Let's Get Fans Back!

[Stitch_KTF]

Star players/promotion push – what were we doing last season? With a “normal” level of injuries we’d have made play-offs at least. Lees and Hughes can become the star strikers of this division next season, with the chance of Alessandra/Smalley really capturing the local imagination as home grown goal machines. With a couple of good signings we could be an exciting high scoring team next year.

 

When the 1K drop in average attendance was pointed out I wondered what effect Hughes may have had on it??

 

A lot of maad arses were saying they wouldnt watch us while he is here....

[OldhamSheridan]

going off on a tangent .....the queues for stuff is a common problem at football grounds. Anyone who has been to a few games at the so called super new Wembley will know what it's like getting a beer there.

The worst I've ever seen was at Old Trafford (for the RL Grand Final I hasten to add).

I was at Schalke a couple of months ago and saw the future - the only accepted currency in the stadium is a Knappenkarte - they sell these cards at booths around the stadium, you put money onto them. You then go to the beer stall and they have one person pouring the drinks, another to hand them out and you slot your card into a machine and the credit is removed. It's actually possible to stroll out at the halftime whistle, get a beer, get a hotdog or whatever, drink your beer, eat your sausage and get back to your seat in time for the kick off in a place with 61000 people in it.

 

The only problem with the cards in Germany (my one with this was at Cologne) is that they don't accept currency and therefore miss out on food and other items for your casual fan/visitor. One thing that does stand out in Germany is how much better their atmosphere is than anywhere* in this Country, and how much better an experience the game is because of it. The difference? Small (okay some are quite large in the home end) standing sections and a man at the front with a megaphone.

 

*Not all. Out of the games I went to this seasons venture Dortmund, Unterhaching (division 3), Koln (division 2), Nurnberg were all better than any recent experiences in any English ground, Munich 1860 was worse, but that was because it is 20,000 in a 70,000 ground that is all seater (they all stand up though).

[bigfatjoe1]

Some good ideas.

 

Free kids – absolutely. Let’s help blokes find a way to get out of the house on Saturday and gain brownie points for doing stuff with the kids without costing them money. I think 16 year olds can start to pay something, and 21 years olds can pay full price FFS, but we need to get them addicted before they realise we are crap. If it brings more families through the door free kids will pay for itself.

 

Advertising – yes please. It doesn’t need to be huge, just something to jog the memory of punters once in a while.

 

More beer/betting/food – will come as and when new stands are built. As BT says, the current facilities can hardly sort out those of us there at the moment. Sadly it will probably get worse before it gets better. Love that idea of walking beer stalls though. I ended up in the RRE for one of those £2 games (Northampton I think) due to a ticket office malfunction, I went to get beers about 5 minutes before half time and gave up 5 minutes before kick off. There were more people in the queue ahead of me by the time I left than when I started. There will be loads of boozers in that end next season, sort it out!

 

Buses from strange outlying places – interesting. If there were a lot of people who might take it up it would be great, I wonder though if it wouldn’t just make it easier for existing fans who go anyway? Maybe a few pubs would sponsor the club to be made designated pick up and drop off points, it would get them a few pints sold on the day. Any chance of one from Balham?

 

Star players/promotion push – what were we doing last season? With a “normal” level of injuries we’d have made play-offs at least. Lees and Hughes can become the star strikers of this division next season, with the chance of Alessandra/Smalley really capturing the local imagination as home grown goal machines. With a couple of good signings we could be an exciting high scoring team next year.

 

 

I don't want free kids - I've enough of my own!!

[flytrap]

What are the chances of the TTA or Hardy seeing this thread?

might be an idea to post it onto them, i think oafckev came up with some great ideas.

[Inspiral_Carpet]

What are the chances of the TTA or Hardy seeing this thread?

 

A couple of those mentioned were reading this - and the other "TTA Disappointed" thread - yesterday.

 

I'm sure that if we as a group of fans were to form ourselves into some sort of Action Group looking at ways of increasing attendances, then the Club would welcome that. There are some great ideas here and of course, we have shown in the past that Fan Power can be very influential in the Town.

 

Here's an offer. If someone local to Oldham is prepared to spearhead the Group, then I will broach the subject with Alan Hardy and see if we can get something formal off the ground.

 

Whoever takes it on would have to be serious about it and be a good influential leader prepared to put in singnificant time and effort for the benefit of the Club. The rewards would hopefully to see more fans at Boundary Park. I will help out however I can with ideas and contacts etc but my location makes things a little difficult to get personally involved in meetings etc.

 

So come on folks, who wants to lead the OWTB/ OAFC Fan's Action Group? I'm sure I can come up with something better than OO - FAG in due course.

[BP1960]

65+ Full price + £30 for being a God bothering drain on society and there's no poor pensioners, etc.

 

I am now since Gordon took the 10p income tax rate way.

Make it cheaper for us and we could all grab a granny and bring her along.

[help_shiny]

The only problem with the cards in Germany (my one with this was at Cologne) is that they don't accept currency and therefore miss out on food and other items for your casual fan/visitor. One thing that does stand out in Germany is how much better their atmosphere is than anywhere* in this Country, and how much better an experience the game is because of it. The difference? Small (okay some are quite large in the home end) standing sections and a man at the front with a megaphone.

 

*Not all. Out of the games I went to this seasons venture Dortmund, Unterhaching (division 3), Koln (division 2), Nurnberg were all better than any recent experiences in any English ground, Munich 1860 was worse, but that was because it is 20,000 in a 70,000 ground that is all seater (they all stand up though).

 

 

I was thinking that it probably worked out well for Schalke having the cards because casual visitors buy a card, stick some money on it and end up not spending every last Euro. I know we did. Yes, agree with the atmosphere - the one at Schalke was great, even though the match wasnt up to much we all loved the experience. I think the Germans have got the perfect mix of the English & Italian styles of support (the good parts that is!). If all goes well I'm back off out there later this year - Dortmund or Frankfurt , probably Dortmund. My brother was at 1860 last year and he also said it seemed very flat.

[carrabanana]

When John Sheridan took over as manager, did we do anything major to promote it? I mean when Sven took over at City, they had like a million signs everywhere saying "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back" and I must say it got me quite interested.

Going off the more advertising idea, I think it'd be cool to see some sort of tag line for the upcoming season that'd sound as intriguing and make a non-fan think 'I wanna be a part of that'

[help_shiny]

When John Sheridan took over as manager, did we do anything major to promote it? I mean when Sven took over at City, they had like a million signs everywhere saying "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back" and I must say it got me quite interested.

Going off the more advertising idea, I think it'd be cool to see some sort of tag line for the upcoming season that'd sound as intriguing and make a non-fan think 'I wanna be a part of that'

 

 

I think the motto/tag line idea is a good one. I was thinking earlier about Keighley RL - does anyone remember their 'Cougarmania'? Club bods - you could do worse than check how Keighley got everyone going - the whole place was mad for the club for a few years until (I think, some true RL fan might be able to put me right) Super League said they couldnt come in.

[carrabanana]

Oooooh idea time.

K bear with me on this one. I have a Reebok poster of Shevchenko in my room and the whole point of it is that Shevchenko is/was a brilliant striker, he wears Reebok, therefore you should buy Reebok to be like him.

And I was thinking, well, what is it about Oldham that'd make us worth watching? There's loads of stuff but the first thing that popped into my head was Neal Eardley. He's a Welsh international and he scores absolute screamers. So I was thinking about some sort of dramatic image of Neal Eardley scoring a screamer with a tagline of summat like "Neal Eardley - Welsh Wonder". You could have them for loads of players and plaster them around Oldham like having "Mark Allott - Returning Hero" so it kinda spells out this is Oldham Athletic and this is what you're gonna get in the upcoming season, therefore, you should come watch us.

Catch my drift?

[Inspiral_Carpet]

Oooooh idea time.

K bear with me on this one. I have a Reebok poster of Shevchenko in my room and the whole point of it is that Shevchenko is/was a brilliant striker, he wears Reebok, therefore you should buy Reebok to be like him.

And I was thinking, well, what is it about Oldham that'd make us worth watching? There's loads of stuff but the first thing that popped into my head was Neal Eardley. He's a Welsh international and he scores absolute screamers. So I was thinking about some sort of dramatic image of Neal Eardley scoring a screamer with a tagline of summat like "Neal Eardley - Welsh Wonder". You could have them for loads of players and plaster them around Oldham like having "Mark Allott - Returning Hero" so it kinda spells out this is Oldham Athletic and this is what you're gonna get in the upcoming season, therefore, you should come watch us.

Catch my drift?

 

Some good ideas there. I really like what could be a great campaign if it is followed up.

 

On a slighly less serious note, we could have a special "Sean Gregan" range of posters for Oldham's multitude of Chippies.

[oafckev]

A couple of those mentioned were reading this - and the other "TTA Disappointed" thread - yesterday.

 

I'm sure that if we as a group of fans were to form ourselves into some sort of Action Group looking at ways of increasing attendances, then the Club would welcome that. There are some great ideas here and of course, we have shown in the past that Fan Power can be very influential in the Town.

 

Here's an offer. If someone local to Oldham is prepared to spearhead the Group, then I will broach the subject with Alan Hardy and see if we can get something formal off the ground.

 

Whoever takes it on would have to be serious about it and be a good influential leader prepared to put in singnificant time and effort for the benefit of the Club. The rewards would hopefully to see more fans at Boundary Park. I will help out however I can with ideas and contacts etc but my location makes things a little difficult to get personally involved in meetings etc.

 

So come on folks, who wants to lead the OWTB/ OAFC Fan's Action Group? I'm sure I can come up with something better than OO - FAG in due course.

 

The thing is nowadays people don't have the time to do these things on a regular basis. The club should have someone who is paid to think of these idea's, socialise with fans and launch them into action. He/She should be in the centre of Oldham asking people why they have given up going to Latics or why they have never even bothered, you'd be suprised what answers you might get.

 

I know there's people reading this at the club, so if the comments on here, by Simon Corney and the drop in attendance isnt a wake up call for you to do something positive at the club then theres no hope at all. Fair enough you could say you've done X + Y campaign and they didn't work but look at the idea's on here, there manly free/simple things to try. Even if some of them fall flat on there arse at least you can say you give it a shot and move onto the next idea. The club needs a shake up (and the music selections!) big time and nows the time to start it.

Edited May 9, 2008 by oafckev

[real]

One of the big suggestions imo is advertising - billboard style. To me, some of the key areas would be Broadway M60 junction, Top of sheepfoot lane, A62 M60 junction, Ashton Road, Rochdale Rd Royton, Something in Miggy, something towards Moston (Rochdale Rd M60 jct?).

 

I'd suggest buying out the newsagent at the top of sheepfoot and turning that into a temp ticket office / shop - great position and a big advert on the side.

Get hold of the Subway shop on broadway M60 and put adverts on that (possibly rent off the shop to someone else)

Get a shop with hoarding on ashton rd / maybe oldham rd actually in ashton.

Buy shops with hoardings in any of the areas suggestd and then just rent out the shop, but offer them the chance to sell match tickets / STs and a bit of merchandise?

 

7 sites - could cost £1.5-£2m to get them all, but renting the shops back out could return enough to covre the cost.

[edhunteruk]

The thing is nowadays people don't have the time to do these things on a regular basis. The club should have someone who is paid to think of these idea's, socialise with fans and launch them into action. He/She should be in the centre of Oldham asking people why they have given up going to Latics or why they have never even bothered, you'd be suprised what answers you might get.

 

I know there's people reading this at the club, so if the comments on here, by Simon Corney and the drop in attendance isnt a wake up call for you to do something positive at the club then theres no hope at all. Fair enough you could say you've done X + Y campaign and they didn't work but look at the idea's on here, there manly free/simple things to try. Even if some of them fall flat on there arse at least you can say you give it a shot and move onto the next idea. The club needs a shake up (and the music selections!) big time and nows the time to start it.

some very good ideas,and hopefully someone will take a serious look on here and ask questions as to why an employee of the club cant come up with something,after all we do have or are supposed to have a marketing bloke.

 

the recent thing they did with local schools,full attendance and get a free ticket,good idea but could it be spread to other districts like middleton,ashton and so on.

 

i used to live in middleton and people from rochdale used to be out and about regular asking people to join the junior supporters club or there own lottery draws and so on.

 

advertising is definately a must,there is nothing in oldham to tell you when and who the next game is about,and like has been said also on the borders of local towns,i dont know how much it would cost to have one of those big billboard sized posters made,but instead of sponsoring a player owtb could have a series of posters made and put up.

[edhunteruk]

some very good ideas,and hopefully someone will take a serious look on here and ask questions as to why an employee of the club cant come up with something,after all we do have or are supposed to have a marketing bloke.

 

the recent thing they did with local schools,full attendance and get a free ticket,good idea but could it be spread to other districts like middleton,ashton and so on.

 

i used to live in middleton and people from rochdale used to be out and about regular asking people to join the junior supporters club or there own lottery draws and so on.

 

advertising is definately a must,there is nothing in oldham to tell you when and who the next game is about,and like has been said also on the borders of local towns,i dont know how much it would cost to have one of those big billboard sized posters made,but instead of sponsoring a player owtb could have a series of posters made and put up.

 

heres a link to a printing site that do something the club could be interested in

 

 

 

 

 

billboards

[BP1960]

I suggest a new club logo, I'm sure Oldham Council would agree to an investment of £100,000 for this purpose.

Edited May 9, 2008 by BP1960

[Macca_is_GOD2]

To Get fans back

 

Good qaulity football... next season lets see if that puts bums on seats.!!

[rosa]

On a slighly less serious note, we could have a special "Sean Gregan" range of posters for Oldham's multitude of Chippies.

You know if you wanted to scare the crap of the local chippies you could just have a picture of that chippy near Goodison on fire with the caption 'BARMY ARMY ON TOUR'....

 

i hope someone from the club's reading this (and paying the site admin a consultancy fee ). i don't live in oldham so correct me if i'm wrong but the public transport links to the ground don't seem to be great, so the idea about the coaches is a good one. Also it's not just down to the club, there's a lot more the local media could be doing. It's all very well Revolution having the club crest on their website and having match updates on a Saturday but their sports news all week focuses on city and united.

[opinions4u]

Some excellent and innovative ideas and I'm not going to be the one to pull them apart. Those in charge should look at the ideas, cost them, and deliver on any that will grow crowds.

 

The underlying concept for me is that the club needs to attracts more fans, keep them, and stay solvent.

 

The best way to achieve this is simple.

 

PLAY GOOD FOOTBALL.

 

Some of the stuff seen at BP last season was turgid and the idea of the causal fan returning game after game for that rubbish is a tad optimistic. I acutally think this will get better next season.

 

My football watching life stopped 11 years ago when my son was born. Time, money etc wasn't there. The £2/£1 offer in December 2006 got me back in the habit and now my son sits alongside me and loves the season tickets we hold. I'll probably renew before the end of May, but I am trying to assess my other life committments (work, elderly grandmother, son who really shouldn't go to night matches etc).

 

A ticket that pays for 10 games in the season for, say, £160, doesn't guarantee me a specific seat but does allow me in to the ground for the games I can attend would give me a flexibility that a season ticket doesn't.

 

If I want to attend more than 10 games, I pay £20 on the door (or buy another 10 game ticket if there's enough of a seaon left).

 

I do think there should be more of the £2/£1 type offer (e.g. £5 for any adult bringing a kid) but understand that this shouldn't disadvantage season ticket holders. But a 'pick your games 10 match season ticket' would be more lifestyle friendly for me - and I'd pay more per game than a full season ticket to get one.

[Lookers_Carl]

Some wicked ideas on here for sure, especially re the advertising in my opinion.

 

However...

 

Re the good football argument, we played good football for large proportions of the playoff season, and although the average attendance was higher that year, an average attendance of 6334 when playing good football is hardly encouraging (and some of that was largely down to bumper away followings from lashers, blackpool, wolves, forest, bristol city).

 

Re the cheap tickets argument. The club is in a no win situation with this. Now lets be honest, even if we did sell season tickets for £130 quid adults £65 kids, we would be lucky to reach the 5000 mark. The club could cut season ticket prices quite easilly, but what some fans dont seem to understand is we slice the season ticket prices in half, John Sheridans wage budget is sliced in half too.

 

Re the marketing side. Spot on. The club does not do enough to market itself and raise peoples awareness of it. Fair enough we are essentially competing with the likes of city and united but how often do you see a full page ad for the next man city game, and not a thing re latics.

[Corporal_Jones]

Some wicked ideas on here for sure, especially re the advertising in my opinion.

 

However...

 

Re the good football argument, we played good football for large proportions of the playoff season, and although the average attendance was higher that year, an average attendance of 6334 when playing good football is hardly encouraging (and some of that was largely down to bumper away followings from lashers, blackpool, wolves, forest, bristol city).

 

Re the cheap tickets argument. The club is in a no win situation with this. Now lets be honest, even if we did sell season tickets for £130 quid adults £65 kids, we would be lucky to reach the 5000 mark. The club could cut season ticket prices quite easilly, but what some fans dont seem to understand is we slice the season ticket prices in half, John Sheridans wage budget is sliced in half too.

 

Re the marketing side. Spot on. The club does not do enough to market itself and raise peoples awareness of it. Fair enough we are essentially competing with the likes of city and united but how often do you see a full page ad for the next man city game, and not a thing re latics.

 

 

 

As noted in another thread, though, the reason for the relatively poor average in the last play-off season is the poor start made and the fading out after February. The excellent period in between did see a steady trickle back to BP, but these were likely to have been mostly former diehards previously disillusioned by constant alternation between directionless non-ambition and crisis. I suspect that most of these drifted away again as a result of the squandering of what may have been our only real chance to get out of this division, or the erratic form of the campaign just ended. The fairly dramatic drop in recent months to home gates of less than during the no-hope Ritchie years is an indication that even many diehards have stopped believing that we can have a relatively successful club in this town in the current money-is-all football climate.

 

As people have said, there are some excellent ideas on here, and the club needs to act to convince the people of the town that the club has genuine ambition.

[rudemedic]

Cheap tickets (but not as cheap as season tickets) for say 10 or 12 games (half the season at home) is a great idea and I'd be very interested in that given that I will probably attend 10 games next season but won't make enough for a season ticket to be worthwhile. (I didn't this year and next year i'll be busier). Coaches/minibuses from certain local areas is another good idea (as public transport from the likes of Heywood and Bury is a nightmare to Oldham). One thing that seems to be a consenus is to advertise more outside the Oldham metropolian district and this is something I've been harping on about for ages as getting the Chron is a pain in the proverbial outside of Oldham but this seems to be the only paper ever used to promote Latics. Adverts in key areas would be a good idea, (and I'd like to add Birch services to that as this would be more read by people who don't know about Oldham- adverts in th same area will have a reduced effect over time unless the football improves) but what about using the metro or the evening news as they are always full of ads for city or united. It might also be a good idea to do any schools promotions in the schools within a certain distance of Boundary Park not just those in Oldham as I'm sure you might get some extra fans from those schools technically part of Rochdale or Tameside.

 

When i was in the States and Canada a couple of years ago i went to a few sporting events and they had some ideas. At one Baseball and one Canadian football game they allowed the fans to come on to pitch (in a much more organised manner than our last pitch invasion) and let them meet the players and cheerleaders and get autographs for free. You could quite easily do this with Latics and even charge a bit (possibly adding players significant others as well- I'm sure quite a few of us would have paid extra to meet one M. Marsh) and with some adverts get more people into the ground. Getting some new dancers might be a good idea as I'm sorry and no disrespect to the Blues Crew but a bunch of pre-pubertal girls dancing around a bit is not likely to make me want to stay and watch I'd be much happier in the lounge (even if I don't get served). The Chicago bears also got me to spend my money to watch a training session before the pre-season friendlies started (along with about 20,00 others) and during this 2 hour long practice people spent money elsewhere where i'm sure the Bears got a cut. This might only be doable for clubs a lot bigger than ours and it would be hard to stop scouts from coming in and gaining any extra info but it could be worth a go.

 

How about an over 21 area where you can drink beer (not saying stop serving elsewhere), sing slightly ruder songs and if possible have a lounge with certain added entertainment. This may mean that those people who get an intermediate ticket because they can (but could still afford to pay for a full season ticket) won't be allowed in (as their ticket clearly states they are under 21- would also stop people paying for concessions despite not being eligible).

 

I did mention this elsewhere but you are not going to get City and United 'fans' going to watch Oldham if City and United are availible live on a TV somewhere (this is why no legal live TV games ever kick-off to clash with the 3pm kick-offs on a saturday) and it wouldn't take to much to stop this. Friday night games might do this but how many people on here are exiles and would find it difficult to get to a game kicking off at 7.45 on a friday compared to 3pm on a Saturday (although getting extra fans would be good for the club it would be a shame to do it at the expense of some of Oldham's die-hards).

 

Another thing I did mention elsewhere was to sign someone who might help us sell shirts in another country or area and get the name of Oldham Athletic known a bit more outside of the north-west of England. A lot of countries have players good enough to play for Oldham playing in inferior leagues around the world. For example having seen Malawi play- and they are probably ranked below 100 in the world rankings- they had a couple of players playing in South African league football who could have easily played for Oldham (especially as squad players). Due to our colonialism some players may even be eligible to enter the country (which might be the biggest hurdle) as they have relatives who are British nationals.

[The Chaplain]

Oooooh idea time.

K bear with me on this one. I have a Reebok poster of Shevchenko in my room and the whole point of it is that Shevchenko is/was a brilliant striker, he wears Reebok, therefore you should buy Reebok to be like him.

And I was thinking, well, what is it about Oldham that'd make us worth watching? There's loads of stuff but the first thing that popped into my head was Neal Eardley. He's a Welsh international and he scores absolute screamers. So I was thinking about some sort of dramatic image of Neal Eardley scoring a screamer with a tagline of summat like "Neal Eardley - Welsh Wonder". You could have them for loads of players and plaster them around Oldham like having "Mark Allott - Returning Hero" so it kinda spells out this is Oldham Athletic and this is what you're gonna get in the upcoming season, therefore, you should come watch us.

Catch my drift?

 

This is a brilliant idea. One of the best of a very good bunch I reckon.

 

One player in close up in action on a massive billboard - just one for a month, then another one, and so on. Recent shots too. So, if we had been doing it this season the week after Goodison we would have had a large pic of Gary Mac kicking for gaol with the simple caption: Everton - 0 , Latics - 1 and the date.

 

And perhaps we could have Tommy Wright's dramatic dive from the Fans match at Christmas too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[edhunteruk]

This is a brilliant idea. One of the best of a very good bunch I reckon.

 

One player in close up in action on a massive billboard - just one for a month, then another one, and so on. Recent shots too. So, if we had been doing it this season the week after Goodison we would have had a large pic of Gary Mac kicking for gaol with the simple caption: Everton - 0 , Latics - 1 and the date.

 

And perhaps we could have Tommy Wright's dramatic dive from the Fans match at Christmas too!

 

 

if the revalution cant be arsed plugging a local team....then why not set up radio latics,or owtb radio or something,broadcast it over the internet so all our exiles can tune in,have home and away commentry,and also interviews with players,shez,the owners......have phone ins to win tickets and so on,im not sure on the cost but im pretty certain it isnt that expensive.

 

play classic and modern music to get people listening but constantly plug the games,reserves youth games,meet n greet days,charity matches etc etc etc.

[boothebigrad]

Apart from a big name signing, we need three things:

 

Better food (more variety)

Beer everywhere (like the barrels someone mentioned)

Big screens throughout to catch re-plays and keep in touch with other scores whilst the games on.

 

Plus a big free PR event to launch it all - we're different type of supporters than 20 years ago, we need technology and entertainment just to satisfy basic needs!