Decent read
thetwounfortunates
Cheap entry at Charlton, but at what cost?
The Valley boasted the Football League’s third-highest attendance on Saturday as a crowd of 24,767 was tempted to SE7 by the offer of £5 tickets for Charlton’s League One game against Exeter. Cut-price entry is obviously an easy way for a club seeking strong support for a particular fixture to get more people than usual through the turnstiles and, with promotional deals likely to be a feature of West Ham’s business model for filling the Olympic Stadium post-London 2012, Saturday wasn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last occasion the tactic is exercised.
However, with Exeter bringing with them to south London a large travelling support thanks to the extension of the £5 offer to away fans, and the Grecians subsequently going on to win 3-1 against a team nine places above them going into the game, Charlton’s ticket incentive seemed to backfire terribly. The club’s thinking behind the deal might have seemed straightforward but, aside from the likelihood of a positive result supposedly being increased by the noise generated from a larger than normal crowd, what do clubs such as the Addicks have to gain by attracting an artificially inflated attendance to their stadium?
The obvious answer might be that cheap tickets encourage families to attend together. Mothers and fathers, who might not otherwise have attended themselves, will return to the stadium and bring their children too. Those children are the club’s future fanbase. In Charlton’s case, though, as prices for under-eighteens already stand at £5, Saturday’s uniform entrance price was a direct invitation to the thousands of adult fans who have inevitably drifted away from the club since its not-so-distant Premier League years to come back – and, while they’re at it, to take their young relatives. No doubt it worked to a degree, based on the conversation in the row behind mine in the North Stand, where a pair of grandparents appeared to be taking their grandson to his first game.
It would have been difficult, though, for the club to have made Saturday a financial success. Full-price tickets for home games at the Valley usually start at £17.50 (not extortionate by any means, but understandably still prohibitive to fans who can’t afford season tickets or spare the time to attend regularly). The over-sixties and those aged 18-21 can get in for £13 as standard. Given that the £5 promotion on Saturday only benefitted those groups, then, the scale of the loss incurred on each ticket by the club becomes clear. It is possible, taking into consideration the various prices on offer to different adult age groups on normal match days, that Charlton might have had to have sold around three times as many tickets as usual to those casual fans aged over 18 on Saturday for it to have benefitted the club’s books.
My brother and I, however, certainly did benefit from the ticket arrangement. For less than the price of seeing a film – if one is to view Charlton’s actions as having been in part motivated by entertainment market forces, which they surely were – two fairly cash-strapped football fans got to watch a live game and, as it turned out, an excellent one at that from a neutral's perspective.
A goalless first half was made fairly engrossing thanks to the contrast between the triangular passing that Exeter were attempting to work around Charlton’s box, and the home side’s slightly more direct approach. The Addicks improved considerably after the break but, pretty cruelly, went behind only a minute or so after Pawel Abbott had hit the bar. Liam Sercombe’s low shot went under Rob Elliot to put Exeter in front, and the Charlton goalkeeper would be at the centre of the two goals that followed as well. It was his poor clearance that resulted in Gary Doherty’s admittedly worse attempt at a header back to his keeper, letting in John O’Flynn to score. Elliot then brought down O’Flynn and Ryan Harley scored the resultant penalty. Bradley Wright-Phillips turned in an acrobatic Doherty shot after 85 minutes but Charlton, despite their best efforts going forward, had undone themselves at the back three times already.
Despite the game getting away from Charlton’s players in the second half, though, there had been a great deal of enthusiasm on show from the supporters at the Valley – and humour. The ground’s new big screen, situated between the Jimmy Seed and East Stands, showed an advert during the first half featuring a goldfish being chased by a net. “Feesh!” exclaimed the crowd each time it swam by. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard at a game. There was also an interesting match-up for those, like me, familiar with Norwich City. Doherty, who caused some amusement during the warm-up with his ironic interpretation of the sprint drill, was marking his former Canaries teammate Jamie Cureton, who has moved back to his West Country roots and started scoring again since linking up with Exeter in the summer.
Despite his tender age, it was easy to tell what the fan behind me took from the game too. Charlton were probably hoping that an afternoon at the Valley might leave a positive mark on the impressionable minds of the day’s young supporters but – to the embarrassment of his grandparents – the boy loudly asserted that “Charlton are rubbish!” with five minutes left. (Or was it four? A constant feature of the game was the bored little man’s wish to know how long he had to sit still for.) He might have saved himself years of disappointment (not to mention expense) by coming to such a conclusion so early on in his life about his local club, but that didn’t make it any less sad to hear – not least for the Addicks' board, should word of this article ever reach them.
Comments
Rather invalidates his view on the rest of the match.
yes, does rather, as does this by the same author.
BWP
MOG was that you?!
I would hazard a guess that would have been either me, NSS or NLA !
Out of the near 25k that attended 24600 know what Charlton do on special days like that.
Bar the play off finals, that we have taken part in, we always fluff the big game or so it seems to me.
I would have gone anyway, so the club saved me £20. Well done to the board.
If, as a supporter, you want to see your team win week in week out your going to be a tad out of luck, even the little boy with his grandparents will have to face that.
Or me, except I was a little harsher!
My first game was in 1968 v QPR. I was 8 years old. I went for a friends birthday. There were four or five of us. We stood down on the front fence. We went 2-0 down and just after half-time our keeper was carried off. One of the lads I was with said he felt ill and we left. For my first Addicks experience it wasn't too hot. We did get to watch Rodney Marsh demonstrate his trickery. I certainly didn't come away thinking "I am smitten for life". It was only later that I learned that we scored two in the last couple of minutes for an unlikely draw!
It was kind of exciting and when asked if I wanted to go again, I didn't hesitate.
What concerned me on Saturday sitting in the East, was not the poor defending, shocking though it was, or the end result. What concerned me most was the reaction of some of those around me and the negative affect that it had.
"F*cking w*nkers", "f*cking useless c*nts" . "Elliott f*ck off you f*cking useless tosser". "Typical f*cking Charlton, always f*ck it up" - you get the idea.
I am no shrinking violet and I realise that you will hear swearing at football matches. No we weren't sitting in a family enclosure but sitting in front and to the side of us were mums and dads with kids, some as young as three or four. For me it was embarrassing. I was more embarrassed by the crowd reaction than I was by the teams performance.
I accept that I'll probably get pelters for posting this but if we are serious about attracting a big crowd, and nobody I recall had anything negative to say about the desire we all have to attract in new or lapsed supporters, why then do some fans think it is acceptable to dish out all that bilious hostility, especially where there are lots of young kids about?
My money is on NSS!
That could have possibly been me too!
But it is always interesting to read a neutral perspective on the game. He doesn't seem to think we were that shabby overall, but that we undid ourselves due to schoolboy errors and poor judgement from Doherty and Elliott. Not a wildly inaccurate assessment, in my view...
Sorry to hear about Bing's bad experience in the East. Happy to report much good humour and patience in the lower West, even during the second-half comedy of errors between our back five...
Similar story in the upper west. Fairly quiet as usual save the odd 'Sort it Out' and the usual few trying to get some songs going but not vitriolic (sp?) abuse.
If seeing a team win regularly was the only reason to attend football, we'd all have given up on it years ago, or at least started watching one of the Sky 4. It was an entertaining game (at least in the second half) with 4 goals, lots of chances and some comedy moments.
I think a lot of the kids that went for the first time will have been encouraged to go again, I think most of us can probably say it pretty much been in our blood since we first went to a live match. The question is, how many of the lapsed supporters who hve drifted away as we've we've drifted down the leagues will have been encouraged to come back?
As we've made money over an above a usual match day, at the worst we've gained a few quid at best we've gained a few quid and gained a few supporters so it was a gamble well worth taking imo.
They are proper fans showing passion Bing rather than sitting there with their flasks and blankets.
Unless you get drunk, stand and obstruct the view of those around you and boo and abuse your own team you are not a "proper" fan.
You should know that by now Bing!
Difficult one that Bing, of course in the cold light of day, you are totally correct, but in the heat of the moment... I know I have lost it once or twice with the shower on the pitch, and I have to be honest and say if I felt I couldn't let off steam once in a while it would detract from my "enjoyment" of the game.
It didn't stop me going to more games (in fact i've missed less than a dozen home games since) and even if 90% never come back again unless its to make sure they get play-off tickets it has to be a good result for Charlton reguardless of the result on the pitch.
Any increase in attendance results in more cash for the club, its a simple formula but not one that most clubs seem to understand, even if people come in at reduced prices!
Surely we have to have more of these type of schemes, a half empty ground helps no one, the atmosphere, or the financial coffers of the club.
Even if only a fraction of fans come/return etc there is always the chance of selling merchandise/food etc.
The one issue I have is that young children need to be in the family enclose or an enlarged version of this. Then the more 'vocal supporters' can express themselves within reason!
I am rarely offended by bad language, but then I was born and grew up in Charlton!, but a torrent of foul mouthed abuse is just boring and frankly helps no one!
I think we have all felt tempted to 'let go' at some time or another over recent years, but we have discussed this before!, but I can appreciate people getting 'upset'.
Hopefully having kids at the match will bring a passionate, and supportive crowd in time, and that the great majority of fans will recognise that with kids present you do have to modify your behaviour!
I would rather the seat be occupied than the sterile atmosphere of ranked empty seats!, and if the club can use this as a marketing tool good luck to them!
A passonate, supportive Valley has to be a good thing for all of us surely!
As someone that first walked through the gates because a mate that lived up the road got a £5 offer through the door (around 16 years ago) to see a midweek game against Grimsby and has season ticket more or less since I can confirm that the £3 discount the club offered that day has paid off well.
True, you could be right about th einjuries. Think the Reid instead of Fry was doable and would have been a smart call but maybe too much of a risk with Francis out and an inexperienced right back. I'd like to see this tried sooner rather than later though - we know Bessone is out for a few weeks - we know Fry isn't a left back so why not play a player who inst a left back either who might be able to give us more going forwards. With Francis back, we have 3 tall defenders who can revert to a 3 when required.
Hey I'm no angel. This though was loud and continuous and done for maximum affect. We have done this issue to death over the years so I'm not going to bang on about, suffice to say that this wasn't just passion of the moment stuff.