Notts County Roll The Dice To Tempt Back Missing Fans

Two attendances of under 4,000 for League One fixtures this season (3,925 against Stevenage and 3,938 against Tranmere Rovers) have forced Notts County into action for their upcoming game against Crewe Alexandra on 5th October at Meadow Lane.

Chairman Ray Trew has reduced prices for the match to £10 for adults and £1 for under-16’s in, he told the official club website, a bid to tempt back fans who were staying away after a poor start to the season for Chris Kiwomya’s side.

“For one reason or another, some of our supporters have chosen not to come to games of late and this is obviously a worrying trend for any business.”

An offer like this is always a gamble. There’s nothing to say that those who decide to come along for the Crewe game on the strength of reduced prices will be back when Oldham Athletic come to town a week later.

Too many deals for the floating fan can irk season ticket holders, although in this case most will surely understand Mr Trew’s reasoning. County’s fanbase is never going to be that large and the goodwill generated could be vital if the club continues to struggle on the pitch and/or faces another financial crisis off it.

http://www.nottscountyfc.co.uk/news/article/ticket-prices-slashed-for-crewe-game-1071756.aspx

Football For A Fiver In The Johnstone's Paint Trophy

One of the inspirations for starting the Affordable Football blog came from Coventry City's run in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy last season and the momentum that was generated by the club's 'Football For A Fiver' offer.

It started with the game against Sheffield United where a crowd akin to a League One fixture turned up and, because they were all seated together in one stand, created an excellent atmosphere as the Sky Blues triumphed on penalties.

The offer was repeated for the televised game against Preston North End where the last-gasp drama of two home goals in stoppage time ensured scenes never seen before at the Ricoh Arena.

To their credit the club once again priced adult tickets at £5 for the area final against Crewe Alexandra and the offer took on a life of its own as over 30,000 packed into the stadium.

Virtually since the final whistle blew at that game then the fortunes of Coventry City nosedived dramatically (although the two things were not really connected) so it is very difficult to judge what effect the JPT run and the £5 tickets would have had on long-term support. It may have been that there was no impact at all in terms of numbers but the goodwill generated was substantial.

Peterborough United and Preston North End will be looking to do something similar with their offers for this season's 2nd Round stage which takes place in the week commencing 7th October.

All tickets for Posh's game against Brentford are £5 while PNE's local derby with Oldham is priced at £5 for over 16's and £1 for under-16's.

http://www.pnefc.net/tickets/ticket-prices/Index.aspx

http://www.theposh.com/news/article/ticket-info-posh-v-brentford-081013-1047411.aspx

Capital One Cup Still Needs A Push At This Stage

The 3rd Round of the Capital One Cup takes place next week and, while some ties sell themselves (Manchester United versus Liverpool and Swindon v Chelsea which is a sell-out), Wembley is still far enough away that attendances are likely to be on the low side without incentives and special offers being put in place.

Sunderland have offered a £10 adult ticket for the fixture with Peterborough United and will be hoping to build on the 18,992 crowd that attended against MK Dons in the previous round.

Hull City versus Huddersfield tickets are £12 for adults before 6pm on the day of the match while Burnley against Forest is £10 for home season ticket holders when purchased in advance.

Elsewhere there are quite a few clubs who have priced the game at £15 for adults which would seem to be a fair price. Upwards of that and it becomes harder to attract either the floating fan or a season ticket holder who needs to pay extra to attend the game.

An update from our last post about attendance worries and Stoke City have put season tickets back on sale for a 16-game period after sales fell over the summer with a corresponding drop in attendances for the first two games of the season.

As chief executive Tony Scholes implies, ex-season ticket holders, suddenly faced with matchday prices of £25 (against Crystal Palace) and £40 (Manchester City) will very soon get out of the habit of going to games.

Attendance Worries

With summer well and truly over and the football season slowly getting into full swing, Affordable Football looks at some of the stories around attendances and prices that have made the news recently.

Stoke City are looking at ways of boosting ticket sales after being around 2,500 short of capacity for their first two Premier League home games, including an attractive looking fixture against Manchester City.

“Our season-ticket sales are down, although I don’t have the precise figure of how much, and therefore we have to fill more seats on match days," said chairman Peter Coates, quoted in the Stoke Sentinel.

“We are looking at a number of initiatives I’d rather not go into at the moment, but we do feel they can work."

The Potters have tried hard during their time in the Premier League to keep prices realistic for their fan base and were also very quick to use the increase in television money this summer to offer free away travel for their supporters.

Their small drop in attendances looks like being down to a combination of factors, not least the general economic climate and the fact that being in the top-flight is no longer a novelty for the club, but a top-price ticket of £47 for the City game would not have convinced casual fans to come along.

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/

The BBC's well-publicised 'Price of Football' survey, released last week, claimed Ipswich Town had the costliest season ticket in the Championship as well as the most expensive match-day experience in the division.

Some of the headlines in the survey were misleading as they related to a very specific type of ticket and a club spokesman told the BBC:  "We recognise that we are more expensive in some areas of ticketing than a number of Championship clubs but in other areas we are very comparable with our league rivals," said a club spokesperson.

"We have frozen season ticket prices for the third successive year and the seventh time in 11 years. Our supporters under the age of 11 could again purchase a season ticket for just £10."

What is indisputable is that Town recorded their smallest league attendance since 1999 (15,276) against Middlesbrough at the weekend. Those who were at Portman Road saw an impressive 3-1 win and boss Mick McCarthy said his aim was to keep putting out a successful team in the hope that more people would be tempted back.

But good results on the pitch and low prices are not always a foolproof combination if supporters feel alienated from the club they support.

To try and offset some of the cost (financially and emotionally) of moving the club away from the city that bears its name, Coventry City (my own club) offered the lowest season ticket prices in League One.

The Sky Blues have also won three and drawn one of their four 'home' games so far this season but recorded their lowest ever league gate when Colchester came to Sixfields recently and have yet to tempt more than 1,676 of their own fans to make the journey.

It's not that people don't want to watch Steven Pressley's exciting young team. Around 4,000 are expected follow City at Port Vale this weekend!

Affordable Football to look out for in the next few days includes England's Senior Women as they embark on their World Cup qualifying campaign.

As they embark on a new era after the departure of Hope Powell from the FA, the Three Lions take on Belarus at Dean Court, Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon and Turkey at Fratton Park, Portsmouth on Thursday 26 September.

Tickets for both games are available for just £5 for adults and £2.50 for concessions, There are further discounts for family and group tickets.

http://www.thefa.com/

Brentford's 'Pay What You Can' Offer Is Back

One of the more innovative ticket offers of recent seasons was Brentford's 'Pay What You Can' iniative for the League One fixture against Stevenage last season when more than 10,000 tickets were sold at a minimum price of £1 (the actual attendance for the game was less as it was postponed due to bad weather first time around).

Now, for the game against Shrewsbury on October 26, the Bees are again offering all tickets except those held by season-ticket holders, for sale on a 'pay what you can' basis with a £1 minimum price.

Money will also be raised for charity at the same time as when more than £5 is paid for a ticket, 50 per cent of the excess, excluding VAT, will be donated to the charity Sport Relief.

It is the kind of offer that has been made at non-league level and Portsmouth did it for a per-season friendly this summer but to repeat it for a competitive League One fixture is of great credit to Brentford FC with the club having already made an innovative offer for their recent JPT game against AFC Wimbledon thanks to the support of a local businessman.

As a social experiment it is interesting too. At a non-league game, where you could perhaps walk in for free and then put a donation into a bucket, the amount you pay is anonymous.

Here, however, you have to go and get your ticket in advance. Will people pay just £1 or will the goodwill generated by the offer lead them to pay more than the real cost of the ticket? It would be interesting to know what the maximum price paid last season was.

The price of football has been a major talking point in a slow second half of the week after the release of the BBC’s major survey into the cost of attending games. There’s lot of interesting information in there although some of the headline figures can be a bit misleading in terms of how many of a particular ticket type are actually available.

What’s clear is the Premier League is still relatively immune to the pressures that are bearing down on clubs at all other levels and making them find ways to make football more accessible and affordable while still maintain a competitive level on the pitch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24052562

Can The U21 Premier League Cup Fill A Competitive Gap?

Affordable Football blogged recently on reserve team and under-21 football and how fewer and fewer clubs seemed to see it as a way of both giving supporters an affordable, friendly football experience while also handing their own players the chance to play in front of healthy crowds in 'proper' stadiums.

The Premier League are hoping that their new Under-21 Cup competition will go some way towards redressing that with 52 academies having opted to take part.

Premier League Director of Youth Ged Roddy told the official PL website: "There are a number of reasons why bringing the Under-21 Premier League Cup inside the stadium and developing a fanbase for this competition would be a significant step."

The draw for the Qualifying Rounds of the competition took place on Monday with ties due to take place in the week beginning 23 September.

Let's hope that clubs are innovative in marketing the competition and reap the reward with good crowds and lots of family involvement.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/2013-14/sep/premier-league-u21-premier-league-cup-draw-090913.html

Affordable Football aims to bring you the special offers, reduced ticket prices and family deals that make catching a match anywhere in the country more affordable. You can tweet us @affordablefooty or email affordablefootball@yahoo.com if your club are doing something worth hearing about.

A New Era For England's Women

The England Women's team get their World Cup qualification bid underway this month without the dominant figure in the game for the past 15 years taking her place at the helm of the national side.

A poor performance at this summer's European Championships saw the FA take the decision to end Hope Powell's long association with both the senior team and the women's game as a whole.

Powell's departure was not greeted with universal sadness but her time in charge has coincided with the transformation of the women's game. The FA-backed Women's Super League will shortly expand to two divisions, most major games are now broadcast live on television and participation levels continue to rise.

Whoever is chosen as Powell's permanent replacement, the game at the top level will remain accessible, affordable and family friendly.

England's World Cup qualifiers against Belarus (at Bournemouth on September 21), Turkey (Portsmouth Sep 26) and Wales (Millwall Oct 26) are priced at £5 for adult tickets and £2.50 for concessions with further discounts for family and group bookings.

http://www.thefa.com/

Similarly, one of the showpieces of the season, the FA WSL Continental Cup Final, will take place at The Hive, Barnet on Friday October 4 with the same pricing structure.

http://www.barnetfc.com/

Leicester City Provide The Answer

The question being: 'What can clubs do to promote reserve/under-21 football as an affordable, family-friendly evening out?'

I left this particular blog half-finished last week because I wasn't quite sure where it was going.

The general theme was one of disappointment that clubs seemed to be doing their utmost to push reserve team games into the margins through lack of publicity, an assortment of kick-off times and matches being played at training grounds or local non-league clubs.

The recent Under-21 derby between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United was a case in point, being played as it was on a Friday afternoon at Hillsborough when an evening kick-off would have attracted a healthy crowd.

It was my own club, Coventry City, who pioneered under Jimmy Hill the notion of marketing reserve team games to a family audience and many clubs followed suit over the years.

Being able to get close to the action and see the odd star player (either dropped to the stiffs or returning from injury) was a small but significant part of a club's community ethos.

Obviously the game has changed and the notion of a 'reserve' team, at the higher levels, has disappeared. But why push even the Under-21's into the margins, playing games at the training ground in the middle of the afternoon and making it difficult for people to attend?

So where do Leicester City come in? Well, the Foxes have been selling a package of tickets for a series of Under-21 games at the King Power Stadium this season, all with 7pm kick-offs and designed for families to enjoy an inexpensive night out.

The result: A gate of 1,200 for the first game against Sunderland and then over 2,000 for Monday night's match against Liverpool.

A win-win situation given that the players on show got to experience real match conditions and a taste of playing in front of a supportive crowd.