your ambition is boards ambition

[hobodan]

IT IS YOUR AMBITION FOR THE CLUB THAT WILL ULIMATLY GOVERN THE BOARDS AMBITION.

Highlited in the season ticket prices

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/page/TicketNews/0,,10341~1941154,00.html

The message is clear, season ticket sales for next season will ultimately govern the scale of ambition for the redovelopment of the County Ground.
I really hope the people of swindon take note & commit to a season ticket, after all, the board have 'as stated' pumped £10 million of their own cash into STFC. I will be doing my best to encourage some of my fair-weather supporting friends to take advantage.

I can't think of any reson why Swindon as a town & Football club should not aspire to build a 20-25,000 seater stadium. you only have to look through the history books to see the support is out there, the size of the Town & so called 'catchment area'.  cast your eyes 40 miles down the m4 to see an equivalent

i'd love to know what figure mr Fitton & co are realistically hoping for with regards to season ticket sales & forthright plans for 25k stadium development. to have a nearly full County Ground in league 1 i'd guess around 9-10,000 season ticket holders.

[Nemo]

If we sell 9000 season tickets I'll be stunned. Very stunned.

[Peter Venkman]

9,000 will only happen IF and its a big if ... we get promoted, it wont happen in this division unless they drastically cut season ticket prices IMO.

[RobertT]

I don't think they can go much lower to be honest.  The £199 for the Town End must be on a par for a standing price over 15 years agom meaning they have dropped in real times but quite a fair chunk.  They are also about a third cheaper than this season aren't they?

If we don't sell over 7500 given the pricing and our recent success on the pitch, then I fully expect the budget to be cut and we'll get a mid to bottom table team that we deserve based on our crowds (on top of the debt burden we had which puts one of our arms behind our backs to begin with)

[Ardiles]

This is clever timing.  History shows that our gates, and interest in the club in general, spikes noticeably during the closing stages of a season where we are fighting for promotion.  It happened in 1992/93 and again in 2003/04 (to a lesser extent).  I guess the board wants to ride that wave and capitalise.

On the flipside, if it doesn't work, the board's enthusiasm will almost certainly wane.  There is an element of 'it's now or never' about the statement.  Fingers crossed all round.

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

It's about time some of the old stay aways began to see that the club is on the way back from the dark old days of the Ricky Hunt and Greek eras. Going well in the league, plans to become a solid CCC team including a redevelopment. What more is there to try and tempt these people back?

Not only that it's a great chance for some new fans to come along and support their local team. Ambition does work both ways. You clearly need a board who are willing to transform the club for the better (which they clearly are) but the fans will need to get involved as well. I'm actually surprised they didn't offer a 10 game season ticket offer for this season as well. Get an extra lot of fans through the gate to try and get the crowds and support up for a possible promotion push. I have to say though i'm delighted with the direction STFC is heading in and I just hope many will share the same opinion.

[jonny72]

I can't see us selling more than 6,000 next season, they just aren't cheap enough for them to go through the roof.

Unless we get promoted of course in which case they will go up, regardless of the price.

I still don't get what the problem is with attendances this season, as I said in the other thread they will be up by at least 5% this season with income from tickets up at least 10%. That seems a pretty good increase to me.

[Ardiles]

But as others have said, it looks like the board are trying to achieve a quantum shift in attendances.  Move us to a different level attendance-wise...as happened very clearly in Reading during the late 1990s when, in the space of a few seasons, they moved from being a small time operation pulling in 4,000 to 5,000 regulars (ie less than we do now) to a club that regularly pulls in at least 3 times that number.  They also had a few promotions and a new stadium to help them on their way and, realistically, I think we will need something similar as well.

[hobodan]

Its a typical catch 22 situation. investors wont put plans in to action regerding devolopment of the Football ground & team unless they see evidence of the 'masses' willingness to return. on the other hand, fans are realistically only likely to turn up en masse when there is a successful team on the pitch and they are sitting in desirable surroundings.

i would personally hope for our board to press ahead even if they dont get the season ticket results they hoped for. i have no doubt attendances would shoot up dramatically on the basis of a newly developed ground, with reasonable football on offer, and of course sensible ticket pricing.

[leefer]

As a Swindon fan its an exiting time..the club are in with a good chance of promotion,though a personal gripe is that we still dont win the big matches when we could/should have...Wolves,Norwich and Charlton highlighting this...Leeds wil show us if ware in the process of changing this.
As regards the ground and season tickets whether we like it or not this will be governed by our ambition on the field,as a true fan i know the signings like Douglas,Cuthbert and Lucas are top quality...but the fans we need to get at the ground are still not convinced.
The Championship is like a mini premiership with most games being a cracker and thats ware the revolution has got to start...teams like Reading,Swansea,Derby have all shown that a completly fresh start will bring in those stay away fans.
Also its important in my opinion that the local authorities back the club and at least try and match the boards ambition because lets face it a thriving local football team is only going to be good news for the local buisnesses in the town....catering,printing,travel just to name a few would all get a massive boost if the club were a success.

[DiV]

what the problem is with attendances this season

they're crap.

we are averaging 1000 less than Southend for fuck sake!

[Arriba]

must admit i was surpised at how low the gate was vs gillingscum.

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

must admit i was surpised at how low the gate was vs gillingscum.

Me too. Especially when we managed 8,500 against bloody Yeovil. You have to consider that a lot of people still haven't been paid since before Christmas though and will pick and choose their games so Leeds on Tuesday is always going to be more appealing than Gillingham on a cold Saturday afternoon.

[Rich Pullen]

The common assumption is that when there's success, crowds follow - However, It hasn't been the case and you could argue the financial crisis which could be keeping floating fans away. I'd like to put some of the blame towards the lazy lure of Soccer Saturday which seems to be enough for many fans nowadays.

A win or exciting game against Leeds could probably help but Danny Wilson just needs to keep the team going and as the 'business end' of the season arrives stayaway fans will turn up if we're still in with a shout.

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

But even when we were in a similar position in 03/04 crowds didn't really see much of a rise until around March onwards. Remember we sold out against Shitty with 14,500 but that was a huge game in the context of the league at the time not to mention a derby.

It is however interesting when you look at the L2 season a few years back. We got some pretty decent crowds then and we were going well. Just goes to show that whatever level you are playing at the crowds will come if results are coming. We seem to be pulling in big crowds for the bigger games like Southampton and Leeds. These games are common place in the Championship so i'm pretty sure we could probably get closer to 10k at that level.

I think we'll see the crowds start to go up as the season goes on as long as we maintain our position.