Thetownend.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/p/port_vale/7423934.stm

With a day to spare.  Hope ours isn't going as well because we got ages rather than lack of interest!

the aug 1 deadline takes away any excuse not to get one,the only thing i,m surprized about is the lack of real advertising.It will be a bit embaressing if we don,t get 6000+ it will show there,s only around 4-5000 supporters in swindon who are not only loyal but are not tightasses and want something for nothing.KEEP THE FAITH.

The club has advertising campaigns planned throughout the summer, and we are 1/3 of the way to our target with 2 months to go. I'm not going anywhere near that panic button just yet

What gets on my tits is when excuses are made for the total apathy of Swindon inhabitants, like when people say the reason we get such shit crowds is because a lot of people have moved into the town from elsewhere and already support another team. That is total bollocks, the problem is that they can't be fucking bothered.

If we managed to get to the Play-off final they'd all soon remember they were Town fans then, cunts.

If we don't get 6000 we better get used to be a League 1 team (At best) and, tbh, that's all the town will deserve.................

good to hear,i,m not panicking but when the prices were announced people at work were saying how good the prices were and how they were going to get one but with the deadline being so generous it gives them time to cool off the idea.Hopefully they and others like them are not just full of shit.

The Stoke conurbation is interesting right now....the BNP now holds 9 seats on the local council...it made 3 gains earlier in the month.   However Burslem remains Labour loyal.....maybe this tells us something of PV fans.

This Reg ? floghorse

Tbh if Vale can hit 5,000 then there is no reason we can't hit 6k.

i think people should accept that all clubs have glory hunters.currently there aint alot to intice people here imo.its a great deal for regulars but thats it.
yes tickets are cheaper, but many wont want to go to every game.and others dont really think we have much of a team worth watching week in, week out.over £200 is still alot for a non regular to shell out upfront.

if we win games then gates will rise.no matter what the prices are.but i'd like to see a reduction on matchday prices introduced once they have failed to get the 6000 season tickets.

Perhaps people are holding out to see who our new additions will be?

I hope we make it, I really do!

I think a fair few people have been holding out till they get paid as much as anything!

Good point.

Wish I had. Lloyds are wankers. £15 overdrawn, for one day on an account that has never, ever been overdrawn in 15 years and I get stung for it.

Time to move banks, when I can be arsed.

People are also waiting for the fixture list, particularly out of towners like myself, as i'll make a dozen games at best  as i struggle to do the midweek ones. I've spoken to my brother today who doesn't drive and he is waiting for another long time season ticket holder in newbury area to confirm he's got his before committing himself (so he can get a lift), so a multitude of reasons. I would expect brisk business tonight and saturday though as payday is here.

i know one person waiting for the fixtures and he got 4 others waiting for him,he plays saturday footy and thinks we may well have a few friday night matches enabeling him to attend more.

Didn't Nick W say there would only be one Friday game around Xmas as a trial?

Not sure exactly what was said, but I'd be very surprised if we had more than two or three Friday matches next year. Unless we happen to do very well and Sky insist...

I haven't got mine yet, I see no current reason to rush. I will renew my "last 6" ticket before 16th June, put it on the plastic, & then pay it off (hopefully), but until then I see no urgency. I suspect a lot are the same. Come the 16th we will have an idea.
Thegreat thing about the deal is that people will need to decide BEFORE the season, whether they will buy a ST at the discount price. Getting one after the 1st August if we are doing well just doesn't make sense to me. Why not get one before at a discount & help bring about that success. As I see it, if we can get large crowds, that will help the team, which will attract more one off punters. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy.
Generally tho' I accept that it would take a lot for a "first timer" to commit to a season ticket. However there are 10's of thousands around who are part time followers/ supporters who have gone in the past (Wembley for example) but can't afford to go any more... (Probably got kids etc)... Well now that has changed & it is THEM that need to be targetted. Wonder if the club have a data base from 1993? (Pig flys by window).
Assuming that we hit the 6,000 tho' I would suggest that retaining support from once in a while punters, would be easier, as hopefully the atmosphere will be better.  maybe then the offer could be repeated next season, but with a higher target ?

Seriously, how many clubs our size do you think will have details of people who bought tickets 15 years ago?

How many people are living  in the same house they were 15 years ago anyway? Probably 1%

Even better Orvil, just address it to "Current home owner" in STFC branded envelopes then.  More people who see they offer the better.

Of 2000 sold, 800 are from first timers so far which by my poor maths leaves around 2,100 exisiting still to renew, which by proportion will mean around 1200 more new which would total  around 5300 sold, so we will need to get pushing by whatever means.

If we get to 5,000 I can see the board saying thanks by honouring the agreement.

well if they are doing that just send them to everyone in Swindon,or get the fans to leaflet their streets,the wholw database thing is irrelevant

Good point, well made.

Bloody database, who's idea was that?

It was an off the cuff remark. Mainly to illustrate that we have a large but latent fan base. What I should have asked was how far back does the data base go.
I know when I've ordered tickets in the past over the phone, that they have already had my address on the system. I don't know if that was because I previously had an ST or if I had previously ordered a ticket tho'.
Whilst I understand that there may not be a need to mail out to CURRENT season ticket holders, I think that it Iwould be worth mailing out to those who have bought tickets over the past few years, not nessecarily those who have only bought a one off, or those who have bought 20 a season, but the ones who have gone on occasion.

Chill Phil, it's not an issue man!!!  As corporate speak goes "there's no such thing as a bad idea" or should that be question?

It covers both, I'll be pretty disappointed not to get something through the post as a reminder, although I'm sure they will have thought of that

Great to see that 40% of STs sold so far are new ones. If the trend continues and everybody renews, that means we will be pushing the 6000 mark. Hopefully a few of the renewals will bring somebody new aswell just to push us over the finish line!

put a flyer in all the free papers.they would be more interesting than the comet,curry,s and somerfield crap!

another thing both my boys play in football tornaments this time of year ,if they targeted some of these the word would spread.teams travel from all over with families watching them ,just think of the potential.

non supporters wont shell out over 200 quid for season tickets.it would be a waste of the clubs money printing leaflets etc.
anyone with even a slight interest in the club must now know of the situation at stfc?

Can someone explain how port vale are running their scheme?

From what I've read they've got 5000 "pledges" not 5,000 sales currently

I think that they required 5000 pledges to then sell the ST's at the reduced price. I deduce from that that it'll be a one off payment for the full amount. Interesting to see how they ensure pledges become purchases.

I think we've gone about it in a better way, (from the club's POV). as we already have an upfront payment and a second variable instalment. No chance of cop-outs, or at least if it is it's at the individual's cost

anyone with a slight interest probably does which with our average attendance being just over 7000 last season take the away fans off you,d need eveyone who went to most games to buy a season  ticket.do you think huddersfield had 16000 fans who had a slight interest,they got them with every advertising  method they could.

I think the ploy "£99 "was good enough (or whatever the exact figure was)

huddersfield are flogging adult tickets for £100.£226 aint as tempting an offer

Johnny, FWIW I know there are plans to have a presence at some of the larger 6-a-side tournaments in the area this summer, although I'm not sure which atm.

they were hopeing to reach the record 14000 sales from the 70,s by last friday.they sold over 16000 by that deadline so now are selling them at the same price for 1 more week.They targeted towns each time further away from huddersfield with advertising ,do you think they have wasted money?

Not our experience when we did the pub crawl at all. As I've said before there's lots of people who do have "a slight interest" but who don't necessarily religiously read the Adver sports pages and/or internet forums. It's people like that that the marketing over the summer is being aimed at

pauld good to hear,a lot of people attend these events.

the price sold the tickets for them.ours are more than double in price.

bear in mind that they are poor and nothern though. You can buy a lot of gravy and pints of mild for £100 you know

good luck with it.i really hope i am wrong with regard to getting the numbers.

but we,re going for 6000 ,they have 10000 more than that already i don,t think if it was £100 we would sell out ,more probably some would say it should be £50.

are huddersfield fans more optomistic?
£100 for a season ticket.maybe things have been done-going to be done in the transfer market?
state of the art stadium.

we have tickets that are cheap but not that cheap to entice imo.
plus we have a manager that many still aint convinced by.ditto the squad of players.
it looks like i'm being negative.but i dont want it to come across like that.i just think people ie real fans like those on here have got a bit carried away.
our sales will rise but not enough to meet 6000 i expect.

like i said i hope i'm wrong

£10 quid a game how cheap does it need to be?

it's still money up front johnny.loads wont do it.the savings for the town end are quite small.so the turn up on the day lot that go in there will do the same next season.

i think if people see it that way we may well be f-----d for the 6000 but i still think we can make it.The family ticket price may swing it , anyway we,ll be on 5000 posts the way we,re going.

Its not even all the money upfront either!

Christ, maybe I'm being stupid....but what have Huddersfield got that we havent? We're a bigger town (are we not?)

Huddersfield didnt exactly have a brilliant season and finish bog standard mid table like us and chopped an changed their manager.

Thus fan they've just signed Kiegan Parker who is best know not for his footballing ability but the fact he shagged Jady Goody!

They also have alot more teams within travelalbe distance.

Ok, so their tickets are cheaper and they probably average more than us last season (what 2, 3k?) but I dont see how they can attract 15,000 season ticket holders and we cant get 6,000.

Is a season as Huddersfield fan than more attractive, really?

some poeple grab every excuse not to go those people need convincing,a new signing wouldn,t go amiss.

Yup, its actually only £150 up front, not £230. Which is a big difference

they could stick it on a 0% interest credit card.

Stop making excuses.

If we dont make the 6k then it reflects badly on all of us as supporters. I think we are more likely to make 6,000 tickets at £229 than we are to make 14,000 season tickets at £100. Something has to pay the wages.

If we dont make it, then we need to accept weve got shit home support and theres not a lot of potential in the club.

I don't think it's a question of what have they got (although they do have a fantastic stadium with miles better facilities), but more that with the price at £100 there's a lot more people prepared to just take a punt. Even if it turns out to be a shit season and the casual supporter stops going he's only wasted the price of a couple of decent nights out on the beer.

With our tickets at more than twice that it's less of a casual purchase isn't it?

Sorry Spencer but that is bollocks.The prices are good for US for someone who does not really go it is still expensive that is a fact,not everyone agrees that £10 a match is cheap

i aint making excuses.i'm telling it how i see it.

To be honest if someone dosnt think that under £10 for a game of third tier professional football is decent value in 2008 then they need to pull their heads out of their arses. They may complian that the football is shite, but compare our prices to Arsenal, Chelsea, Totenham - Even Reading and the Slave Traders.  Everything is so fucking expensive these days and is only getting worse.

6,000 is a very gettable target in terms of the support we already have. We shouldnt need non STFC fans. I remmember going to Peterborough in 2000. It was £9.50, behind the goal terrace to get in and I was well chuffed. That was almost a decade ago! Ten pound for side stands is a bargain. If you dont agree with that then you should move your cardboard box you call home to another Town.

If we were going for 10,000 then I would agree with you. But were not. So you are wrong.

no he aint wrong though spencer.
people need to look at it from the non loyal fan perspective.
the savings are good for us not for the non loyals.
the manager,current squad etc,etc all come into play.

I think you are overly negative. The price of south stand season tickets has halfed. But you want to compare us to clubs in some of the most depressed areas in England? Why not compare us to Reading/Oxford/Cheltenham/City/Rovers and Yeovil. Because our board is thrashing the arse off them lot. Not even mentioning the London top flight clubs. If you took into account travel, I rekon for two games at Chelsea you could have a Swindon season ticket. That is proper value. And it makes them who still do it next season look like MUGS.  

From what Ive heard, Town Enders are comming over to the south stand. A lot of lads I know want to have a beer at half time. Plus the atmosphere in there isnt so special anymore. Too many kiddies fast chanting. And of course the view is crap. You only get half a game in the Town End.

I went to all but 2 home games last season. But I didnt have a season ticket.

And most of the blokes I know were the same.

Weve got the same 5,000 turning up every week. All we need is a little top up from part time Town fans.

And even then, from a non loyal fan perspective I still disagree. It is attractive. My dad does about 3 games a season and he's thinking about it.

So yeah he is wrong and so are you.

i hope you are right spencer.

So do I! Good debate all the same.  :thumbs:

Just want to see a bit less apathy, bit of enthusiasm. After all if fucking Port Vale can do it! A club who used to average 3,500 in the mid 1990's in the second tier. And they are the league below us.

Theyve got nothing going for them. Weve got the right owners, all they want to see is that there is a bit of potential in the club. They want to reward the loyal supporters.

If I was Fitton, and we didnt make 6,000. I would cut my losses and sell the club. Because whats the point if theres no enthusiasm for what your trying to achieve?

I think we should have a better idea over the next couple of weeks. There's a good few people that will have been waiting for their end of May payday and I'd expect a fair jump in the numbers over the next week. Then the deadline for current ST holders seat reservations is on the 16th June, so there should be another flurry around then.

If say 500 of our season tickets are in the TE and aren't fussed about the deadline as they're planning to move to one of the side stands or, knowing the TE, don't know where their allocated seats are anyway because they've never sat in them, then there's still going to be about 1300 existing ST holders likely to buy before the 16th. Bringing us up to about 3500.

Factor in some new sales because of the month end pay day increase and we might have about 4000 by the end of June.

Once we get past that mark there's two ways it might go. Either the sales will snowball as the people that have held off to see if the target and the lower price is achievable get the confidence to buy, or they dry up because there isn't sufficient confidence that it will be met.

It's the disadvantage of this system over the pledge system at PV and the flat its £100 regardless offer being used by the likes of Huddersfield and Bradford. It means the potential buyers that have been persuaded by the offer have to believe the target is realistic and will be met before they put their hands in their pockets.

If we do get to that 6000 target before the deadline just you watch the 4-500 additional sales that will be made immediately after it's announced.

It's a difficult one to call but at the moment I'm quite positive. We only needed about 3000 new season tickets sales to start with and by last night, nine days after going on general sale, they were up to 800 (27%) so not bad.

Oh one other thing that's worth bearing in mind with the Bradford and Huddersfield sales is that in addition to the flat rate cheap nature of the price, whcih is clearly and attraction, all the satellite towns of Leeds fucking hate each other. Bradford selling 15000 tickets at £100 a pop is going to seem like a challenge to the Huddersfield lot and you can guarantee they'll be treating it like a competition.

not all tickets at huddersfield are £100 and at bradford if they reach 9000 adult season tickets they get another free.

One of the problems is that even though the season ticket offer is relatively cheap, football is still expensive. Ten pounds for an afternoons entertainment isn't extortionate, but you have to commit to the entire season to get that price, which is a pretty big deal.

I'm sure a lot of people out there who used to have a season ticket, but who's support has generally waned over the last decade to the point where they either don't go, or maybe only go a few times a season; but I don't think you can turn off and reverse what has been a growing apathy with the club in the space of 6 months and a season ticket offer. It's going to take time for the club to regain it's place as part of the Town, it's done a very good job at distancing itself over the last decade or two.

Just as important next season will match day ticket offers to try and hook back in those who don't want to commit to a whole season; both fans who feel a bit jaded with the club and new fans who've never really been before. Otherwise we're going to end up with a similar support base, maybe slightly bigger, just with a higher percentage of people with season tickets rather than paying on the day.

All that negativity aside, I'm become more hopeful that we'll hit the 6000. I didn't think we would to start off with, but I'm starting to change my mind. That said, I don't think the season ticket offer the be all and end all of turning the club around, it's going to take time to re-establish itself, and I'm sure (well, hopeful) that Fitton realises this and is patient enough for the job.

i said it before if it was £5 a match some would say it should be £2.50 for christs sake what can you do for £10.

Cheesburger and a couple of pints.

you don,t get a 1969 replica shirt and 10% off in the club shop ,we,re talking about £20 a month and thats for an adult.

Jonny, I agree with your sentiment :) , but was answering your question 8) .

you nearly put me off the ticket ,the cheeseburger and a couple of pints are very good value. :soapy tit wank:

As long as this promotion gets more season ticket holders than we've had in recent seasons, then it's a good thing

I agree to an extent however Fitton is in no major rush to get into the Championship next year and the owners don't want Prem football at the moment. They should expect the club to build off the pitch as equally as fast as it builds on it.

A bigger crowd will not happen overnight as some may think. Fitton has to know the people of Swindon are a stubborn bunch of armchair fans.

It's not a joke if we don't make 6000 it's a joke that a town of this size and with an average wealth to go along with it, do not already make our crowds a decent size.

Fitton doesn't lose out profits wise if we don't get to 6k because I can see us getting a sizeable number anyway. What will be the real test is sustainability. It's all very well getting people through the gates but if they fuck off after one season it's a pointless exercise.

I don't think there is much in the way of a conclusion to this post either  :)

My two pen'orth.
On the negative side, we could argue that Swindon is full of loyal armchair premiersh!t fans.
We could argue that there is no longer any interest in football.
We could argue that when the club were going under last season the majority of the current support were too apathetic to even wear an orange hat, or join protests.
We could argue that people are holding back to see if they are going to get the £40 discount or not.
We could say all of the above & more, but I really do believe that we can & will do it. On the Positive side
Many like myself have not bought yet. I will buy before June 16th though. There will also be a proportion saving up for the ticket. If you have til August the first why pay up on June 1st (from a newbies perspective)
Even without the discount, it's good value. We will be watching live football for less than the Sky subscription to watch a premiersh!t side.
The deal is particularly attractive for families with kids. That is the way to attract the people new to Swindon.
There are I would guess, thousands who live in the town who  have an interest in football. Many will no doubt already follow other teams, but can't afford to go to the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal ManUre, Liverpool etc (Or can't get tickets etc). Why can't they support their local team too, it's not like they have to go to every match to be quids in is it ? These sorts will typically have kids too, given thge coice between taking the kids to see the likes of Chelsea once or twice in the season & going to Swindon every week I thing k the latter makes more sense financially. (Again you can aregue that these people would never support another team, but they are probably abit "plastic" anyway (by definition of supporting the team that they do)
In my view this is a superb deal. If the club are doing initiatives to make people aware & we supporters do our bit and help the club promote it I can see us selling far more than 6,000.

shit i,ve forgot to buy mine.