If we win 1-0 in the 89th minute I am happy if we lose no matter how many goals are scored or how entertaining it is I am pissed off. If I want to watch just for a better level of entertaining than I can watch teams I have no interest in and who wins is irrelevant. As far as City concerned I agree with great American gridiron coach Vince Lombardi who had his saying at Green Bay Packers inscribed at the stadium “Winning is not the most important thing - it is the only thing.”
Last season was our 12th best average attendance going back to the 1950s and the 7th highest in the second tier. Considering the season we had that's not bad for us. This season is looking like it will be better. (Yes Castro I know its very rubbish for other better supported teams)
