A little early for this? Perhaps. Or not.
Let's all look at this situation and be honest with ourselves, our away attendance outside of London is very poor. We've taken 1,500 to Bournemouth which is the first game of the season, and 1,700 away to Watford which isn't too far away (though still should have sold out), but then less than 400 to Barnsley and 159 in the cup away to Huddersfield (allbeit a Tuesday night).
It's 4 and a half months from writing this post that we play travel to the DW stadium in February 2014. More than enough time to take time off work, book cheap travel or even organise car shares to save money on getting there and back.
If for example, we managed to take say a minimum of 1,500 fans up to this game, then we know our support is there. No excuses for the future only taking 200 fans away to Bolton like we did last season (of which I myself attended). Not to mention that it would provide good finance for our club taking that many up there, which of course we can't complain about.
Some fans have said to me, "Have you seen Wigan?" "Why would you want to go there?"... This is exactly the small minded mentality of some of our fans that give us the name of 'trainspotters', 'bovril drinkers', etc. Surely if you support your club, it doesn't matter where you go to follow them and cheer them on.
Expect to see a big push over the next few months in an attempt to get an extraordinary amount of Charlton aways fans compared to normal out of London.
The question is, why not? There should be very little excuses.
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I'll say it to you as well. Have you been to Wigan? I have, twice. Its a total hole and the ground is a souless dump.
Our away support is what it is. My days of having an away season ticket are over. I'll pick and choose a few games as and when I see fit, not because someone decides our supporters are all Bovril Drinkers and trainspotters.
If you go, I 'm sure you and the other 499 that make the trip will have a lovely day out.
Other than that, good luck with this, have you thought about talking to the club ? Maybe, if enough people are interested, they may help laying on coaches, etc.
[Edit: Yes, I have been to Wigan before].
And yes I will be in touch with Mick and Ben in short time.
Its a tribal thing i think, we just don't have as many fans who care as much as those of other clubs do.
what? that's not why certain fans call us trainspotters.
and Bovril drinkers is made up by us describing some of our own fans.
Taking 900 up to carlise for a possible promotion because it was a bit far shows how much most of the fans care.
Then there is a big fight over bournemouth tickets. Its who and where we play that matters to the majority of our fans not our team.
Frequent and only two hours from Euston, thinking ahead it should be £32 return on advance purchase, unless you have a railcard for a further discount.
£20-30 ticket
£20-40 train
£40 grub and beer minimum
some people just cant justify spending 80-130 twice a month plus most of our away fans are season ticket holders so when you factor that into it, its a lot of money following us home and away and i think the coaches are a good suggestion i personally wouldnt use them because i prefer to have a beer and do my own thing but if people would use and it would increase our away support im all for it, for those that want it.
that is 3 bastard away games ha
If like me you are married with young kids, you would appreciate how difficult it is to attend regular away football. Be it the impact of the cost, or the impact of further time away from home, or the sheer selfishness of it. It's just not viable in the majority of cases.
There are very few on here that are regular home and away travellers. There are however, many on here that have been regular home and away travellers at some stage in their lives. People's situations change and so do their priorities.
Our away support is largely what it is as the vast majority of our support base are home only , or away pick n choosers, for various reasons. Things that would change that are a higher greater number of late teens/early 20s coming through the ranks, a season with a number of closer games than the norf-based leagues we've had in recent years, and a successful season to tempt those pick n choosers to be that bit more regular.
But it is not something that will change overnight, or in the next 12 months, it will only change over a long period as rarely over time to people's attending habits increase rather than decrease.