Thetownend.com

what would you do to generate more money on match days??  

I will start it off by saying away supporters pub

Have the adver sellers in town, also selling tickets for the town games!!

Dispatch teams of highly trained pickpockets into the away section.

Improve the catering.

The King maybe onto a winner there! spaceys idea may not be morally right but then again we are swindon so lets do it, dave russell would be ideal!

Sell Twix's in the Winners lounge.

cunt

:mrgreen:

Offer trade stands outside the ground or even inside the ground on matchdays. Credit Cards companies, No win no fee groups etc. Annoying but extra income.

Roving hot drink sellers - you can get kits to go on your back and walk around the stands during the game dispensing drinks - works for beer too.

Cigarette vending machines.

Ban people from bringing in bags of food/drink - a group in the Arkells bring in a large picnic hamper - they'd be forced to buy tea etc from the club.

Programme sellers roving the stands during the first 5 minutes of the game.

Taxi stand in the car park - sell the rights to a single taxi firm - other companies must pick up/drop off from the roads around.

Lap Dancing in the Winners Lounge  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Beer in the Townend.

Northern Red you have some great ideas there! keep them coming

Franchises mate

better than what we have now

summat like the pie stand they had a darlington, that was ace.

get a forward that scores goals.that will bring the punters in.
thats all our team is lacking.

the obvious would be to build a night club around the ground...and also some flats

I pay the players, they piss up their wages in my nightclub...then go back to thier flat...which they pay rent to me....i pay player

one big cycle...

I think Ash, as part of the sales team is trying to be serious here guys !

 :wink:

Perfect sense, means it limits the amount of cash leaving the club....

Most gets put back in  :D

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  :beers:

Fruit Machines / Quiz Machines in the stands - half-time entertainment, extra income.

Seat-Rover pass - Extra quid or two on top of ticket at low attendance matches, allows you to move seat at half-time

Chicken Balti Pies - I would buy one

Internet booths in the stands - £1 for 5 minutes, half-time updates on here from the game or half-time porn  :o

Cheeseburger pasties, burger and cheese and ketchup on the inside in pastry. These things need to reach the UK, I've only ever seen them in Africa!

#

First a serious suggestion:
Run a Bar/BBQ (perhaps even make the food free to encourage more drinkers if the maths works) in the car park before games on warm-ish days. Be dirt cheap to run. Just get a few eskimos full of tinnies, a BBQ, some meat of dubious quality, and a big bloke or two to prevent pilfering of the beer! If the appropriate license could be obtained for doing this, it could be a big winner I reckon.

And whilst I'm on a roll, heres a slightly more ridiculous idea for half time entertainment:
A boat race between teams consisting of 4 fans with their teams pride at stake... If a team contains ladies, they get a 5 second headstart should they comply with the 'tits oot' request prior to the commencement of the race. What could go wrong?!

Bring in the Pasties.

food for veggies *awaits the insults*

chubbs is there no vegitarian food except the chips?

Quite right  :D
Although i wouldn't waste my money anyway :wink:

And as you disgusting sex obsessed lot are so desperate to see women degrading themselves lap dancing :x  I reckon the players should be made to warm up in their underwear for us ladies,that would make me get to the ground earlier :nod: [the Cock in his pants slobber :dance: ]

women get paid for it!

So do the players!I pay their wages and i demand to see them in their pants!!!

More advertisment for the club, more sponsers to fund it. Some clubs sponsor all kind of things that happen in the club like the match ball etc. Also open stratton bank for home fans, and do it for familys or summit like a family fun day at £5 each. There are so many ways the club could make the money up but they are just too stupid to realise.

that and a twix or a mars, i mean i dont want no gourmet 3 course meal, its not hard to get some cheese and onion pies, or something similar, coz in all fairness the chips suck.

nowt wrong witha twix!!!!  Cheers for the ideas guys keep them coming........

Stick a Cheese and Onion Pasty on the menu, and I'll bring the missus to a game.

Cheese and Onion pasties are about 40p from Somerfield, so the club must be able to make a bit of money on them. Worth a trial run definately.

Well worth looking the food sales figures for various items as well Ash. People's views are changing to poncy salads. Maybe not at the football cafe, but it might be worth looking at ways of expanding the menu beyond Chips, Pies and Mars bars. Even having more variety in the non-dated food section (Chocolate, Crisps etc.) may bring a little more money in.

If you want to provide an argument for doing this, spend on Saturday at the Post Office opposite and watch the different things that people are buying there and then taking into the ground.

Free ticket inside a prize pie - Hardly Willy Wonka stuff, but may boost sales.

Have you not noticed that the club did this several times??? And it proved unsuccessful....which is why they stopped.

remember when mitsubushi sponsored player of the month...gave away a free car!

Billboard advertising on the back of the Nationwide stand - prime position viewed by everyone going around the magic roundabout.

Apart from the trees that are in the way, yeah.

Chicken balti pies are a must.

I like ............................ I like very much !!!!

NICE !

Advertising over the PA. Like radio adverts.

I concur young man !

Nope - veto. Negative impact on match day experience.

Fair enough.

any views on family initiatives other than those that have already been tried ?

If they have been tried and have failed, what are your views on why they failed ?

Just have to think about the effect on the current experience as well. Hearing radio adverts blaring out would drown out the other halftime stuff and it's pointless after the game or too far before the game as they'd be no audience.

I think we need a Chicken Balti Pie petition...

Anyone who I have ever spoken to about bring families ALWAYS without fail, claim it is too expensive...because it is

Our ticker prices are expensive yes HOWEVER most clubs these days at this level are charing between £15 and £17

What we dont ever do is highlight the fact that our prices are as competitve as some other teams.

The way people talk youd think we were the only team with ticket prices close to £20...but we arent.

Better half-time entertainment. A suggestion like the H-T entertainment against Franchise were all the ladies were taking the pens infront of the townend.

What about family tickets.

I.e. 2 adults 3 kids £50.

So do we offer family discout tickets as other "experience venues" do, coupled with a better overall family entertainment experience ?

already looking into the family stuff and have some plans for the half time theme.

also, the winners is poorly advertised.

I've only ever been in there a few times myself, but I've never seen an away fan in there

Now they might not let them in, but I dont see why not...most of them are harmless....however if I were an away fan I'd never find the bloody thing..its almost hidden

I agree

we need some form of revenue from away support

other than pies and bovril mate

I agree aswell. when me and my dad used to go in to the cricket club, they let in away fans. which was good because we used interact with them. It won't be the worst idea in the world.

I think the home support only rule is quite strict in the Winners though

I do aswell.

well they are shooting themselves in the foot....how many away fans in this league are going to cause trouble ffs!

How many teams in this league will bring more than 200 fans!!

If they dont want home and away fans together cant the split the winners some how and have a home and away section like that place just up the road from Colchesters ground

They dont have any trouble at all in the Merlin

In fact have witnessed some brill banter !

only trouble in the merlin was city fans last season....

but not letting away fans in the winners is just stupid...

Bar at either end and close the partition if need be

My Dad was talking about how they used to have Membership on in the winners to me and Fred Elliot on Saturday. Is that a good Idea to bring back.

OR empty the computer suite under the NW and turn it into a bar and call it "The Losers" !

also, how often do the players get out and about in the community...

I know over recent years Sam and Stef usually got about it.....

Do the players do anything these days? has the club got anything organized?

None of them do. But didn;t Sam Parkin and Tommy Mooney turn on the Christmas lights on around 3 years ago.

yup...me and a mate went....Sammy knew we were Swindon fans so stopped and chatted away to us while he signed autographs for all these kids who probably didnt even know who he was & wouldnt be at the CG the following saturday...

Mooney on the other hand...head down autograph, next autograph next...didnt talk to anyone...just got on with it

Families is an area the club have done some work:

Under 7's free with an adult - now in all stands I think.

the Arkells has £18 adult tickets and £4 children, so it's cheaper than the £50 suggested at £48 for a family of 5.

The problem is the message is not repeated enough and is also not made a headline message like

"Family of 4 from just £30" - 2 adults and 2 under 7's in the TE.

They also sell pro rata season tickets now, another good move, but again this should be plastered everywhere right now with Xmas presents being chosen.

To give the club some due, they also tied in with GWR last season for 4 games with reduced prices and as far as I know this stands for this season with 2 games contracted.  The biggest problem is a lack of resource to keep these sorts of things out in the public domain.

was it in town or Old town. I can;t Remember.

old town...

Cool. I remember a couple of my mates telling me that around 5 town players around early 2003 came to Dorcan school(the school i went to) and played 5 a side on the Sanded astro and Interacted with some of the people on the astro. I think two of the players were Stef and Parkin. Which was great.

I went to Dorcan to....the only Swindon player I ever saw around the place was Ashan...and that was because he went to Dorcan!!

Although I was gone 2 years before 03

Anyways, I doubt that somehow....surely it would be a breech of contract for the players to play non-club related football  just incase they got injured....

FWIW, I suspect the home fans only in the Winners thing will have been strongly influenced by the coppers and may even be a condition of the license, implicitly if not stated in black and white. But I don't know this for a fact, so please don't accuse me of rumour-mongering! I'll try and find out tho ......

Ashan was in my year at Dorcan.

More of this would be good. I think one of the reason Sam Parkin was loved so much, was that he was always in the Adver visiting some kid in hospital and whatever. It also helped him being a good player as well, but all things combined.

My Dad who is anti-football, could only ever name one player for Swindon - Sam Parkin

Getting Peacock or Evans out and about a bit more may help up the profile of the club with non-footballing residents and build support for the club when it comes to things like re-developments etc.

Agreed...

The Winner's Bar seems like a closed shop to me and I'm an occasional home fan, single (at football) male (27) so should be in there. But it seems like a members thing - I couldn't actually tell you where it is, although I suspect its in the Arkells somewhere.

From what I remember make the entrance open and inviting, not like a closed door it is at the moment.

Some of you may disagree, but I feel it's not for me, when it should be. If it was more inviting over the last few years, the club may have had about 50 pints out of me. Definately don't do the members thing, that'd make it more closed.

Best ever veggie pies were at Rushden & Diamonds a few years back - Veggie balti. Fucking tops.

But a cheese & onion pastie or something would do me just fine too. In fairness, the catering at the CG is pretty shit and could do with some new ideas.

Bizarre when you consider how good the food usually is when you get VIP tickets.

Now, you can call me thick if you like, but why don't the club just reduce ticket prices across the board? That way, you would increase the numbers of customers, thereby: increasing revenue from catering, programme sales, etc; The atmosphere would be better; Dennis would be well chuffed!!
 The only negative would be if it didn't attract more punters, but with the interest generated this season by Den and Gus I think we could get a couple more thousand each game.

They've dropped ticket prices for specific games in the past and attendances haven't improved much, if at all.

Yeah, I know, but I'm not talking about one or two games a seasons. We did it with the kids last season and if I remember correctly, there was quite a lot of them in the Arkells! The problem with occassional games, is that their Dads (Or mums) take them to the cheap game, then can't afford to take them when the prices revert to normal. Make them cheaper all the time, especially for kids, promote it heavily and let it run for 5 or 6 consecutive home games. There's gotta be more interest in a town the size of Swindon than the 6-7000 we're getting at the moment.

Actually they have when they've been properly marketed. It's when they drop the prices but rely on people reading programme (which if you're reading it, you're already going) or the tiny paragraph in the Adver that says about it that gates don't improve.

Oh, and the kids under 7 go free is still going this season as well, if that's what you're referring to herthab

advertise, advertise, advertise....

I bet we are one of, if not the only club in this league that does under 7s go free....do we ever shout about it.....no

To be fair, the marketing manager fell out of the sky at the start of the season and is still off sick

true...but having said that....the lack of advertising hasnt just suddenly happened since August....well maybe August 1989....but...well...you get the point....hopefully

If you ran the club


the only way i would take this club on is if i had around 50 million

so i wont be seeming ive only got 49.5m in the bank sorry.

Point well and duly taken

Excuses, Excuses   :wink:

You'd also think that the club would find some cover, not just stop marketing for 2 months. It could undo all Mike Sullivan's previous good work.

Anyway if I ran the club - I'd put a right winger on the right wing  :wink:

If I ran the club you'd all be dead.

I thought lambert(lamberchelo) was looking after s&m( :oops: ) functions at the club

Millom

I know it's only one thing but there was a leaflet all about it in the adver a couple of weeks ago.

How hard can it be to put it in the programme, in the local papers, on local radio, local TV (maybe?), advertising boards around town.....

There must be plenty more ways we could advertise although I must admit I know nothing of the costs involved

For advertise advertise advertise read spend, spend, spend so we can forget that one

not so dave, you can advertise for free through news atricles you just have to put a different spin on it.

More usually you pay a small amount for it though.

e.g. Drug companies paying for small studies into the effects of a disease, and then supplying it to all the news agencies who are too lazy to investigate their own 'proper' stories. Next day front page news, and (they hope) a flood of concerned people going to present to their GP to seek treatment.

Following their lead, perhaps STFC could sponsor (give them £50 to spend down the pub) an A-Level student's coursework project attempting to establish a direct correlation between football match attendance at the County Ground, and getting 5 or more GCSE passes, or whatever the metric is these days. It would probably make the adver...