Thetownend.com

Evening all, Bristol City fan here (In peace) but been living in Swindon for four years now so just curious on your thoughts on trying to get plastics into proper fans.

Now, the reason I ask this is, like Bristol, Swindon seems to have this issue where not many fans from the area want to support the home team - Even to the stage where I have tried to encourage fans who say they support Newcastle, Man Utd, Chelsea etc to go to the cheaper home games (And sadly, it seems to be a challenge - Even I as a fan as another team I have tickets to watch you against Brentford tomorrow)

My question is, why is it such a challenge for teams like Swindon, City etc to get home fans through the gates (apart from when the plastics who want the trip to Wembley)? And how do you think clubs should change it?

I personally think that even if Swindon for example done super cheap tickets, people would still try and find a excuse not to come as it requires more effort rather then 'supporting' a team which 90% of the time wins and they can do it from home.

Good luck tomorrow of course, hopefully it is a awesome atmosphere.  I obviously want you lot to lose as next season would be boring for me if you go up :)

I think most people who fall in to the 'plastic' category don't really see themselves that way.  For the most part, they're quite happy to go along to a handful of games a season - presumably the ones they find the most interesting - and to give the others a miss.  They might have other interests, or they might simply not want to devote every other weekend to supporting a football team.  They might not want or aspire to be regulars.  And good luck to them.  Ideally, it would be great for the club if they did start going more regularly - but I think there's only so much you can do to encourage it.

Swindon is an interesting case in that a significant proportion of the population has only been there for a couple of generations at best.  In recent decades families have moved in to the area in their tens of thousands, and have often brought their football allegiances with them.  Gradually, STFC will mop up new fans...but it will take time.  Have to admit that I know less about Bristol, but I have the impression that its growth post-WW2 has been more organic than Swindon's.  You would know more about that then me.

I think the best thing that any club can do is make going to football fun, entice potential new fans in with attractively priced tickets, get out there in the community and - most importantly - keep winning games.  STFC haven't done badly on some of those counts in the last few years - and crowds have picked up significantly since the dark days of the early 2000s, but have plateaued at around 8,500 for the last 4 or 5 seasons.  In all honesty, we are going to need a well-executed ground redevelopment and a promotion for further progress to be made in terms of crowd numbers.

To be honest, I didn't actually think of the fact that most people would be somewhat new coming to the area - I suppose it would always take time for people who are 'born and bred' into a area to start supporting a club.

I would actually totally agree with getting out there in the community - With the amount of schools/secondary places there is around here, it would totally make sense for the club to get into them and giveaway so many tickets for free - Hopefully getting a few more fans in the process.

Interestingly, I think Swindon has somewhat a advantage over both Bristol clubs which is having a stadium in a decent position - The fact it is so close to bus routes and to town is something I think City and Rovers both envy. As for a ground development, it really does surprise me with how places like Swindon and Bristol seem to be in the dark ages with not pushing stuff like this through (All be it that Bristol is different as a City of it's size, it should have decent infrastructure in place) - The amount of difference I think it would make would be incredible - Hopefully one day it happens!

Take a leaf out of Bradford City - mega cheap tickets = average 10,000 in League 2.

Prices are too high across the board.

Really don't get all this 'plastic fans' business. Anything that becomes successful will attract new people.

End of

Swindon and City (plus rovers, chelts etc) have never had sustained success in the top flight hence why we have a smaller to average support compared to other clubs around the country. If you look at Barnsley, they used to get 4k crowds in a stadium of 22k, but their crowds have gone up over the years due to consolidating in the higher leagues. City get pretty good crowds really but for a city the size of bristol i think they should be a bit higher. Swindon has a big population of 209k, but i would guess less than half have a wiltshire history going back more than 40 years, with a big migration from London etc.

I went out of my own free will.  ???

More to do with my enjoyment of being able to walk to a game on a saturday afternoon than Swindon doing anything in particular...

Towns tartan army  :)

I'd totally get a nice wee stfc saltire going but if this place is anything to go by I'd get moaned at and called a junkie.

The community side thing has improved I guess. The old board had helped slowly improve the reputation and perception of the club amongst the town's general public but it was always and will always be a very slow process. Slowly but surely crowds seem to be rising. When you look back to some of the early naughty crowds of 5,000 sometimes even below that for some games we have made good progress.

The trouble is we have fallen so far behind in terms of redevelopment of the CG and other income streams as well as failure to get promoted beyond this level for a number years that we have probably hit our peak in terms of what the club as we know it today can achieve in terms of building it's fan base. The CG is dated and although many of us love it compared to the modern day bowls we see in the football league it's not exactly the best experience for watching football.

Cheaper prices in better facilities will attract people for certain as will Championship football. I honestly think the next few weeks are huge for the club. If we go up we have a much better case for redeveloping the CG and for the fan base to increase ever so slightly with the higher quality of football on offer. It's a springboard to moving into the right direction.

On the flip side I worry that failure to go up would see us stuck in a viscous circle of a L1/L2 yoyo club with a dated ground and a fan base of no more than 9,000 tops.

I also feel it's not just the local population's views on the club. It's probably the Town's rep itself which puts people off. Some people who live here slag Swindon off. They don't like the town so why on earth would they consider supporting it's football team? Until the town centre is regenerated properly (and I don't just mean new car parks and flats) the view towards the town will never change and more than likely unless success is more common place views on STFC probably won't change any time soon either.

Not by me, I'm 25% scottish.

I agree, the fact the town is a shithole does make supporting the football club a less attractive regular option. As I've said elsewhere, I do think the success of the football club can have an effect on the rejuvenation of the town. If people have got something to take pride in regarding their town, they're more likely to want to support the local club. I suppose short of getting Honda to sponsor kit, there's not a lot currently in Swindon to be proud of.

It's the fact that the town has a rough feel is one of the things I enjoy about following STFC. I like the trudge to the ground, walking past places with razor wire in their back garden and the floodlights in the distance. It reminds me of seventies football, the football I grew up with watching MOTD; pitches like ploughed fields, players twatting each other, and surging terraces. Sod the sofa feel of some of these prem clubs, I like it raw  :)

This "plastic fan" bollocks really pisses me off. I go,to a few games a season, but live a long way away and have a family. It's just not that easy to get to games. If that makes me less of a fan than a20 something swindonian who,goes to every home game because he's got,fuck all else going on in his life then I must be some lesser fan than them. What a load of old bollocks.

No you wouldn't.  That would be fucking class.

Amen brother.

Bang on.

corrected for you

I think you have somewhat missed the point - I did not say about people who have personal stuff on/live a distance away who can't get to games  - I am referring to people who say they are 'Man Utd' fans, get all the kits and all that cool stuff to then switch when a team like Swindon are doing well, jump on the Wembley band wagon untill they start to flutter again.

Fair enough, I was referring to the term generally rather than your specific use of it. And it was after 1am on a Friday night when I posted  ;D

Haha, no worries, I understand :)


That I think has to be the worry but I think that is going to be the worry with all South West teams - It does amaze me though with how the South West can't seem to get a decent competing team in the Prem/Top end Championship but seem to just sit around the Low end Championship/L1 - I personally can't see this changing just yet as everything needs a upgrade to just start competing with the infrastructure of other small City's/Towns - Hopefully of course one day that would change but as others have said, it will take time I guess.

On a complete side note, do you fancy your chances of an instant return to the championship? I assume you will need to make a lot of changes over the summer and I would have thought that a lot of your team will be leaving.

The only positive of us not going up would be that at least we would have a decent derby to look forward to.

Yeah, I am somewhat optimistic to be fair but it really depends on who leaves though rather then who we keep - I think we have like 12 players out of contract so it will be a huge change next year.

Positive of course is that we do have a decent manager in Sean O'Driscoll who I believe can push us back up. I do have a fear though that if we don't go right back up, we could be bumming around in L1 for like 8 years or something mad like that - Something I don't think the club can afford to do in all honesty.  

I really rate O'Driscoll as a manager, I thought he was unlucky to get the boot from Forest.

Totally agree - I think the whole set up at Forest was odd though with how they ended up getting Alex McLeish after SOD - I guess there loss is City's gain though.

Outta interest, how do you rate your chances for today? I am actually looking forward to it to be honest, should be a good game!

There is quite a bit of pessimism around, we have lost twice to them this season and on paper they should be good enough over two legs. I just think we are a bit too shaky at the back, as shown at Scunthorpe last week where we conceded 3 goals in the last 10 minutes.

But it is the playoffs, and anything can happen. It's the hope that gets you.  :)

 :(

Ticket prices, a person with no real allegiance to the club isn't going to pay £25 a ticket unless they're really into it. When I walk back to the train station loads of locals are always asking me about the game.

This is the main reason for me missing half the home games this season, simply can't afford it.

I'm a plastic fan and from Swindon. I support the team but can't afford to go every week. I mainly enjoy away games. For me there's two reasons I don't go as much. 1. Cost. It is a lot of money and sometimes cannot justify spending £30+ going to football. Ticket and parking. 2. I play football on Sundays so if I went to football as well I would hardly see the little one.

I used to go week in week out, had a season ticket, but since the little one came along two years ago my priorities have changed for now. Obviously when she grows up she can come along as well, but that will be a few years off yet. For me it's family over football.

Having kids ruined my football viewing

I think the OP was referring to plastic fans as those who turn up only for Wembley, play-offs and big games against big sides - definitely not those who live locally but can't make games on a regular basis due to family, money or any multitude of perfectly valid reasons.

So it's reasonable for Sippo to go only occasionally (home or away & Wembley etc) because of cost, family and playing on Sunday, but not for me and my family who have season tickets, go to away games, cup games but draw the line at the cost of Wembley? Seems to be a perverse and skewed reasoning. Since deciding not to go to Wembley, whether we get there is another thing, we have had to buy another car for the Mrs, we will 100% not be going to Wembley, besides there will be enough plastics to fill the void left by us, just remind them we play in red and white or blue and yellow won't you? 

Looking forward to 5.20 really up for this one.

Go, don't go. Go away, don't go away. Only go to the big games, don't go to the big games, who really gives a fuck? There's a lot on this thread that appear to feel they have to justify their choices to others. Smacks of insecurity to me...

Yep, go when you want.   Giving a shit how we get on is more important than going, in terms of whether you are a real supporter.  Surely plastics are people who latch onto successful clubs(and Franchise.) I don't even think of people who would go to see us at Wembley but rarely apart from that as plastic.

I couldn't give a fuck if you go to Wembley or not. It's just funny seeing you react and write paragraph after paragraph justifying yourself to a bunch of people you've never met.

Yup, I was indeed - I was also referring to people who say they support the big four yet go to the CG when the going is good.

As for the game yesterday, I thought it was a good game as a natural although I was somewhat surprised to hear the songs about us in the first half - In all my time I have seen City play, I don't think I have ever heard a song about you (as you would expect, ours are mainly Rovers based)

I do personally think you can win on Monday as well although the Swindon defense at times was a bit nervous to say the least - Even I as a natural was getting nervous at your defending - Plus side is of-course is the attacking play did look solid.

Also, more louder then I expected, saying that, Brentford fans were absolutely shocking so I don't think they were much competition to sing against.

We don't usually sing about your lot tbf, probably because your relegated and we will probably end up playing against you next season. Usually its just the yellow filth up the 420. Housemates a shitty fan and he's very much looking forward to playing us as I've been giving him grief since the 1-0 win last year (plus you being shit for quite a while had helped)

A natural what?

I'd say supporting Shitty is highly unnatural

Born Woman?

Perhaps he meant Naturist

Neutral* Was what I was meant to say - Apologies for that.