The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

im seriously worried about how many games im gonna get to this year.
its my sons birthday next week and this means we will have a tight few weeks and im not sure i can justify the 15 quid trust membership. probably wont be able to afford 17 quid for fleetwood on the 14th.

the main reasons i follow diamonds and not liverpool or man utd etc are because its local and affordable i wanted to follow a club i could go and see every week without costing me a fortune

so thats it for me really. ive been a big fan of this club for 13 years and can count the home games ive missed on one hand but now the club/league have forced me to start missing games.
i love this club and this has really pissed me off!!!!!

this is non-league football FFS
money has ****ing ruined this game :twisted:

Reflecting on what has been said on here today by many respected posters, and from what I've heard separately, I'm struggling to see a way forward that will keep the long-term fanbase together - and as that gets eroded the slippery slope gets another coating of grease. We've all seen fans turn on their heels over the years, and very many of them never come back.

I note that Mad Dog has written to the Conference, and that's perhaps the start of what needs to be a "fans campaign" against this policy. I'm assured that the club has done everything to try to avoid this issue - and that is why the announcement is so late - but has been unable to turn it around. I guess being in a minority of one (or two) doesn't give us any clout at a club versus conference level.

I can understand the floating supporters not wanting to pay extra , but for people from this forum to not pay a one off £15 fee to the supporters trust is beyond me. £1 extra a game..... well dont forget that bills and the minimum wage go up every year, so the club has to pay more to staff. We have had the prices frozen for years so now the club has to do something about it.

Just £15 guys

Looks like it might be a minority of one. I got a response on the Forest Green boards:

this was explained to us at our first fans forum of the season we only open our terrese to away fans when we exspect more than 350 away fans so now we have to charge them for standing when we put them in the eesi stand price can be found by following link from main page (this is how i understand things from meeting hope it help) ps i take it we will get charged for standing next season

Link:

http://forum.fgrfc.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3290

Btw if anyone else wants to contact the Conference, you can do it through. Just remember guys to keep it civil so that they take us at least a bit seriously:

http://www.footballconference.co.uk/contact/

That's interesting - I wonder how much revenue they will lose as a result.

I did some rough calculations, and reckoned it might cost us £40k if we dropped the price to away fans like this.

Formic wrote:Reflecting on what has been said on here today by many respected posters, and from what I've heard separately, I'm struggling to see a way forward that will keep the long-term fanbase together - and as that gets eroded the slippery slope gets another coating of grease. We've all seen fans turn on their heels over the years, and very many of them never come back.

I've also been thinking about the long term impact and I think the Club really should be doing this as well. We've been a club for 18 years now, that's nearly a generation. You can expect the people that started going at the back end of the 90s to have children now and maybe they want to take their kids to NP. This price hike could stop that altogether. We're supposed to be a family club and it's just not being shown to be that with this whole thing. It's at times like this when I'd like some kind of representative from the Club to be on here so that we know that our concerns are getting read and thought about.

After the erosion of the fanbase from 2006 to 2010 we can't afford any more and the depressing thing is that this has come off the back of an (unexpectedly) amazing season. If we did go back to mid-table then the erosion of support might not happen if the prices were better but no one will want to spend £17 on mid-table football and then we'd be left maybe 900 attendances? KC was always talked about as our last chance, well if we hit rock bottom on attendances then will he want to stay around?

I don't want to sound apocalyptic but the more I think about this and it's possible impact the more I really worry about our future. I think it's time for a Fans Forum and sooner rather than later.

coolcuts wrote:I can understand the floating supporters not wanting to pay extra , but for people from this forum to not pay a one off £15 fee to the supporters trust is beyond me. £1 extra a game..... well dont forget that bills and the minimum wage go up every year, so the club has to pay more to staff. We have had the prices frozen for years so now the club has to do something about it.

Just £15 guys

I'm not sure if you were around in 2004 when the decision was taken to increase the prices and also introduce the car parking charge. Many of us expressed surprise that there hadn't been any consultation with the Fans, but also warned how much this "double whammy" would impact on people, and many would think that their loyalty was being overly tested.

We all know what happened as a result of that move (I accept it was necessary, but the facts on attendances speak for themselves).

Formic wrote:That's interesting - I wonder how much revenue they will lose as a result.

I did some rough calculations, and reckoned it might cost us £40k if we dropped the price to away fans like this.

Unfortunately, I fear we could lose just as much, if not more, by pissing off the home fans by increasing the prices. We really are in a no win situation here. :(

Formic wrote:That's interesting - I wonder how much revenue they will lose as a result.
I did some rough calculations, and reckoned it might cost us £40k if we dropped the price to away fans like this.

As Dave says, the potetial loss of home support (which actually went UP last season) and the revenue attached to that will offset it. We have no way of guessing what it'll do until the season starts, it's already having an impact on here. IMO it's bad decision by the club.

Two of Diamonds wrote:

Formic wrote:That's interesting - I wonder how much revenue they will lose as a result.
I did some rough calculations, and reckoned it might cost us £40k if we dropped the price to away fans like this.

As Dave says, the potetial loss of home support (which actually went UP last season) and the revenue attached to that will offset it. We have no way of guessing what it'll do until the season starts, it's already having an impact on here. IMO it's bad decision by the club.

Have you emailed the Conference?