Wobblers desperate for fans!

[Steve]

As for the phoenix club, i can't see anything but failure for it

Can I ask why? Unless you aren't being serious again ;)

Altho I'm not involved and I know it will take a lot of hard work, I'm sure we can at least get a team up and running next season. But I don't think we'll follow in the footsteps of Telford and Wimbledon. I personally think if we could get back to the BSN/S we'd probably be above our level.

[DustCobb]

Yes sorry i was entering into serious discussion mode there...

Of course you can ask, and of course it is just my view.

It depends what you class as success or failure and to what level you aim for. My view is that you will struggle to get people to turn up, to give money and time, i know some on here have said they will but when the chips were down at NP you really struggled to gain fans and to raise money. Could you do it as a decent UCL team then yes for sure i think you could do that, no doubt in fact. Could you make it to the Southern League then yes but that would probably be the limit in my eyes. I think your biggest problem here is having realistic goals, don't let people get carried away with planning ahead too much etc I've seen lots of things going on such as badge organising etc, that is the least important thing at the moment surely? Get a ground sorted first, sort a team out and arrange with a league to enter into then take it on from there. You need to walk before you run.
Also i think you need to instill it into people that things will never be the same again, you'll never be the same sized non league club again, however you could be a solid well run club which is the most important thing.
Random thoughts of mine really, probably doesn't mean much but like i say i enjoy discussing football, especially locally.

[Steve]

I agree with most of what you say, it just came across as though the club itself would never take off, which it may not, but we all hope it does. I personally expect to sit around the level you suggested, and IMO it will be a success to even achieve that considering where we are now.

One final thing I would say though is about when you mention the fans. Obviously the interest won't be huge, but IMO we were, at the back end of last season, down to the 'core support' and I would hope that a fair % of them would back a phoenix club, whether its the odd game or a season ticket. I don't know the numbers but surely an average gate in the region of 300/400 is achievable. And I would of thought that would be very good down in the UCL.

[Pigman]

But we were pulling in enough fans overall to sustain a BSP side, it was the crippling cost of running Nene Park that caused us so many problems, plus a few other issues that I won't speculate about, but I don't think support was the real problem.

I think we had an average of 1,254 last season, 14th in the attendance table, and dropped down to about 850-900 home fans when things turned really bad. If 50% of them (being optimistic here) were to follow an AFC side, then we'd get 450, a decent attendance at that level.

You talk about expectations of success and failure, well for me success will be watching an AFC youth side side run out onto the field this year and a Senior side in 2012/13. In the future? Well, a lot depends upon the support doesn't it? If we do well and they turn out then I don't see any reason why we can't become a solid Southern League side, pushing for, or becoming, a BSPN/S club - but in reality the sky is the limit with the right support and backing, and who knows what will happen eh? But little steps first, we haven't even been successful getting a youth team together yet.

If you were to tell me we'd be plying our trade in the Southern League Premier in 5 years time I'd personally be delighted - any more than that and I'd be in dreamland !!

[davealbon]

Yes sorry i was entering into serious discussion mode there...

Of course you can ask, and of course it is just my view.

It depends what you class as success or failure and to what level you aim for. My view is that you will struggle to get people to turn up, to give money and time, i know some on here have said they will but when the chips were down at NP you really struggled to gain fans and to raise money. Could you do it as a decent UCL team then yes for sure i think you could do that, no doubt in fact. Could you make it to the Southern League then yes but that would probably be the limit in my eyes. I think your biggest problem here is having realistic goals, don't let people get carried away with planning ahead too much etc I've seen lots of things going on such as badge organising etc, that is the least important thing at the moment surely? Get a ground sorted first, sort a team out and arrange with a league to enter into then take it on from there. You need to walk before you run.
Also i think you need to instill it into people that things will never be the same again, you'll never be the same sized non league club again, however you could be a solid well run club which is the most important thing.
Random thoughts of mine really, probably doesn't mean much but like i say i enjoy discussing football, especially locally.

You do make some very good points there, for a change ;) , however it's not a case of focusing on items such as the badge and name ahead of things like the league and players etc.

There is a huge amount of work going on to get the club set up in an official capacity, get it registered in a league, get players signed up, get a manager appointed, get a ground sorted etc etc. All of these things take time though, whereas decisions such as the badge design don't require the same level of input, and can involve the entire fan base. I also think the branding is very important and needs to be done as soon as possible in order for a 'proper' website to be set up, to attract sponsorship and to have something to market in order for us to begin raising funds.

[Olly]

Yes sorry i was entering into serious discussion mode there...

Of course you can ask, and of course it is just my view.

It depends what you class as success or failure and to what level you aim for. My view is that you will struggle to get people to turn up, to give money and time, i know some on here have said they will but when the chips were down at NP you really struggled to gain fans and to raise money. Could you do it as a decent UCL team then yes for sure i think you could do that, no doubt in fact. Could you make it to the Southern League then yes but that would probably be the limit in my eyes. I think your biggest problem here is having realistic goals, don't let people get carried away with planning ahead too much etc I've seen lots of things going on such as badge organising etc, that is the least important thing at the moment surely? Get a ground sorted first, sort a team out and arrange with a league to enter into then take it on from there. You need to walk before you run.
Also i think you need to instill it into people that things will never be the same again, you'll never be the same sized non league club again, however you could be a solid well run club which is the most important thing.
Random thoughts of mine really, probably doesn't mean much but like i say i enjoy discussing football, especially locally.

Wow, you've actually come up with something constructive for once

No one's under any illusions (well I'm not anyway), there's plenty of obstacles of course, but I'm positive that if we really want it work (which we do), we'll find a way round those obstacles. I look at AFC Wimbledon and Telford as good examples and proof that it can work and that makes me positive about the whole thing, but of course I don't think we can repeat what they did and I just hope no one thinks otherwise, they have the benefit of very decent fanbases that we haven't got but you've got to positive about these things and its nice to have a dream and I will dream about us being a BSP team again. Realistically I partially agree with you regarding how far we can go, I would hope we can make it to the Southern Prem in a few seasons and after that I'm not sure we'd have to see but in my eyes that wouldn't be a failure at all.

Plus, for the other phoenix clubs like Chester and Halifax, the high chance of success that they had in their first seasons got them similar (if not higher) crowds than they were getting before as their previous club, so who knows if we were able to push for success in the UCL, maybe we'd attract decent crowds of several 100 as its obvious what a bit of success does for crowds. Yeah I'm getting ahead of myself I know, we've barely started the club but I really am positive about AFC R&D and think we'll do well, I mean just look at the superb work saverdfc have done already, that to me shows we've already got people who really want this to work, now we just need to find people with the right experience and skills to take the club forward.

[Three of Diamonds]

Dave's right about the brand being right. One of the other concerns was the location of the club and the conurbation it is supposed to represent (linked to its name). Since the Wimbledon thing wasn't there guidance on this? I did try to find it online but have drawn a blank so far.
Having said that, if the K*ttering move to NP goes ahead it's not going to be a problem is it?

[Biggles]

Dave's right about the brand being right. One of the other concerns was the location of the club and the conurbation it is supposed to represent (linked to its name). Since the Wimbledon thing wasn't there guidance on this? I did try to find it online but have drawn a blank so far.
Having said that, if the K*ttering move to NP goes ahead it's not going to be a problem is it?

I get the feeling the only hold up of Kettrins move to NP is the F.A who have the final say on whether a team can play outside its conurbation as per its rules on ground grading for each division.

Old Sadact kissed and licked Ass at the Conference AGM to smooth his path into NP but as we know he made loads of friends at the F.A when he slagged them off on his website not long ago, nah can't see the F.A holding grudges can you ;)