how to get the fans going

[thegreedygull]

A full house would be great but every man, woman and child must scream and shout their head off and back the boys, any moaning bastards should stay away.

[ferrarilover]

If you really want to get people in the following needs to done and does take years.

Cut the price to £1 entry for every one

take back the catering and wack up the prices there to try and recoup some lost on the gate (once a tenner is broken people will spend the coins).

This gets younger fans and new people attending which over the years get used to / enjoy tufc (if possible) and then the prices can start to increase.

Its most likely agasnt all fl rules but no one else plays by them.

Give a pro player the choice of playing reserve football or in front of 4k each week most will go where the money is but then they will go ehere they will get most exposure

What? This is literally the worst idea ever expressed by mankind. To give you some scale: There have been around 108,000,000,000 people who have ever lived. If each of them lives to an average of 30 years and expresses an idea a day on average, that's a total of 1,182,600,000,000,000 (one quadrillion one hundred and eighty two trillion six hundred billion, or, about the same as the number of atoms which make up the continental United States) ideas and this one is the worst of all of those.

Matt.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I think people have missed the point here and it is a point that only Bengull has raised on the Morecambe thread.

Why did 3000 of us travel to Barnet when ordinarily there would be 3 or 4 hundred?

Why did we take nearly 2000 to Southend on that last day when ordinarily we aould have taken a few hundred?

Why did tens of thousands turn up to Wembley when we won the conference play off final?

Because everyone wants to be there to see a bit of drama don't they. To try and feel that they are somehow part of a success when it matters and to convince themselves that they have indeed PLAYED a part in the success when it matters. Most of these people, instead of being there on a cold wet winters night at home to Accrington when they'd 'have something else' on rather than go to Plainmoor to support the team 'when it matters' are not wanted.

Because everyone wants to be there to witness a sad demise in the history of a football club, to revel in a defeat and a relegation and try to feel part of it like all those losers who mourned the passing of Princess Diana when they didn't even f*cking know her yet felt compelled to shed tears and sadness before going about their much more important business again.

Is it human nature? I don't know but what i do know is that if you support Torquay and you care about the club then (if you can get) you will be there at Plainmoor on saturday regardless of it is £5 or £35 to get in. Just as you were there on one of those cold nights against Aldershot even when Champions League or England matches were on the telly, you'll be there again saturday because you are a true, dedicated and committed supporter.

So we entice a few extra people in the ground by charging a quid. I don't want them here as sure as eggs is eggs, the next home game when it is £17 to get in they won't dream of coming. They just want to be there to laugh and take the piss so stay away please. Like Ben alluded to about the Morecambe game, we only want fans that are DESPERATE be there and can all rejoice or comiserate together whatever the outcome may be. To these 'floaters' it doesn't even f*cking matter to them whether we stay up or not, they just want to see some drama and have a laugh because if they had any sort of love for TUFC then they would be making the efforts to get to as many games as they can at full price.

Sorry for the rant but these people p*ss me off big time. I hope the club DON'T reduce the ticket prices in all honesty as then we will largely have a crowd full of people that actually GIVE a toss about our club and the ones that don't can sod off.

[ferrarilover]

I'm not really into the forum thing usually however watching this seasons demise really has angered me at the way things have been run, yes we have a small budget, yes we don't have big attendances, yes we need to safeguard our financial future but at the same time we must maintain our league status at all cost as relegation would make the situation at the club even worse in the long term and realistically I'm not sure we would ever return to a Football League status club if relegated, there are to many bigger more financially backed clubs in non league now.

The whole Joss Labadie thing really summed this season up, we have been naive going along believing we are to good to go down and that our loan players will be here until the end of the season! The players we have are mediocre at best and have shown no real passion look at the players twitter accounts in particular the likes of Lloyd Macklin & Niall Thompson to busy tweeting about their cars or women! Surely the club should monitor these accounts and understand that when the team have just been beaten in a big game supporters don't want to see players posting pics of their new Mercedes or that they have not slept all weekend! The likes of Manse and Nicholson may be getting to the end of their careers but at least they care about the club we just need a squad full of people with the right attitude and unfortunately the attitude that has developed especially in the younger players is down to the manager. These guys should be released at the end of the season we don't want them giving 50% effort and taking the cash there are kids out there who would give anything for a shot at league football.

The game against Barnet on Saturday is the biggest this season and will ultimately influence our fate, win and I do believe we will stay up, Lose and we are gone. We may not have a large loyal base of supporters but we do have a community which on its day can come together and come good! I remember games such as Barnet Away when we needed a win to stay up! how many travelled 3000? Southend away for promotion 1800? FA Cup games against not very fashionable teams like coventry & crawley. The support when needed is out there the club just need to learn how to get bums on seats, 2-4-1 in the family stand just isn't going to work. If the build up to this game is really pushed we can get a gate over 4000 without any discounts apart from maybe kids for a quid but that needed to start last week. How many kids do the football in the community team see each week especially during school hols this week? Get these kids in for free on Saturday they are the future of the club and the younger ones will bring an adult at full price! I don't believe that people in the area don't care I believe that they feel that the club doesn't care so why should they spend their hard earned money and give up time with family! Why last week was it not looked into to move all South Devon league fixtures this saturday to 12pm Kick off so as local players could attend the game?

Id love to see Torquay represented at Local supermarkets this week with flyers promoting the game and the significance of the match, this is how you generate interest not in the useless herald express.

Anyway rant over I needed to get it off my chest! I just pray that Alan Knill kicks some ass this week gets the 11 starting fired up and willing to take to the pitch and give everything to get the 3 points. COYY

Were you saying this last season when those same players were knocking on the door of automatic promotion?

Matt.

[SBP]

Fair point Andy, however what happens if we fill the place with all the arses that dont normally attend and it increases the support and we get a much needed victory!
For that reason alone i would take the doubters if it fires the team up to a victory.

[royalgull]

May well be there saturday which will be my first 'home' game this season, simply can't justify the cost of it when the product is so poor. This is the issue, people won't pay £20 a ticket to watch a consistently bad football team, especially in these times where money is tight for a lot of people.

Earlier in the season Morecambe gave free entry for a game, think that may have been Barnet or maybe Dagenham, they won that game and played in front of a crowd more than double their usual gate. What you have to factor in here is it's not just the £15-20 that people pay, if you've got 4000 people in there a lot of them will buy a programme, they might buy a shirt/scarf, they'll buy food and drink (especially if they've got kids) and the club not only gets great local and sometimes national publicity for doing something 'for the community' but the club will make 2/3 times their usual matchday income in sales of other things other than tickets. As a one off it's a great ploy and what you are trying to do is not only create a better atmosphere and event but entice those people to come along more often. Bradford have done it with their season ticket plans for the last few years to pretty good success. They struggled to get 10,000 when they were in the Championship last time around. It's the youngsters that have to be the target, you have to get them wanting to go to live football and get them hooked on TUFC. They are the future of the fanbase of the club.

I think the ship has sailed for us in terms of this idea, we should have done it for the Rotherham home match on a Tuesday night, would have been a nice gesture to their fans as well saying, you're coming all this way we'll let you in for nothing. I have a pretty good feeling that our crowd will be up a bit on Saturday even with the miniscule promotion our club will put in to advertising it. It's a crunch game, do or die and people come out for these events. Even at TUFC.

Also don't agree at all with the point 'we don't want them here' It's money into the club and possible long term support we can't afford to be without, if we go down we'll struggle to get 1500 as a regular crowd because we'll be crap next year. There's no feel good feeling, new club, rebuild going on. We'll be stuck with a lot of what we've got in a tough division against certain clubs who'll be in better financial nick than us. We'll be another Hereford who had 600 for one home gate this year, we are a similar sized club to them. On a good day when we're doing well we'll get 4000 but we've got 1500-2000 regulars and if it gets bad that number will fall.

We have to stay up for the long term future of the football club, I seriously worry for us if we go down because there aren't enough people in the area who care enough about the football club to keep it going if we got 1500 crowds and started making huge losses.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Fair point Andy, however what happens if we fill the place with all the arses that dont normally attend and it increases the support and we get a much needed victory!
For that reason alone i would take the doubters if it fires the team up to a victory.

See where you're coming from SBP but these players have had a full season of really good support, especially away and it's not made a blind bit of difference and nor will it on saturday. We could play the match at Wembley in front of 80,000 and it still wouldn't matter IMO. These players are under severe pressure now and IMO they just haven't the right attitude or mental strength to cope with it. They need to give US something on saturday and not the other way around. We'll have to wait and see if they've got the attitude for it.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Oh and Royal, it's only 'possible long term support' if we're doing well. Great fans these then.

[SBP]

I do take your point Andy and i do feel the same. I just want a couple of victories like we all do and right now i would run around Plainmoor with that fat idiot Rotherman manger on my back blind folded with one leg shouting every single thread you have ever listed(apart from your rant after the Bradford game) !!
Anything for a win!!

[royalgull]

same for every club in the entire world.

When i was a kid Reading used to get crowds of about 5/6000. They used to do Kid for a Quid and all these little promotions when they were in Div 2, used to boost the gates, then they start coming more regularly especially if you're doing well and then it snowballs. Season ticket deals are the best ones, because once people get in the habit of going they find it difficult to stop.

[AustrianAndyGull]

[SBP]

The sad thing is that the link between the club and local community has more or less gone. When was the last time you saw a TQFC player attend a local school, hospital or anything. Its drifted too far apart.

[DTUFC]

The sad thing is that the link between the club and local community has more or less gone. When was the last time you saw a TQFC player attend a local school, hospital or anything. Its drifted too far apart.

Beat me to it. I was going to suggest sending some of the players into local schools etc to get more young people (and possibly their parents) through the turnstiles. The good publicity from school or hospital visits would also help attract more floating fans.

I remember when I was at primary school a few Torquay players (Kyle Critchell is the only name I can remember) visiting, and it was quite a big deal amongst the kids at the time. Those sort of things stick in people's memories, although it may be a bit late now to be sending players out to spread the word this season.

[gurneygibbs23]

I remember off their own backs Rodney Jack, Jamie Ndah and others coming to watch preston primary school matches. This wasnt a club arrangement, they lived locally and came down.
That was pretty cool in those days (mid 90s). Of course the club had football in the community days as well, where a tufc player would try and save penalties... we had Hancox come and chuck a few in!

[SBP]

Its very disappointing that its come to this.

I have two boys aged 7 and 11. Every Sunday Afternoon they use to put their TQFC kit on and ask to go down on Paignton green and play football with the hope that they would see a player or one would drive past.
I am very much involved with the kids sunday league with a local team and most of the kids don't even know any of the players.
My eldest was lucky enough to become a ball bay and Mrs Bristow was extremely kind and treated them all to a meal at the Gulls nest as a bit of a thank you. Not one player came to see them. How rubbish is that.