Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
as usual AB more innuendo, from whom did you hear the other side and what was it? doubt you'll tell us, you usually don't.
It's not innuendo. We've gone over the events of last March numerous times and I don't see any point in doing so again. There are numerous people who have been told first hand by the then management that RD was interfering in team selection, quite apart from what Alex Dyer has gone on the record saying. If others want to believe that Richard Murray hands down the truth on tablets of stone then that's their choice. My experience of working with him over 20 years tells me otherwise.
as usual AB more innuendo, from whom did you hear the other side and what was it? doubt you'll tell us, you usually don't.
It's not innuendo. We've gone over the events of last March numerous times and I don't see any point in doing so again. There are numerous people who have been told first hand by the then management that RD was interfering in team selection, quite apart from what Alex Dyer has gone on the record saying. If others want to believe that Richard Murray hands down the truth on tablets of stone then that's their choice. My experience of working with him over 20 years tells me otherwise.
He probably thinks the same about you, about time u got that massive chip off your shoulder and moved on.
Having gone to the Belgium weekend, I'm feeling great about he coming season! the improvement from then has been brilliant! Meeting KM and RD Showed me that they love being involved in Charlton and only want the best for us.
Then Rolland saw the guy with the two playing cards, one was the 8 of clubs with each club he owns and the other playing card was the ace of clubs as Charlton! he was laughing his head off and got his photo taken with us!
He said that he was surprised how passionate the Charlton fans were in comparison to Belgian fans.
As they say some are just scared of change! these will be the same ones paying thousands of pounds for a season ticket when we are in the prem and winning the champions league lol.
I'm a newish Charlton fan, so i have only saw shit at the valley to be honest, since this lot came in I'm seeing what happened to my team "Dundee United" a remarkable turn around and a club to be proud of for their youth players.
The same I'm sure will happen to Charlton.
Will miss the first few games, but cant wait to get back up there and start booking weekends away
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
Target 40k - how long ago was it that this committee powered our attendances to that level ?
My understanding was that they disbanded this group because for several years running, despite being in the Premier League they, completely failed to get more than 27,111 to a game.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that lasted as long as they did - that's not even three-quarters of the 'target' they were set.
Katrien's like Karen Brady but with bags more charm.
She is charming, but I think what is so winning about her is her genuine self-awareness and self-deprecation (at times), plus humour, sharpness and honesty.
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Target 40k - how long ago was it that this committee powered our attendances to that level ?
My understanding was that they disbanded this group because for several years running, despite being in the Premier League they, completely failed to get more than 27,111 to a game.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that lasted as long as they did - that's not even three-quarters of the 'target' they were set.
I see, it would be like a Target 2 Litre Committee trying to get 2 Litres into a 1 Litre bucket and then wondering why it didn't work out.
Target 40k - how long ago was it that this committee powered our attendances to that level ?
My understanding was that they disbanded this group because for several years running, despite being in the Premier League they, completely failed to get more than 27,111 to a game.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that lasted as long as they did - that's not even three-quarters of the 'target' they were set.
LOL but the serious answer is the one given by Richard Murray at the beginning of the video.
If the Club could build up the support through clever marketing and initiatives such as football for a fiver then the hope was that there would be a waiting list or a database of potential fans to fill the additional 13k seats that were planned and for which planning permission was given. Then perhaps the cost of building the new stands could be covered through ticket sales over a long period.
And if the football team was successful. T40K always knew that this was and always will be the most effective marketing tool and I think KM and RD realise this too which is all good.
40,000 capacity seems a long way off now (or maybe not, who knows) but at the time when we were selling out the Valley it was an very ambitious but realistic target. And "target same as last year" isn't very inspiring : - )
But I think most people who aren't trolling (not you Paul) realised that anyway.
Katrien's like Karen Brady but with bags more charm.
She is charming, but I think what is so winning about her is her genuine self-awareness and self-deprecation (at times), plus humour, sharpness and honesty.
Thanks for amplifying. Just to be clear, my reference to 'charm' wasn't a sexist one and, of course, it encompasses all the qualities you mention.
In just the same way that, say, Chris Powell has more charm than Alan Pardew (but then so does Malcolm Tucker for that matter!)
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
Another, if clearly not disinterested, point of view
Barry Nevill @Bazzanev 14h What a shame that Richard Murray continues to spout rubbish about Chris Powells dismissal at the Clubs open day!
In case you were wondering Barry Nevill is the agent to Alan Pardew, Simon Khan, Phil Parkinson, Kevin Keen, Teddy Sheringham, Charlie Sheringham, Dean Bowditch, Martin Allen and more importantly Chris Powell.
A football agent getting upset about someone spouting rubbish?
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
If you read previous comments, it has been explained that the people existed to prevent it happening in the first place, but the powers that be chose to either kick them out, or not use them. That was the error.
Just cant understand the KM worship on here. She gets lauded and is accepted more than RD when she is just relaying his ideas and it's his money after all.
She has, IMO, no insight or knowledge of football to any level above the average pub man. In fact it seems a lot less.
If that's who RD likes to work with then so be it, but all these plaudits are totally unjustified.
I'm not saying she has done anything dreadful just dont see how the praise has been earnt yet.
Peeters himself has said RD had a big input in player selection this Summer.
Chris Parkes has been working closely with her, he has watched 'em come and go for twenty five years, he is impressed with the lady. That'll do for me.
Until Chris Parkes wife puts it on Facebook I won't believe it.
I abandoned that particular crèche sometime ago. Is Sue still trying to bring a spark of sense to the "boys" on there?
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
I think fresh approaches, fresh ideas and different perspectives are all good and much needed.
I think the "institutionalised" remark is a bit insulting to people like Martin Simmons et al though. The other side of the coin is that you throw the baby out with the bath water, you lose the years of experience and knowledge and so make silly mistakes like Crossbars. Yes, you can learn from that mistake but better to have not done it in the first place.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Most businesses would kill for the type of feedback from customers that is freely available to Charlton and other clubs. That's why big businesses spend so much on nectar points etc and surveying users.
And it was KM saying that the Club had, despite laying off other people, saw it as important to have a Club Development Role again. The irony being that we had such a role and got rid of it under the last regime. So at least KM has seen how that was yet another error by the Bradshaw (gone) and Prothero (gone) leadership.
And before Colinsams and the other trolls pipe up no I don't want to be involved in any new Target 40k group although I'm happy to speak to whoever the new person is? And who is the new person? Isn't it one post you would want to publicise?
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
If you read previous comments, it has been explained that the people existed to prevent it happening in the first place, but the powers that be chose to either kick them out, or not use them. That was the error.
But these people, to my knowledge, have only ever worked at CAFC (football club wise). Fresh ideas from new employees (particularly with insights into how other club operate) can be a good thing, and sometimes a bit of a gamble required (without having some bloke(s) waiting for it to fail to give it the old 'I told you so')
All the old timers never got any decisions wrong with hindsight?
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
If you read previous comments, it has been explained that the people existed to prevent it happening in the first place, but the powers that be chose to either kick them out, or not use them. That was the error.
But these people, to my knowledge, have only ever worked at CAFC (football club wise). Fresh ideas from new employees (particularly with insights into how other club operate) can be a good thing, and sometimes a bit of a gamble required (without having some bloke(s) waiting for it to fail to give it the old 'I told you so')
All the old timers never got any decisions wrong with hindsight?
Again, you are running down people when you don't know what they did or what their attitude was. That was never the way T40k worked in my experience.
Ideas from other clubs are good, we can learn from others just as other clubs learnt from us (Canary Express at Norwich and Football for a fiver at Millwall) for example. But what works at Charlton might not work at Arsenal and vice versa for very good and predictable reasons.
Gamble's were taken and some worked and of course some didn't but they had been thought through and the other parts of the club asked for their views first.
Credit to the Club they rescinding the crossbars idea within 24 hours but it wasn't necessary in the first place.
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
I think fresh approaches, fresh ideas and different perspectives are all good and much needed.
I think the "institutionalised" remark is a bit insulting to people like Martin Simmons et al though. The other side of the coin is that you throw the baby out with the bath water, you lose the years of experience and knowledge and so make silly mistakes like Crossbars. Yes, you can learn from that mistake but better to have not done it in the first place.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Most businesses would kill for the type of feedback from customers that is freely available to Charlton and other clubs. That's why big businesses spend so much on nectar points etc and surveying users.
And it was KM saying that the Club had, despite laying off other people, saw it as important to have a Club Development Role again. The irony being that we had such a role and got rid of it under the last regime. So at least KM has seen how that was yet another error by the Bradshaw (gone) and Prothero (gone) leadership.
And before Colinsams and the other trolls pipe up no I don't want to be involved in any new Target 40k group although I'm happy to speak to whoever the new person is? And who is the new person? Isn't it one post you would want to publicise?
Not meant to be insulting at all, just saying that you can get stuck in your old ways, and not open to change and have the mentality that 'that is not the CAFC way'.
Just because another club does or doesn't do something it doesn't make it right, although just because we don't, doesn't make it wrong.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Of course, although not everyone appears open to new ideas, and for that reason I would go with the 'Live and learn' option over the 'round in circles' option
Agree with Blucher's take above. I detected a bit of bafflement in the responses on season tickets along the lines of "we've slashed the prices and still no bugger wants to come. Let's hope we play well. Err, that's it guv". A bit of a head scratcher and I suspect a bit of a gamble if we end up losing revenue from sales over a prolonged period. It will be difficult to increase prices much in future now that we have set the bar low in the event that we just bumble along in the lower reaches of the league (or worse!). Fingers crossed we avoid that.
What a shame there isn't a group of people who have spent 20 years analysing these issues at Charlton and might be able to offer some advice.
If they'd behaved themselves / carried out jobs that needed doing then some of them might still be there
I'm sure various members of the Target 40k committee would be intrigued to know how they fit that explanation - what do you know about Steve Clarke, Craig Norris, Ben Hayes, Wendy Perfect, Sue Townsend, Mick Gebbett etc that no one else does?
I read, somewhere, that Ben Hayes posts on here from time to time!
That's a myth
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
Good point re David White and Martin Simons - and in its Target 10k incarnation in the 1990s, Richard Murray was of course very much part of it. It wasn't RM's idea, but he certainly embraced it and made it happen. The problem now is that you have decisions being made by people who have no experience of the club, however well intentioned. Hence the Crossbars fiasco.
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
People are making decisions in good faith to try and push the club forward.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
I think fresh approaches, fresh ideas and different perspectives are all good and much needed.
I think the "institutionalised" remark is a bit insulting to people like Martin Simmons et al though. The other side of the coin is that you throw the baby out with the bath water, you lose the years of experience and knowledge and so make silly mistakes like Crossbars. Yes, you can learn from that mistake but better to have not done it in the first place.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Most businesses would kill for the type of feedback from customers that is freely available to Charlton and other clubs. That's why big businesses spend so much on nectar points etc and surveying users.
And it was KM saying that the Club had, despite laying off other people, saw it as important to have a Club Development Role again. The irony being that we had such a role and got rid of it under the last regime. So at least KM has seen how that was yet another error by the Bradshaw (gone) and Prothero (gone) leadership.
And before Colinsams and the other trolls pipe up no I don't want to be involved in any new Target 40k group although I'm happy to speak to whoever the new person is? And who is the new person? Isn't it one post you would want to publicise?
Not meant to be insulting at all, just saying that you can get stuck in your old ways, and not open to change and have the mentality that 'that is not the CAFC way'.
Just because another club does or doesn't do something it doesn't make it right, although just because we don't, doesn't make it wrong.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Of course, although not everyone appears open to new ideas, and for that reason I would go with the 'Live and learn' option over the 'round in circles' option
I prefer the third option, which is a combination of both (taking your "round in circles" to be a euphemism for hands on experience of the situation).
The crossbars "experiment" was based on a formula that is used at Arsenal FC Of course looking at ideas from other clubs is a good idea, as is introducing new people into any organisation including CAFC. However when the club has lost vast experience in a relatively short space of time, it is bound to be reflected in the mistakes it makes ie not everything that works at the emirates will work at the valley - it is just a shame there is no one left to prevent these mistakes before they happen. As someone pointed out earlier"babies and bath water" comes to mind.......
I entirely agree that experience has been lost, which is a shame, but I also believe that its a great opportunity to take it forward.
It annoys me that when the club gets something wrong currently, there is very much an 'I told you so' or 'I wouldn't have done it that way' feel about this place....
I cannot wait until a new, exciting (and successful) initiative is put in to place, as I will be interested to hear the responses then.... 'I would have thought of that', 'I told them to do it years ago', ' Anyone could have attracted that extra revenue now that we have a pitch to be proud of, and a manager who likes to play football, and a couple of attacking players that can now score'
Comments
Then Rolland saw the guy with the two playing cards, one was the 8 of clubs with each club he owns and the other playing card was the ace of clubs as Charlton! he was laughing his head off and got his photo taken with us!
He said that he was surprised how passionate the Charlton fans were in comparison to Belgian fans.
As they say some are just scared of change! these will be the same ones paying thousands of pounds for a season ticket when we are in the prem and winning the champions league lol.
I'm a newish Charlton fan, so i have only saw shit at the valley to be honest, since this lot came in I'm seeing what happened to my team "Dundee United" a remarkable turn around and a club to be proud of for their youth players.
The same I'm sure will happen to Charlton.
Will miss the first few games, but cant wait to get back up there and start booking weekends away
COYR
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that lasted as long as they did - that's not even three-quarters of the 'target' they were set.
However there are a few other names such as David White and Martin Simmons who should be on the list of people who made a valuable contribution to the Target 40k group. No doubt some will find a way to slag them off too. Hayes only came onto the group late on.
But a lot of the innovative and successful development strategies of the past few years, football for a five being the most high profile, were debated and knocked into shape at T40k.
The beauty of T40k was that is was a focus group, not a committee. The people on it were or had been directors of the club so understood the numbers and the business imperatives as well as being fans who were in touch with other fans so that ideas could be discussed and their robustness tested. The Crossbars debacle wouldn't have happened as the obvious flaws would have been spotted at once by people who actually bought season tickets rather than just wanted to fill a lounge.
The new pricing might well have come in but there would have been a debate and there would have been alternatives with different costings. The idea that cutting prices would generate more sales would have been challenged, the data from previous season of ST sales, match day sales, etc would have been available and analysed.
Of course many will see that as tedious and boring back room stuff that can be dismissed with a "witty" one line put down on the internet (see above posts) but it worked and it didn't cost the club more than a plate of sarnies and pots of tea and coffee. Sweating the asset really well.
Hopefully the new Club Development Officer will take the best bits of T40k, talk to some or all of those involved (and others) and build on it. Or they could work in isolation and not learn from the successes and mistakes of the past.
If the Club could build up the support through clever marketing and initiatives such as football for a fiver then the hope was that there would be a waiting list or a database of potential fans to fill the additional 13k seats that were planned and for which planning permission was given. Then perhaps the cost of building the new stands could be covered through ticket sales over a long period.
And if the football team was successful. T40K always knew that this was and always will be the most effective marketing tool and I think KM and RD realise this too which is all good.
40,000 capacity seems a long way off now (or maybe not, who knows) but at the time when we were selling out the Valley it was an very ambitious but realistic target. And "target same as last year" isn't very inspiring : - )
But I think most people who aren't trolling (not you Paul) realised that anyway.
In just the same way that, say, Chris Powell has more charm than Alan Pardew (but then so does Malcolm Tucker for that matter!)
Apart from the usual rubbish about why people left, PL54's assumption that the club was doing the Target 40k participants a favour and that they should somehow be punished by not helping the club is quite instructive really. So the club cuts itself off from information about its own business in order to punish those who assisted it very successfully for years (in most cases as volunteers) . . . really?
This pleases me greatly.
OK, Crossbars may not have been a success with us, we've tried it, it hasn't worked, we move on . Best way to learn surely?
Perhaps a fresh approach, coming from people that haven't already become institutionalized at CAFC, will result in that one light-bulb moment.
I think the "institutionalised" remark is a bit insulting to people like Martin Simmons et al though. The other side of the coin is that you throw the baby out with the bath water, you lose the years of experience and knowledge and so make silly mistakes like Crossbars. Yes, you can learn from that mistake but better to have not done it in the first place.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Most businesses would kill for the type of feedback from customers that is freely available to Charlton and other clubs. That's why big businesses spend so much on nectar points etc and surveying users.
And it was KM saying that the Club had, despite laying off other people, saw it as important to have a Club Development Role again. The irony being that we had such a role and got rid of it under the last regime. So at least KM has seen how that was yet another error by the Bradshaw (gone) and Prothero (gone) leadership.
And before Colinsams and the other trolls pipe up no I don't want to be involved in any new Target 40k group although I'm happy to speak to whoever the new person is? And who is the new person? Isn't it one post you would want to publicise?
All the old timers never got any decisions wrong with hindsight?
Ideas from other clubs are good, we can learn from others just as other clubs learnt from us (Canary Express at Norwich and Football for a fiver at Millwall) for example. But what works at Charlton might not work at Arsenal and vice versa for very good and predictable reasons.
Gamble's were taken and some worked and of course some didn't but they had been thought through and the other parts of the club asked for their views first.
Credit to the Club they rescinding the crossbars idea within 24 hours but it wasn't necessary in the first place.
Not meant to be insulting at all, just saying that you can get stuck in your old ways, and not open to change and have the mentality that 'that is not the CAFC way'.
Just because another club does or doesn't do something it doesn't make it right, although just because we don't, doesn't make it wrong.
The ideal is to have both experience and new perspectives surely?
Of course, although not everyone appears open to new ideas, and for that reason I would go with the 'Live and learn' option over the 'round in circles' option
Of course looking at ideas from other clubs is a good idea, as is introducing new people into any organisation including CAFC. However when the club has lost vast experience in a relatively short space of time, it is bound to be reflected in the mistakes it makes ie not everything that works at the emirates will work at the valley - it is just a shame there is no one left to prevent these mistakes before they happen. As someone pointed out earlier"babies and bath water" comes to mind.......
It annoys me that when the club gets something wrong currently, there is very much an 'I told you so' or 'I wouldn't have done it that way' feel about this place....
I cannot wait until a new, exciting (and successful) initiative is put in to place, as I will be interested to hear the responses then.... 'I would have thought of that', 'I told them to do it years ago', ' Anyone could have attracted that extra revenue now that we have a pitch to be proud of, and a manager who likes to play football, and a couple of attacking players that can now score'
I will not be holding my breath for a 'well done'