Quarter season review

[sussexdiamond]

On a hopefully positive note we should/could be looking at 12 points from our next four games. Rugby, Walsall(?) Hinckley all away and Boldmere at home.

[BartonRaz]

I think a 5.5 score and a "must do better" verdict is incredibly harsh, probably not helped by posting immediately after arguably our worst performance so far this season.

Whilst i'll admit it's becoming a case of 'what if', let's not forget that whilst we have chucked points away in the final minutes at Bedworth, Long Eaton and Quorn, we have also picked up points in the dying minutes against Darlaston and Sutton Coldfield both of which we arguably didn't deserve. There's still a deficit there which is why it's a case of 'what if', but we live in hope that things will even themselves out over the course of a season.

The Newark match was incredibly disappointing, there can be no denying that. I think we all felt that. But we did have possibly the worst draw possible in the round prior and came through that. Let's not forget that either.

Not wishing to shoot down every negative comment I don't agree with the comments about Jarvis either. He plays on the edge but I think he's really stepped up this year after being given the armband. The red card at the weekend was a case of mistaken identity and I heard the referee in the bar after the game on Saturday effectively admit he heard a comment come from a general direction and couldn't say for certain it was Jarvis. I did check, apparently it wasn't that ref's first game.

I think I'm somewhere in the 6.5 or 7/10 area in terms of what's happening on the pitch. If we'd have held on at Quorn it would probably have been an 8. It's fine margins.

One thing I will agree with is the attendances which have been disappointing to date. Having said that, we're hopefully looking at 2 community days this year rather than one, we've got Saturday matches to come against Wellingborough, Corby and Worcester which will all have well above-average crowds. I'm not concerned at this point necessarily about the overall average on that basis, however we could do without the 200-250 crowds we see on Tuesday nights in winter. I can make some assumptions as to why our attendances drop so badly on Tuesday nights, but it's those attendances that really hammer the overall average.

The general slide in attendances though traces back to Covid. That wiped 100-150 off our attendances at a stroke for some reason. We managed to halt the decline last season with a 20% YoY increase. I'd like to see that maintain at the very least this year.

[Olly]

On the numbers through the gate…
Not being helped by the scheduling -
Saturday poppies, diamonds, doughboys, cobblers, steelmen all at home! Not great for attracting the neutrals.
As a club can we not experiment with some Friday night games to avoid weekends like this weekend? Friday night under the lights - think it would be good for the crowds.

Yes re: Friday night games, think I might have mentioned this once in the past, while obviously floodlight cost may be a factor to consider of course and players' work, I really think this could be worth experimenting with, if practically possible. A club in the town where I went to uni (Bangor in Wales) who incidentally have very similar size crowds to us, did some Friday night games when I was there and actually got better crowds than they did on a Saturday afternoon. It would have pros and cons of course, but certainly wouldn't have the issue of having to compete with other local clubs on at the same time or premier league and might even get neutrals in for the novelty factor of getting to see a game on a Friday night.

Is this something we could try out? Saturdays crowd figure was so low I thought it was a mistake when I first read it, we're not going to get bumper crowds mid table step 4, but at least need to stay above 400 ideally.

[sandringhamdiamond]

I would give 6.5.
The loss to Newark was tough to take. It felt like we threw away the hard work from the Corby games. Seeing other local clubs' recent cup draws it made it feel like another kick in the teeth. As another poster mentioned, we should be treating every FA Cup game as a cup final, but we turned up at Newark thinking we had already won, which was disappointing. In the league, we've lost points we deserved and maybe gained some we didn't, but it's great to have 14 points on the board compared to where we were 12 months ago. We're definitely a better team now, and credit to Michael Harriman for doing a good job.

I've been fascinated with the league table, we will struggle against the top teams but the teams in the bottom half, anyone can beat anyone, if you turn up and put a performance in you'll get the 3 points, and if you don't you'll easily come away empty-handed. I believe we were fortunate to face Loughborough Students and Grantham when we did, but the most important thing is we got the points on the board. With a couple of victories, we can climb up the table, but we could just as easily be pulled closer towards the relegation zone. There are several teams, such as Hinckley LRFC, that have had a bad start but might now begin to climb the table, stating the obvious but we need to continue picking up points, especially when 4 teams go down this season.

As mentioned by others in this discussion, I am concerned about the attendances. It seems that we like to find excuses for the low turnout, even now suggesting that playing on a Saturday afternoon might be an issue. The board and all the volunteers do an incredible job and deserve more through the turnstiles. Like others, I'm scratching my head, but the truth is if we want to compete with teams at the top of the table we need more through the turnstiles first.

[rickthediamond]

As mentioned by others in this discussion, I am concerned about the attendances. It seems that we like to find excuses for the low turnout, even now suggesting that playing on a Saturday afternoon might be an issue. The board and all the volunteers do an incredible job and deserve more through the turnstiles. Like others, I'm scratching my head, but the truth is if we want to compete with teams at the top of the table we need more through the turnstiles first.

Spot on. I appreciate, as pointed out by Alex, that there was a good YOY increase last season. However, that should have been the catalyst for this season, with the team now performing better, I was expecting to see close to or over 400 at each home game. How wrong was I!

It’s good to hear that there is going to be more community games etc this year, and obviously the bumper crowds are fantastic. But (unsurprisingly), I would trade seeing 4-500 at every Saturday game, with over 300 on Tuesdays rather than having the odd 6-800 game across the season. Obviously the Corby and Wellingborough games will draw those crowds regardless.

It would perhaps be good to have the pay what you want fixture as the Corby or Wellingborough home game? Or does the fact that they will already get high crowds mean that it’s better to target someone like Shepshed, as we did last year? I guess so. I’ve always been interested in the pay what you want games, do we make more money than usual, or roughly the same?

[BartonRaz]

As mentioned by others in this discussion, I am concerned about the attendances. It seems that we like to find excuses for the low turnout, even now suggesting that playing on a Saturday afternoon might be an issue. The board and all the volunteers do an incredible job and deserve more through the turnstiles. Like others, I'm scratching my head, but the truth is if we want to compete with teams at the top of the table we need more through the turnstiles first.

Spot on. I appreciate, as pointed out by Alex, that there was a good YOY increase last season. However, that should have been the catalyst for this season, with the team now performing better, I was expecting to see close to or over 400 at each home game. How wrong was I!

It’s good to hear that there is going to be more community games etc this year, and obviously the bumper crowds are fantastic. But (unsurprisingly), I would trade seeing 4-500 at every Saturday game, with over 300 on Tuesdays rather than having the odd 6-800 game across the season. Obviously the Corby and Wellingborough games will draw those crowds regardless.

It would perhaps be good to have the pay what you want fixture as the Corby or Wellingborough home game? Or does the fact that they will already get high crowds mean that it’s better to target someone like Shepshed, as we did last year? I guess so. I’ve always been interested in the pay what you want games, do we make more money than usual, or roughly the same?

I couldn't tell you exact figures but I think we took in the buckets what we would have taken anyway through the gate, possibly even a little bit more. We also had a cracking day in the Club Shop with the fire sale. Overall it was a riproaring, very well timed success and the result on the pitch helped. One of my favourite days since being on the board, I'd say.

But with the season tickets only a saving of around 3 or 3.5 games, we need to be a bit careful with how frequently we throw these out to protect the benefit of the season ticket.