Fan Expectation

[Harry Flashman]

If we lived in a time where money and grants were plentiful or we had a council who would be interested in partnership providing land, joint funding development, enabling growth for the club then I would agree. Unfortunately that does not exist. So it aint going to happen for years. Going alone could bankrupt us.

[sussexdiamond]

Scrap the new ground plans? That's the only light at the end of the current dark tunnel. Hayden road is not fit for purpose for a community based club. As far as I know, none of the community teams can play or practice there. If we want the cub to survive going forward we need our own community stadium with practice pitches, training facilities etc. so we can build income and gain younger supporters for the future.

Agree 100%.There never has been an expectation of moving to the new ground for some years yet and current situation does not help. When we visit any club that has recently built facilities especially midweek you can see how much they are used by their local community. Although I don't like the idea of 4G pitches(or are we up to 5G?) they are a good source of income and create interest in the club with local sponsors and especially amongst youngsters. We do have a working group in charge of the new home project but at present we have greater priorities. I believe the club still has ambition but we must be realistic. In the meantime let Peaksy do his best with what is available, every season he has produced a promotion chasing team and I don't expect this to be any different.

[AFCRD_Dan]

Given it’s football the expectations of most will always be above anything that’s realistic, however personal I feel over the last couple of seasons there has been a hidden (though not very well) fear of progression above step 3. This has resulted and will continue to mean a large turnover in playing staff as many players will want to push themselves beyond the aspirations of the Club.
I’ve been around the Club a lot over the past 8 years and consider myself fairly observant, having attended 2 matches this season and 2 at another Club (also fan owned and on it’s arse a few years ago) the difference is staggering.
If the Club is to progress and personally I feel it’s more than capable of doing so it must have more support and involvement from business, it’s hard work I know but a 1 season deal with a company can generate what you could realistically get from 50 supporters.
As someone who runs a small business I appreciate how bloody difficult it is at present, but I also look at other Clubs at Diamonds level and see a steady flow of new businesses coming on board. Almost all the existing fund raising initiatives whilst sound and hopefully successful are aimed at the same regular diehard 300 and I would fear the golden goose if not being strangled is getting slowly choked.
More involvement is I feel required by some new blood along with those in place, after all it’s always better on a long journey to share the driving than risk falling asleep at the wheel.
I’ve been watching Diamonds and taking someone since 1995 and will always have an interest in the Club regardless of where I’m watching my football, and I feel the Club is very close to a crossroads if not already there and if ambition is not shown support may well start to dwindle, the hope of a run in either the FA Cup or Trophy may sustain some supporters but the majority want more.
In answer to Phil’s point, yes Diamonds probably generate as much as any Club in the league in gate receipts, but I would think commercial income is mid table or below and that’s where inroads must be made.
I’m sure some of my comments will be considered as criticism and not the constructive opinion of a long time follower but then that possibly Just highlights the points I’m making.

Some good points there. What commercial income are we missing out on?

I really thought gates would increase with the return to Rushden, but I am not sure they have?

I’ve touched on this before, but I blame the Premier League to an extent. Walking around Rushden it’s disheartening to see individuals in Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea shirts. I doubt very few have actually ever been to watch them play.
Also add to that, a lot of locals maybe have the attitude of “It’s Non League, it won’t be any good” and that puts us at a disadvantage of attracting new fans. Also looking at old photos of RDFC, where have those supporters gone?

We saw the potential support we could have when we played Rushden & Higham United at Hayden Road in the UCL, but how many of those attended another game? A lot likely just went for a day out.

Unfortunately people would rather be armchair supporters of Premier League clubs rather than their LOCAL side.

[Bob's Bitch]

I'll add my 2p, as someone who has watched from afar for a few years. I think the new ground is the light at the end of the tunnel and a 4G pitch is essential for community engagement and revenue, it might annoy traditionalists but so be it.

It's a shame that HR hasn't brought the kind of crowds we expected, but TBH I think it's a cop-out to blame the PL. All NL/LL clubs have to deal with this competitor for eyeballs and it's not going away. The way to get around it is community engagement - unless of course you want to spend money the club doesn't have to try and get success to drive increases in crowds (pre-Covid) and obviously no-one wants to go down that route again.

A good example down the road is K*ttering, who get good crowds when they're winning, but who then all scarper when they're bobbing along in mid-table after promotion.

Personally I think Step 2/3 with the (hopefully) occasional foray into the late qualifying stages of the FA Cup is what should be aimed for. Anything more is over-reaching on crowds of 500 in a small catchment area. I'm not a business person, so I'll trust what Brownie says. I do think constantly asking from the same 300 is a problem, but trying to get fundraising/advertising from the community is pretty hard in normal times, let alone now!

[Formic]

I was surprised when looking at the difference in attendance figures between our level and Step 2. We'd go from being in the top 6 for attendances to one of the bottom 3 or 4 at the higher level. As it is we seem to get a slightly bigger crowd than Banbury, who must have a bigger catchment area.

With all that's going on at the moment, I'm quite happy we've reached our most appropriate level for this stage of our existence. Who knows what might happen in terms of austerity / taxes / unforeseen costs once the virus is beaten - and who knows what the impact might be if we see a tighter lockdown by Christmas.

There might be additional opportunities to get other locals to our games if EFL and National League Teams have to play behind closed doors even longer so they can't watch Cobblers / Posh / Poppies.