The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

PigmanRDFC wrote:When you ask them those questions Tony, couldn't ask them to publish the BSP's Ticketing Directive could you? My requests appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

You mention £17 to stand at Yeovil at a League game - they are 2 leagues above us remember?? Plus, if you buy it before the day of the game its only £15 !!

The Directive does exist and is not made up, i attach part of minutes from the Football supporters federation meeting at wembley this summer.

There are also pricing issues in the Conference. Some stadia in the Blue Square Premier
are all-seater. Half of the division is formed by clubs who were once in the Football League.
Minimum admission prices range as high as £18 for adults, £13 for seniors and £10 for
children (step forward Cambridge United). Compare this with Fulham where Premier League
prices start from £10 for adults, with FA Cup and European matches from £15. No wonder
some BSP clubs find it difficult to attract a crowd, although attendances often compare very
favourably with League 2.
Cambridge United advertised prices for their away terrace on their website, then closed that
area on matchday forcing away fans to pay to enter the away stand. For a parent with two
children the difference amounted to £13. If away fans had chosen to enter the home terrace
to save a few quid, the potential segregation problems are obvious.
However, it seems that pricing regulations to be introduced next season by the Football
Conference means that whenever only one area of accommodating away support is offered
then it must be at the lowest price charged in other areas of the stadium. This will not apply
however where visiting supporters are offered a choice of sitting or standing

If you go to the Football supporters Federation website you can see that the Conference is proudly presented as a partner and where the conference board got the idea from about away ticket prices.

I know it exists, I'd just love to read the exact wording - even the BSP seem keen to not publish it for paying customers to read.

How embarrassing this is, the club does seem to be being rather silly, if a club two leagues above can charge less, just makes our chairman look plain greedy.

Whilst this crazy pricing policy is in place, I will not be crossing the turnstiles, as judging by the terrible attendances of late, I guess others are the same.

Let me tell you once you lose the habit of going, people will not be back, so this is permanent damage.

FA cup should be priced to attract people not put people off, disgraceful Mr Chairman, I hope you read this thread and lower you head in shame.

Whilst I agree with almost all of the points raised by both Pigman and Ron Manager, we do have to remember that this club does not enjoy the huge financial sponsorship benefits that those clubs in the FL and Premier League have. Having said that, we all know we have a Chairman who's subsidising this club to keep it afloat and we must be thankful of that.
If this club can afford to have (for example) 500 season ticket holders all paying roughly £11 a match then why put off the other fans who pay on the turnstiles by charging vastly more? We're all using the same stadium, we're all watching the game. To be honest I can't see how the difference in the prices charged for season ticket holders compared with those paying on the gate, would be making up anywhere near any shortfall in revenue. All we're doing is alienating people IMO, it's a bad policy.
Interesting to note that there's been no clarification of the discounted prices Trust members will pay for the FA Cup game, do we assume it's the same as the league games or turn up and find it's more (or less)?

I don't think the pricing issues in general have been particularly well handled by the club this season but if you think about the Yeovil game in isolation, we will be charging the same to watch a League 1 side as we normally charge to watch Conference sides, whereas Yeovil (should there be a replay) will be charging slightly less than their normal prices to watch a team from 2 Leagues below normal, so it sort of makes sense to me.

ron manager wrote:How embarrassing this is, the club does seem to be being rather silly, if a club two leagues above can charge less, just makes our chairman look plain greedy.

Whilst this crazy pricing policy is in place, I will not be crossing the turnstiles, as judging by the terrible attendances of late, I guess others are the same.

Let me tell you once you lose the habit of going, people will not be back, so this is permanent damage.

FA cup should be priced to attract people not put people off, disgraceful Mr Chairman, I hope you read this thread and lower you head in shame.

I know let the Chairman just throw more money into the pot and reduce ticket prices, i cannot believe that any sane person thinks our chairman actually makes any money from our Club and to call him greedy beggars belief.

Football fans are well know for being ungrateful and selfish and Ron Manager lives up to that

I do agree with Ron on something though - this is the FA Cup, it's a magical competition that's loved by all football fans and we should be encouraging people to come to NP to see us take on a side that are currently 2 leagues above us. Reducing the prices may have helped to get a few more through the turnstile.
However, KC funds this club from his own pocket far too much already so I can understand why prices have remained the same. If you're not prepared to come, fine...if you are going to be there, how about talking a friend into coming with you, every little helps ;)

Seems odd to call our chairman 'a bit greedy' when you consider that his input into the club keeps it alive and is into 7 figures now I imagine, and what he takes out of it is the square root of nothing.

i'm a standing season ticket holder, non trust. so i'll be paying £17. ideally they should say."use special voucher 1" and get a reduction on your entrance fee, to £14, like the trust members.
as it's a one off match, i'm happy to pay it.
i think KC does well and we'd not have a club without him.

therushden wrote: i think KC does well and we'd not have a club without him.

I totally agree with this and much credit goes to him, I won't ever slag the guy off and to call him greedy is plain daft, he makes no money personally from the club, thats patently obvious. I'm grateful he saved my club, but I think he has got the whole ticketing thing wrong this season, particularly in the FA Cup which is a lost opportunity now!!

Most clubs at our level don't budget for the FA Cup in their business plan, if they do then they're stupid as there are no guarantees they're likely to go beyond the 4th Qualifying Round. So, if he's been sensible, money is already going into the "black hole".

But this was a great opportunity to promote the club to non-Trust members, people new to the area, people who MIGHT have been tempted along (or back) to NP - its the FA Cup people, THE best cup competition in the world (IMHO) - with the right promotion in the local rag and on local radio we could have really built this one up and tried to capture the imagination of local people, especially with who it is and the history between our two clubs.

The FA Cup could have been used as a positive promotional tool by our club to get more folk through the turnstiles - alas, yet again we've gone for the easy option of fleecing the few people that still bother to go along these days - sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate, we don't seem to have the imagination to do that. The prices being charged by Yeovil in a potential replay just highlight this fact, as do the prices we would have charged in the scum replay had one been needed vs what they charged.

The whole "Trust membership to get a discount" thing is wrong in my opinion, there were other more inventive ways to get around this, thats my main gripe.

What is done is done - I've made my decision and will stand by it. This has led to the club losing my gate money, my beer money, my food money, my merchandise money and my volunteering time...........not to mention a lot of goodwill with me losing interest a little bit in the club I've followed since 1994. Ron is right about people finding other things to do once they stop coming.

Oh and D4eva, I'll be there paying my £17 , but I can't ask a friend to part with that much for a team he doesn't support - had it been £13 or even £14 I may have done that - in my case that would have made £26/£28 in the club's coffers, rather than the £17 its going to get - that kind of highlights the fact even more !!

Anyway, onwards and upwards - I'm looking forward to Kiddy next week !!