Whats happened to our attendances this year. only 9970 Watford supporters at the ground last night. Apparantely the gates are at a 15 year low. Anybody know of a reason why this is the case? With the take over and having new owners, with LB gone and Zola taking over the reigns i'd thought the place would be buzzing with excitment, but the opposite seems to be the case! Its very concerning!!!!! Anybody know why?
Not sure as to why - maybe linked to the economic situation a bit. That is the only non footballing reason that I can come up with.
I think it is the effect of continuous change. After a steady season with some steady improvement, we are faced with another whole load of change and it just grates. I am struggling to get excited as well...
what w_y said...i think, if our season picks up, things will improve, but it's going to take a bit of consistency before that happens imho
If I go it is 25 quid plus a beer or two, food, parking and petrol, if Braga Jr comes you can add 50%, so I'm looking at £50-£75 and then there is the travelling time (three hours minimum, over and above the game time). And that is a lot of money and time to risk on which Watford team will turn up. Unhappily with this sort of constraint I have to pick my games well and have managed to get some real rubbish in the last few years (Wolves away, Peterborough and Plymouth at home) but there are always the few gems, Leicester (3-3) home a couple of seasons back springs to mind.
As has already been said a combination of high pricing and harder economic times plays a role, but also the fact that up to now our home Saturday league games have been on the back of midweek home matches, which always has a detrimental effect on crowds - also our only Saturday home match so far was on t.v. Things may improve. However. I do think, like w_y,that many fans are finding it hard to identify with the club as it is - continual change on the pitch, and a starting 11 on tuesday which had only 2 players who would be eligable for England (Almunia being one of them) and no local products whatsoever - If we were talking about any another club we would probably be highly critical of this.
I used to buy a student ticket on the phone and then you don't get checked at the gate when you put the barcode in. This worked when I was back In Herts, if you want a go at a cheaper ticket.
There was only one crowd of over 20k in the Championship this week and that was for a Yorkshire derby...are fjust getting hacked off with the high prices they might be forced to pay to watch and sign sub-standard players? Remember we hardly sold out in the Premiership season and prices were cheaper to see better quality players. I might be wrong but quite a few fans aren't happy with the way we've turned into a "feeder club" as well...don't see it as "Watford" Doubt there being a big Champions league match on helped. Hertfordshire just isn't a big football area for the local sides...Stevenage only got 2k and they are 2nd in League One for example.
Attendance may pick up when (if?) we get a more settled side and results improve. Then those who currently find it hard to identify with the team might come back, and success always draws in the punters. At the moment the only connections with the "old" Watford are Doyley and Murray.As was said on another thread--the old Watford seems to have gone forever--not surprising that some find that hard to take.
You've got to remember that there is a lagging effect of Bassini's reign on season ticket sales. A lot of people will have decided by March or April that they were not willing to watch this club die. Given that the takeover was only officially unveiled at the start of July, we only had a very short window in which to convince people who had decided not to come this season to change their minds. In their infinite wisdom, the WST decided that this was the optimum moment to publicly lambast the Pozzos. For context, they have never criticised any previous owner until the point where defending that owner was untenable (Simpson after we realised that Affleck was right, the Russos after that AGM, Bassini at the fans' forum).
I thought that season ticket sales were up on previous years, and that was before the takeover?? I think the attendances so far could be deceptive. For the first matches we had the olympics and paralympics which would have reduced crowds, but also I know of 6 of our group of 10 who missed matches due to holiday. So even if you sccount for a third that way then the attendances become more reasonable. And dont forget the Birmingham match was on tv and we never get a full ground for those matches. Finally, dont forget that we have had three home games this season and this will be our first 3:00 KO for a league game. We never get huge numbers for late games or league cup matches. If by xmas the attendances are not up then I think we can read more into them.
If the takeover had happened say 2 weeks before it actually did and if Zola was appointed 2 weeks before he was then I personally think we would have sold more ST's. The timing of it all was quite bad TBH. Also If we had made 1 money signing before the season had started, and by that I mean paying a transfer fee for a player not free transfers and loans then I reckon that might have helped too. I think the club should at least consider bringing in an online loyalty points system. I.E every time you by a ticket on-line (that includes away games and also cup games) you get say 10 loyalty points and when you reach say 100 points you get a 50% discount for your next home ticket. And for ST holders they should get 50 loyalty points per ST they buy, so if a ST holder goes to 5 away games then he/she will have 100 points (as they would already start on 50 points) and then they could pay half price for a home ticket for a cup game.
That's an excellent idea! And i agree with all that you say. Just as a by the by, if the hike in food prices is anything to go by, i can see STs going up in price next season by a fair whack!
My heart sinks when I see the ever decreasing attendances. I suspect there has been a certain amount of alienation after the take over, as several of you have pointed out. Is it our club anymore? Anyway, wind back a few years when the plans for the East stand were unrolled and some voices were raised in protest at the lack of ambition in the projected total capacity. Hah!
I do not think the attendance on saturday will be big. Two wins and three loses is not a good advertisement when three defeats are by one goal and with two inferior teams giving our team a hard time. Bristol are not a fashion club. Also the break for international games did not help. One match on television as well and two games in the evening never have big crowds.
I wouldn't say never have big evening crowds - for example going back to the 60's, we recorded midweek evening crowds such as 16000 against Port Vale, 17000 against Brentford and in the 70's 18000 against Colchester - teams hardly likely to have huge travelling support, and they were for Div3/Div4 matches. Those kind of figures would be well appreciated today. I don't think there is any one particular reason for the falling figures - more than likely quite a few. A wider variety of alternative leisure/entertainment activities, increased amount of football on TV, falling spectator wage packets, increasing ticket prices, obscenely high player salaries, disaffection with the way the game is played these days - constant cheating/arguing/abusive bahaviour from the players, very often hand-in-hand with a lack of effort of their part - something very much against the traditional British game. Rather than 'just success', I think that, to raise attendances, we need a talisman - a Cliff Holton, a Stewart Scullion, a Luther Blissett, someone to inspire the crowds to come back. I'm not sure that we have anyone like that at the moment - and would worry that, if we found one, the Pozzos would quickly cash in on him.
To be honest I don't think that there are many clubs who are getting the same crowds as in the 60's and 70's apart from a very few such as Man. UTD, Newcastle and Southampton, and surprisingly Norwich. Maybe British football should be looking at the German model of club ownership and fan friendly policies. The last football match I went to was F.C. Cologne v St. Pauli on a monday night, a dour 0-0 draw, second from bottom of the second division at home to 8th from bottom. Crowd ? - 45,000, 13,000 of those standing, tickets 10 Euros for those standing - free public transport within the city for those with tickets - and no problems if you want to go behind the stand for a smoke at half time !
