Dwindling attendances

We had an idea the other year that was shot down and it was to close top tiers. I completely agree. I know a few moaned because of the "this is my seat and its where ive always sat" brigade but realistically makes no sense.

Atmosphere would be improved with full seats. Could put some kind of advertising sheet to make it look better. Nothing worse than seeing rows and rows of empty seats on Sky.

We also have to employ more caterers, catering staff, stewards. Maybe North upper can be kept open but would close the other two.

I don't think, though I may be mistaken, that rftr is so much asking how grounds experiencing smaller crowds can be made to just look better, as much as how can we fill them up again with all the other options available. Speaking personally, I am becoming bored with football. I don't know if that's just down to the dross Parky's serving up, or whether it's just football generally. Clearly the PL continues to thrive due to the riches involved but I think it's more and more at the expense of those outside, including the Championship. Not many years ago, any club could potentially make it to the top, including the likes of Carlisle, Northampton and others but it's almost inconceivable that could happen now without a mega rich benefactor.

Even to stay in the Championship these days comes at massive cost, just to survive, as we are finding out. As soon as you're above Div 1 the wages spiral and without either massive crowds or a rich owner you will struggle. Add the parachute payments of relegated clubs and it makes the difference worse. Do you spend to try to achieve promotion and risk devastation, or do you just happily exist? I think the internet will definitely hurt clubs, who can often now be watched on various channels, most notably iFollow. As rftr says, why would you want to buy 2-3 tickets for yourself, kids, relatives and sufffer the travel and weather when you can pay £10, stay at home and watch in comfort with a beer? In our case one other benefit of this is that you can turn it off!

I suppose clubs just have to make a decision where they want to be and accept their lot. Maybe the top two divisions should become linked under the PL as Garty always maintained, then the rest can just accept they can't compete unless a rich owner wants to take a chance. At the moment the Championship clubs seem to be in something of a state of no mans land somewhere between the riches and high costs of the PL and the much lower costs of Divisions 3 and 4 (1 and 2). Being a Championship club is tough and I can only see it getting tougher yet as crowds reduce further.

How about if we got a positive young manager, preferably with some history at the club, who would decide to fill the team with our own young talent about which the BN news could write positive stories. They could visit local schools and youth events, invite schoolchildren to games and integrate with the local community. Positivity is what is lacking at the moment and ask yourself this. If you bought a Wanderers kit whose name would you really want on it? I accept we have to play some experience in order to compete but I just don't accept that fielding players like Connell, Hall, Politic and others will weaken this team at all, quite the reverse. A huge turnaround is needed and in fact could have occurred already under Anderson if he'd only see it and ditch Mr 28% in favour of DL and TK. I believe there are between 3 and 5 thousand fans, including me, ready to return if he did that but like me again today will stay away entirely because he won't. I was considering going actually, I certainly could do but have decided to enjoy the sunshine with my little granddaughter instead.

Well I definitely think I made the right choice in not going rftr and so did you with your painting. Actually though I feel a bit sorry for Parky because he did after all try to be positive with the players who did well on Tuesday. Sadly those same players let him down today although you could complain that when it obviously wasn't working, he might have changed it immediately rather than wait until half time, though I still think that might be a bit harsh. I think today we probably have to accept we were up against a very good team and stung by their loss to Preston, it gave them a further edge. Whilst we were up after Birmingham, we shouldn't be too down today as we didn't expect to get anything from this and Leeds next week anyway. I think one thing we can say is that next week will be back to the ultra defensive Parky and to be fair I think I'd agree with him going to Leeds. Assuming we are still not adrift by then we should have a number of games we can be more hopeful of points from so all is not lost. In fact we may even be under new ownership by then with all that that brings. Strangely, I don't feel upset about losing, I think I've got that used to it but I'm so glad I didn't make the trip over and instead spent the afternoon with my little sweetheart on the playpark in the sun.

Looks like we are well and truly stuck with the set up we have as all takeover talk as fine quiet yet again!!!

Does anyone know how many season tickets we have sold for this season cause the attendance figures they give out ain't that bad for a team that can't score or keep clean sheets on a regular basis at home. COYWM

All season ticket holders are counted as attending !