Torquay United Fans Forum

"Torquay see Exeter as their main rival, whereas Exeter probably look at Torquay like its irritating little brother" way to piss off about 20,000 united fans

Glad you like the idea, but still in my opinion all the suggested sites look a bit prehistoric. For about £40 you can get a decent template like one of these:
http://www.templatemonster.com/website- ... 19539.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.templatemonster.com/demo/33391.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.templatemonster.com/demo/29603.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Then all you have to do is customise it to suit your needs, so add some yellow/blue (tastefully!) and all the relevent content, and you're away.

I'd be happy to assist, or stick one of my web dev guys on it (i run a number of websites so have a few people that help out i can use). Perhaps the Joomla CMS option would be a good idea, then you can give people logins with certain access levels so they can post content without changing anything important etc. and it sets it all up SEO optimized and everything else... we can have site polls, squad lists (up to date!) fixtures, results, articles with option for users to comment on them for more ways to interact / keep convo and topic all in 1 place, rather than forum threads that have to link to articles for discussion...

Obviously we all agree the new site is hideous, and i'm probably not alone in finding those side-adverts incredibly annoying when sometimes you just want to "click-off" somewhere to deselect something, or select the window itself, only to open some annoying advert..

What i'd like to know is, just because we are apparently legally tied to having this site - why do we have to actively use it? Why can't we get up a 2nd website that wasn't designed in the 20th century and actually have something worth visiting? Seems like among the Torquay fanbase there is enough people to voluntarily set up a good looking site, and others to update it with match reports etc. frequently without requiring money (they do it here anyway)

In fact, why not extend THIS site to incorporate some new features? It doesn't have to just be a forum - it does appear to be THE most popular Torquay United website bar none. So why not capitalise on it, and have a proper website navigation system with a match reports area, news area, squad list, fixtures, etc. etc. etc. ?? A few adverts scattered around to contribute towards the hosting, and an option to pay £2.99/month to be a pro member with no adverts and elevated privaleges in the forum or something.... ?

Even though i know no-one likes new ideas, what problems do people forsee in this kind of system:

Offer everyone who attends regularly the option to register onto some list/scheme (take name n details), which gives them a bonus such as priority tickets, and other small benefits and minor privaleges, whatever the club can think up, that people who *attend regularly* would appreciate.
Then, they have the option to bring along anyone who is NOT on the list to a game, at a small discount (a few quid), the idea being to invite new people to convert them to new fans.

If you were a pikey and wanted to get in as cheap as you can every week (abusing the system) you'd a) need a willing friend who is on the list not getting discounts to 'carry' you, and b) miss out on priority tickets and other bonuses...

Obviously an ill-thought-out idea, but there might be something akin to this that might be worth pursuing....

I wouldn't bother suggesting ways to change pricing or increase the crowds, as i've previously discovered it seems the opinion of everyone here is that it's a stupid idea unless it's already the norm everywhere else.
Change and evolution is currently forbidden at torquay.

Gulliball wrote:It would destroy our season ticket sales if it was possible to watch all 23 games for a cheaper price than the season ticket.

I'm surprised to hear you have such low expectations of a fanbase who are apparently so keen to donate £10/month for a membership scheme for no reason other than a warm feeling of knowing they're paying for a new mop for the caretaker to muck out the toilets with each month. So it's not all about money in 1 context, but in this context suddenly it is? Aren't we just arguing for the sake of it now

I appreciate your thoughts happytorq and I agree with you on about 98% of that. I was actually making a different point. I don't think anyone has understood what I was saying so don't worry let's get back to the real membership scheme.

Interesting that the way the OS has chosen to describe/promote this prior to detailed release,
"This incredibly popular scheme enables fans to take advantage of reduced ticket prices and priority purchasing for Cup games." ... I am sceptical that people seem to think otherwise, if there were anyone devoted enough to TUFC to pay money even when not attending matches, surely they would likely frequent this forum also - thus meaning the amount of people thinking this scheme is supposed to be a kind of charity scheme to be about... 10-15 people? So, less than the majority of paying members...? And it's actually just a way to save a couple of quid while giving the club a more pre-determined income for better financial planning ....??
Debate #2 off we go :P

I guess whatever the old scheme was about is immaterial now anyway as the new scheme will be different by the sounds of it.

brucie wrote:zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

^

I like y4l's suggestion.

Crewe deserved to go up tho, if theyre currently the best team of the 4 then that's the team that will stand the best chance in the league above. There's not much point us being promoted in a different kind of system if we can't beat Cheltenham (who can't beat Crewe) what chance do we have of doing well in L1? Not as good a chance as Crewe, is the answer

wow.
sigh.

must-..resist-...being rude-........... oh no wait you crossed that line already.

there is only so much time i spend talking to someone before having to admit we're talking in different languages, and i may as well be speaking in russian here, so here it is, last time:

YES YOU CAN compare the 2. Premiership is in a higher league than league 2. The prices are higher in the premiership. The standard of football is usually higher. The grounds are bigger, and the fans are stupider.

See? I just compared the two. It was possible after all!
Both league of clubs charge the same currency, of the same worth - only the premiership offers better value (at some clubs). This is unavoidable, never claimed it wasn't, or that we should charge £5 or less because that's all it's worth.
What i proposed is we even-up this balance by giving the fans more value, if they spend more. You know when you see müller yoghurts for 40p, or 3 for £1? it's a bit like that you end up spending more, but per-penny-spent, you're getting more for it, so you are a happier customer, and the company is richer too. WIN/WIN.

It really isn't hard to get your head around this is it? You can keep claiming i've missed YOUR point, but YOUR point is that MY point is not fair to compare the 2 different leagues. But in reality, that comparison is made every day by thousands of would-be fans. The decision of whether 8 year old Timmy asks for a Man City shirt for his birthday or a TUFC shirt, which will likely cost his mummy and daddy the same money, despite one offering better value if he ever desired to watch his future team play in real life. So yes it is fair to compare, yes i am discussing adjusting the value due to the money spent - not adjusting the money spent due the value. I'm quite sure this is getting through to most people, even if they are staying out of it lol

Errrm nope you are still missing the point. You can't tell me you're not, coz it's my point - i know what it is, you have to do your best to understand it, and i'm telling you, you got it wrong. :P

You said: "Premier League clubs have enough tv revenue to pay their fans to watch them, hardly a fair comparison is it?" I pre-empted this with "Premier League clubs have other income..." so why you are even mentioning a clubs revenue i have no idea. Even in making a different point, revenue doesn't come in to it. I don't know if you're trying to say Prem clubs can afford to under-charge their tickets coz they have other income, i hope not, coz that's stupid and missing my point.

Once again, my point, hopefully YOU can grasp it this time, now i've broken this message down for you into itty-bitty pieces : if i supported villa, and could watch them play man u/chelsea/city/other teams full of some of the best talent in the world, £25/£30 for an afternoon watching some truly gifted individuals entertain me is great, and in this day and age, IMO represents value for money. On the other hand, if you reduce the talent of said players by 10-fold, and the quality of the stadium/overall experience, you can't simply slice off a tenner and expect the value for money to be just as good... sure it's still good value to die-hard fans, GOOD FOR YOU! enjoy scratching your heads wondering why most kids in torquay don't give a shit about the gulls. For most of them, it'd take up 1 third of their weekly JSA :P the town has an unusually high proportion of low-income earners, come on this isn't news to anyone?

Hang on hang on, i'm clearly off my rocker, our attenances are great, the value for money is great, and any suggestion that would result in bigger attendances and more money to the club is just daft! WTF AM I THINKING trying to solve a problem, yes a real problem. Resume living in your static state of everything being fine. Say hello to bateson for me too he loved a good ol' leave things how they are despite the rot setting in...

And matt i'll happily send you the link via PM

in all honesty, i'm a nice person and would never wish bad in any shape or form, on anyone.

However, when internet forum mode is engaged, i'll give as good as i get, so if i get shit, you can guarantee to read a pile of dung from me too :devil:

I apologise - i've arrived here with my "meaningful discussion" hat on by mistake. I have now burned it, and wearing my troll hat.

I thoroughly enjoyed your mocking of my idea and career. Hearing it summarised in such a fasion sounds great up here on my high horse of generally being better than you at everything ever. (Oh look trolling is fun!) i can say whatever i want and only mean the bits i choose later.
Hey guess what, i had another idea once even stupider than this one, that was to teach people to play guitar with a my own way of doing things, thinking outside the box - silly me, of course everyone thought it was a stupid idea. I suck at guitar!!! Didn't stop the dvd i made and sell becoming a best-seller around the world, outselling the musical equivalent of the football leagues own tired ideas. Spawnd a music empire from it too.

I'd like to quote you on "hey ho" now: Hey ho.

It turns out, evolution doesn't exist, and the world is already in optimum efficiency mode!! OOOH!! We've finished the game of life! Nothing will ever change or improve. And no idea will ever get taken on board by the chairman, because YOU deemed it stupid. You with WHAT experience in being a chairman of a football club, or generally having a career in good ideas??????????????????????????????????????????????? oh i thought so.

so ESS TEE EFF YEW douchebag, go back to m*sturbating over ashtun kutcher
EDIT: :na:

Southampton Gull wrote:
Premier League clubs have enough tv revenue to be able to pay their fans to watch them, hardly a valid comparison is it?

Congrats on either not reading more than the first line, or missing the point like a broken pencil. Matt understood what i was saying, even through his superiority complex.

And see matt now you have finally made an intelligent response to my point, i am game-on for bantering about the disagreement (i still disagree with you) but to start your response by coming up with 1 lame comment which initially also missed the point massively, while acting like you think you are maybe smarter/superior than me??? or know more about business than me???? Doing that is really not going to achieve whatever desired result you had.

I read the boards a lot, i don't comment a lot because of this kind of clique response to a different opinion, and pretty disappointed that as a community it seems you'd choose to alienate someone from contributing more. Hardly doing much for the club is it, hmm? IN my opinion, thinking outside the box with ideas like this is what starts up the majority of successful ventures. Perhaps i am looking at my idea with an overly-optimistic point of view because i make a living out of coming up with ideas like this that has given me a 100%-success track record with every project i've done in 6 years of being self employed. But like i said, there is no way you could prove this wouldn't work, i was just voicing an opinion/suggestion, who knows maybe someone in the biz will read it and come up with their own interpretation that addresses the same problem? I certainly wasn't looking for new buddies - any why you think i'd talk to the people i stand next to is beyond me, all i ever hear come out of their mouths is "i know better" negative remarks about management decisions and players and generally anything possibly able to whine about... hmmm.. maybe i stand next to you guys!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012 ... sfeed=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - man city, wigan and villa all offering season tickets for under £300, where you can see the worlds best (even if it is only in the away squads :devil: )

L2 prices are disproportionate to the clubs outgoings, compared to that of the premier league. Premier League clubs have other income to help with the costs, granted, i don't want to get into a huge debate about that - but this also supports my point that, perhaps L2 clubs can find a better way to get fans to reach into their pockets, other than just raising the ticket prices. Everyone seems to have missed my suggestion that the wages spent on people dealing with the membership scheme could be spent on sending someone round town on a saturday morning with a sandwich board getting people / reminding them to come to the game. I'd say TUFC is run very well, and to even be making a profit is great - but what better time than to experiment with something that could potentially increase turnover by a big percentage, not to mention knock-on effect of more fans = better atmosphere = more wins = more points on the board.