192!

[Mo]

ONE HUNDRED & NINTEY TWO!

I’m so disappointed.

So many people at the club obviously did a lot of hard work trying to promote the club with the £3 October offer and we get the second lowest ZPL crowd of the day.

Of the 30 flyers I handed out at work no one turned up.

According the Zamaretto website there are now only 4 clubs in the Premier division that average lower crowds than us.

To add insult to injury there are now 9 clubs from the two divisions below that are getting better crowds than us.

Are the people of Oxford just not interested?

Are United too big a draw?

What do we have to do?

[lomax]

It was disappointing as I know that Sharon and co spend many evenings handing out flyers.

What I think..... People just aren't bothered about non-league football. Until I came to OCFC I couldn't have given a rats arse about non-league football, and I think in the current Sky media dominated world that people feel the same way. It will take City another cup run, or a winning streak to get more people through the gate. Ultimately, promotion is the only way to keep the gate attendances up.

Also, United got almost 8,000 at the game on Saturday. We live in a little OCFC bubble, where you hand out a flyer and think that the people will be sold by the "magic of non-league". But look at it from an outside perspective, as a football fan in Oxford, would you really choose to go to CPF with 300 people over going to watch a strong historic Oxford United side that's getting 7k+. If I hadn't pinned my flag to City when I moved to Oxford then I'm sure as hell I'd be up at the Kassam when West Ham weren't playing.

Not only that, but City are wank at the moment. You only have to read Friday's Oxford Mail to see that we can't hit a barn door. If half of my lot (the ones that went crazy for it last season) can't be bothered, then what chance have we got of persuaded Joe public?

What's most worrying, not that we can't get new people to come, but what about the people that came last season? We were pushing crowds of 250 most weeks. Where have they gone? Where's everyone that came to Burton? Or those that were there for the big Bury Town game? The fact that people have stopped coming is a lot more worrying than the struggling to get new faces in.

Please discuss.

[onlooker]

You never said a truer word about the Oxford people , but the one thing everybody forgets the club is a club for the community, we must run about getting on for about thirty teams of all ages both boys and girls would it not be a good idea to try and get these to come and support the senior team with there parents .Surly this is where it should start ,if you only had two or three from each team and a paying parent the gates would double and just think how much would be spent at the tea hut

[lomax]

Encouraging people that are already connected to the club to turn out is a great idea. It makes absolute sense.

[jet]

Oct 13, 2010 11:37:44 GMT @onlooker said:

You never said a truer word about the Oxford people , but the one thing everybody forgets the club is a club for the community, we must run about getting on for about thirty teams of all ages both boys and girls would it not be a good idea to try and get these to come and support the senior team with there parents .Surly this is where it should start ,if you only had two or three from each team and a paying parent the gates would double and just think how much would be spent at the tea hut

I had this thought after Saturday and have been mulling it over.

As you say we have a large amount of youth boys and girls teams.
My suggestions would be to:

When a youth (any age) player signs on, they get family membership to join Oxford City members club. (Might need a slight increase in fee).
As a member of the club they get discounts on the entrance fee and mechendise.
They also get a newsletter on a regular basis (electronic to save printing costs). etc. etc.

Also how many youth managers promote the 1st team (ladies and Men) games to their players?

Can't we get the players on a charm offensive with the youngsters to encourage them to come along?

I'd like to see more interaction with the first teams at youth level , after all we have a club (or should have) with a pyrimid structure to feed the senior teams.

[hedges]

I was also highly dissappointed with the turn out on Saturday all things concidered....Can't even blame the weather.

I also have been thinking about the issues of our youth/reserve/other teams, I mean when I turn up at CPF there is normally several teams, presumably connected with City playing outside, some fo the youth teams,girls team possibly, why don't any of them stay.....kids can't put-up with abit of mud or something for 90mins these days?

United playing at home didn't help, we should have checked this before hand, caught them on an away day and the crowd would have been much bigger, in my opinion.

On the note about non-league football. when I see City, I don't go there expecting to see top class football, if I wanted to see that id go to United or beyond...but what I do get is a different type of entertainment.

The fact I can grab a beer at any point before/during/after the game. I can watch the game from any angle and behind any goal. The fact you are within feet of the action, can hear the crunching tackles, the effing and blinding amougst the players and can have some good light hearted banter with the opposition keeper....you would get only a small amount of this at a league club, but you would instead get a more noisy atmosphere a good song or two going involving hundreds of people etc etc....I think too many people disregard non-league as school boy stuff becuase the football on show on the face of it isn't concidered to be 'good'...but there are other more subtle aspects which I think make it better than league football in many ways and until a wider audience starts realising or experiencing this this theres very few clubs at our level who would pull a sizeable crowd regularly.

At least at this level I can get out the car park nice and easily after watching City fall to a another 2-0 defeat .

[lomax]

Oct 13, 2010 18:39:37 GMT hedges said:

United playing at home didn't help, we should have checked this before hand, caught them on an away day and the crowd would have been much bigger, in my opinion.

I think you're right Hedges, but we had over two weeks without a home game to organise this. It takes time to get a design, get it printed and distributed. I've not had a look at the fixtures for a while, but it's not often that you have that amount of time to plan for something like this. Yes, it was annoying that United were playing at home too. I think the gate probably would have been around 400 if they were away.

What you're forgetting is Sharon focused her attention of distribution on the local areas around the ground. If these people can't even be bothered to turn up then what hope is there? I think it is just a case of being a struggling non-league side, there's no glamour!

Oct 13, 2010 18:39:37 GMT hedges said:

On the note about non-league football. when I see City, I don't go there expecting to see top class football, if I wanted to see that id go to United or beyond...but what I do get is a different type of entertainment.

The fact I can grab a beer at any point before/during/after the game. I can watch the game from any angle and behind any goal. The fact you are within feet of the action, can hear the crunching tackles, the effing and blinding amougst the players and can have some good light hearted banter with the opposition keeper....you would get only a small amount of this at a league club, but you would instead get a more noisy atmosphere a good song or two going involving hundreds of people etc etc....I think too many people disregard non-league as school boy stuff becuase the football on show on the face of it isn't concidered to be 'good'...but there are other more subtle aspects which I think make it better than league football in many ways and until a wider audience starts realising or experiencing this this theres very few clubs at our level who would pull a sizeable crowd regularly.

Hedges, I know you love non-league football and your passion is commendable, but when I speak to people that support Premier League teams (even Oxford United fans), I can see them dosing off or writing us off as an amateur team. Most football fans in Oxford couldn't care less about City or non-league football. It's only when you let yourself get into it and be a part of it (like me, you, Malone and Traff, Mark and the Parries too) when you realise how much fun it is.

I mean, I've done all I can since moving into Oxford and adopting City. Last season we had great numbers of our mates coming to most home matches, this season yes the numbers are dwindling, but it'll pick up when City start winning. I wish more groups of people would come down. All it takes it to persuade a handful of your mates, take them to a few games and they'll be hooked. It's a pity that CPF seems to be blokes by themselves. If everyone brings one mate with them you've doubled the attendance.