Stacks up with my previous research. The lowest percentage discount to senior citizens in the league. And now they are being asked to invest in to the club too.
percentages are surely irrelevant - absolutes (actual price) is what matters.
As I have said before, (As one closing in on OAP discount), it is hard to justify logically any senior discount given that seniors ON AVERAGE have at least as high and often higher disposable incomes than under 40s. It is even harder to justify that discount kicking in at 60 when nobody now retires and draws a state pension from that age.
@Right_in_the_Middle : "percentage of investors to targets " is an interesting concept. Not sure what figure you have in mind for 'targets' but if you are referring to Supporters Trust membership then the percentage is about 15% I think.
Portsmouth have 2500 in their share scheme but I'm not sure what the total Trust Membership is. It seems that, when the future of a major Football Club is imperilled, fans will rally to the cause. Perhaps the Wycombe situation wasn't seen like that - as indeed it wasn't.
The Pompey numbers enabled them to keep their Academy and they sold one of its 'products ' - Adam Webster - to Ipswich earlier this year for nearly £2m.
An interesting read. And I promise my question was simply out of curiosity, nothing more. As @Uncle_T has pointed out, there are many other ways to contribute.
@DevC We've had this debate before so I'm not that bothered in going over old ground again. Suffice it to say that looking what you are saying might be true for a 60 year old still in work but will not be true to a 75 year old with at least 10 years for retirement behind them. I know for a fact the discount (percentage or actual) is a factor in the renewal of senior season tickets. It is something I have tried to look in to over the summer. Sadly the club weren't that fussed.
@micra Now if the club asked me to invest in the set up of a youth system then that is a different proposition all together. Last season I thought Howard was close to doing this but bathed in the announcement PR before skuttling back under his rock and not doing anything about it. The current jewels in the squad are getting fewer and fewer.
I really struggle with people saying that not enough people are investing in the Wycombe share scheme. I don't know the Portsmouth number either but based on average home grounds I'd have thought they were in the same ball park. I think 350 or so investors for Wycombe was pretty good. Telling those who don't invest the current problem is our fault isn't a great selling tool either.
I'd be interested to hear what Alan thought he would achieve with that post, other than to get something off his chest.
If it was to somehow encourage new people to participate in the share scheme then I'd suggest he's badly mistaken. Who have you ever met that responds positively to being spoken to like that?
Righty.
Actually that isn't the case any more. The AVERAGE 75 year old, free of mortgage, free of kids and possibly with a private pension now has more disposable case than the average 35yo, struggling to pay exhorbitant mortgages, bringing up kids etc. Obviously that will not apply in all cases in either age group but it does apply to the average. Having said that first step (and probably only politically acceptable step) is to delay the seniors discount until 65 - state retirement age (for men at least).
it is hard to believe that the discount was relevant to anybody renewing. What anybody else is paying is irrelevant. The actual price is of course relevant to some if not all. In terms of the actual price for seated admission, WWFC is in line with most similar clubs for OAPS.
I tend to agree with your principle if not your tone re the "share scheme".
Indeed
Righty raised the subject again criticising the club for not giving even cheaper tickets to seniors. I thought it worth pointing out that that was unfair (IMHO).
It also seems pretty relevant when discussing funding shortages.
@DevC That is far from typical state of affairs for retired people, particularly these days with increasingly measly and insecure pension provision from employers.
If well of retired supporters felt guilty about paying a reduced rate and wanted to help retired supporters who would genuinely benefit, maybe there could be a scheme in place for those well off to pay the full price, and the club would set the difference aside to help those struggling in their retirement.
In any case, this going off on a tangent away from the original thread...
Listening to Dev, it's like retirement is some kind of financial bliss, with sh!ttonnes of free money, living the high life.
I must have imagined those OAPs struggling to skimp by on meagre state pensions, struggling to warm their box of a flat.
Maybe Dev's pals are different to most OAPs.
I don't know why there is such resistance to the idea that the retired are (as @DevC keeps emphasising) on average better off than some other age groups.
Of course there are some pensioners who aren't very well off at all, but that's also true of non-pensioners too.
How many over 75's have a private pension to add to the state one? Mass private pensions are a newer thing and many who relied on a company final salary pension ended up out of pocket after the last two recessions. Once more a 'possibly' becomes a fact to keep one side of the debate propped up.
I'm talking from very real experiences talking to the older generation of Wycombe fans. I haven't read or needed to read a single Telegraph article to tell me what I can see with my own eyes.
One more point. It's not about cheaper tickets for seniors. It's just being in line with the majority of other clubs. Wycombe has a policy of charging them more and maybe the news about their vast pensions has been taken at face value?
Still no update from @AlanCecil yet? I now know from @DevC I can investe my families vast pension pots in to Wycombe Wanderers. Where do I sign up?
In the defence of Dev, I think his argument is that the 60-65 age category are generally better off, NOT the entire 65+ age category.
Without bothering to look at stats myself, which may or may not back that up, i would echo the sentiments that I'd prefer us to be generally in line with other clubs.
apologies, @AlanCecil . Should have linked you in to my question earlier... let me re-post it here, To your knowledge, has anyone offered an interest free loan and been turned down? If so, why?
One reason I'm not handing over that extra tenner per month is because it's entirely opaque as to where that money would go, and as quite a number of people have pointed out on here in the past, you'd likely get a lot closer to the 3000 if it supporters got something in return. This could be a trivial as first dibs on cup tickets, or as important as actually getting informed when a football match is taking place tens of miles from where we were initially told.
However, more important than either of of those two is some semblance of a two way street in communication. Wouldn't it be nice if a) this supporter owned club listened to its supporters who supposedly own it, and b) it sometimes spoke back to them. Just see the threads on disabled parking and people's season ticket seats being reallocated to see how utterly laughable this situation is. Give a voice to the supporters who pay, and we'll pay.
As things stand at the moment, the trust is a black box that nobody is allowed to look inside. Like good North Koreans, we're just told to trust our Great Leaders.
To be fair to @DevC if you look at who's shopping in M&S food and having sit down meals at motorway service stations (both signs of extreme affluence) it's not the young!
Well Righty, I note you ignore evidence from Government surveys and instead offer your evidence of a chat with a couple of mates. Oh dear.
As it happens, membership of occupational pension schemes peaked in the 60s, in time to cover most of the working life of most of even the over 75s (I note we have moved on from 60 to 65 and now focusing purely on the over 75s). Most of those schemes were final salary schemes, providing much better pensions than todays defined contribution schemes and most had inflation protection. So again I can only state that official data shows that the average pensioner has at least equal and in on some measures higher disposable income than the average under 40yo. Averages are averages and there will be some better off and some worse off than the average of course - both for pensioners and younger people.
Very very few people relying on a company final salary pension scheme have "ended up out of pocket after the last two recessions".
As the data published earlier shows, pensioners watching Wycombe pay about the same prices as those watching other Lg2 London suburb clubs.
That may be inconvenient to your prejudices, may be inconvenient for your own personal circumstances but they are the facts.
Not sure Government statistics out trump personal stories but it seems that's where we are. I'll stick to what I've seen with my own eyes and experienced with more than 'a couple of mates'.
You might want to reread your table again too.
Where's Alan gone to bring this topic back on to far bigger issues. I'm still annoyed at your post Alan.
well that's our choice. base opinions on hard data or base opinions on a chat with some mates. And seemingly be incapable of reading price data which shows that OAP seated prices are broadly in line with the majority.
@DevC said:
Following on from my and Righty's post, thought I'd do a bit of research on competitive prices charged by London suburb Lg2 clubs (cheapest, seated, OAP). As ever all sorts of deals, but I think this is broadly comparable
Col U - prices are in advance. Stevenage inflate them for "premium" matches by £2.
Take from that what you will - what I see is that we are out of line cheap for terrace (competing with yet another arm tied behind back?), in line for seats, generous in terms of when senior discounts kick in, in line with senior pricing apart from LO and Barnet who seem very cheap.
I genuinely have no idea why I do this to myself but here goes.
Dev, your analysis of the OAP prices is ridiculous, even by your standards.
You say "generous in terms of when senior discounts kick in" and yet 50% are 60, 50% are 65. Neither generous nor ungenerous. If you were on the other side of the argument you could equally say the opposite and have just as much justification. Meaningless
And as for "in line with senior pricing apart from LO and Barnet who seem very cheap". In other words, you looked at 5 other clubs, and if you completely ignore 2 of them, or 40%, then it sort of supports your point (although, it actually doesn't even then)
This would actually be laughable if you weren't so consistently annoying. All it actually does is make all of our experience here a little less enjoyable
Leaving aside the OAP debate the main reason I have not considered investing in the Share Scheme was the total mismanagement that led to the forfeiture of the Lease for the Training Ground.
Following pressure from this messageboard the Trust subsequently issued a fairly detailed response but the point is that it should never have been allowed to happen.
What seemed to make matters worse was the sense of "fait accompli" from the Trust Directors at that time.
How much is that Land worth now - a lot more than we originally sold it for and the end value would certainly dwarf the Ibe transfer fees to be received.
While we are discussing OAP prices, can I throw in another Question. What is the ratio of the OAP's who have made a contribution to the Share Scheme. I have no data but I would guess they are more than 40%, and probably the majority are S/T holders as well.
So what you might say, but in line with a lot of this thread, it could be meaningless data to "debate" during the weakly (pun intended) gripe about the club's performance.
Eric
Numbers not your strong point. 50% of Lg2 clubs in the London area give senior discounts at 60 , the other 50% at 65. It would seem reasonable to judge that those who do at 60 are the more generous in this respect - not that all are equal.
4 out of 6 clubs price senior tickets in the £18 to £21 range. Two are materially cheaper. Which seems to me to suggest that our prices for seniors are in line with the majority and appears to reject Righty's suggestion that they are being badly treated.
Do you have any evidence to the contrary or do you just want as usual to "play the man not the ball"
You remind me of a broken record Dev. Give us all a rest and post something not including continual drivel about the rights and wrongs of discounts for OAP's.
Comments
Stacks up with my previous research. The lowest percentage discount to senior citizens in the league. And now they are being asked to invest in to the club too.
percentages are surely irrelevant - absolutes (actual price) is what matters.
As I have said before, (As one closing in on OAP discount), it is hard to justify logically any senior discount given that seniors ON AVERAGE have at least as high and often higher disposable incomes than under 40s. It is even harder to justify that discount kicking in at 60 when nobody now retires and draws a state pension from that age.
@Right_in_the_Middle : "percentage of investors to targets " is an interesting concept. Not sure what figure you have in mind for 'targets' but if you are referring to Supporters Trust membership then the percentage is about 15% I think.
Portsmouth have 2500 in their share scheme but I'm not sure what the total Trust Membership is. It seems that, when the future of a major Football Club is imperilled, fans will rally to the cause. Perhaps the Wycombe situation wasn't seen like that - as indeed it wasn't.
The Pompey numbers enabled them to keep their Academy and they sold one of its 'products ' - Adam Webster - to Ipswich earlier this year for nearly £2m.
An interesting read. And I promise my question was simply out of curiosity, nothing more. As @Uncle_T has pointed out, there are many other ways to contribute.
@DevC We've had this debate before so I'm not that bothered in going over old ground again. Suffice it to say that looking what you are saying might be true for a 60 year old still in work but will not be true to a 75 year old with at least 10 years for retirement behind them. I know for a fact the discount (percentage or actual) is a factor in the renewal of senior season tickets. It is something I have tried to look in to over the summer. Sadly the club weren't that fussed.
@micra Now if the club asked me to invest in the set up of a youth system then that is a different proposition all together. Last season I thought Howard was close to doing this but bathed in the announcement PR before skuttling back under his rock and not doing anything about it. The current jewels in the squad are getting fewer and fewer.
I really struggle with people saying that not enough people are investing in the Wycombe share scheme. I don't know the Portsmouth number either but based on average home grounds I'd have thought they were in the same ball park. I think 350 or so investors for Wycombe was pretty good. Telling those who don't invest the current problem is our fault isn't a great selling tool either.
I'd be interested to hear what Alan thought he would achieve with that post, other than to get something off his chest.
If it was to somehow encourage new people to participate in the share scheme then I'd suggest he's badly mistaken. Who have you ever met that responds positively to being spoken to like that?
Ive one for Alan, and it's slightly rogue of me.
to your knowledge, has anyone offered an interest free loan and been turned down? If so, why?
Righty.
Actually that isn't the case any more. The AVERAGE 75 year old, free of mortgage, free of kids and possibly with a private pension now has more disposable case than the average 35yo, struggling to pay exhorbitant mortgages, bringing up kids etc. Obviously that will not apply in all cases in either age group but it does apply to the average. Having said that first step (and probably only politically acceptable step) is to delay the seniors discount until 65 - state retirement age (for men at least).
it is hard to believe that the discount was relevant to anybody renewing. What anybody else is paying is irrelevant. The actual price is of course relevant to some if not all. In terms of the actual price for seated admission, WWFC is in line with most similar clubs for OAPS.
I tend to agree with your principle if not your tone re the "share scheme".
You've said all of this before
Indeed
Righty raised the subject again criticising the club for not giving even cheaper tickets to seniors. I thought it worth pointing out that that was unfair (IMHO).
It also seems pretty relevant when discussing funding shortages.
@DevC That is far from typical state of affairs for retired people, particularly these days with increasingly measly and insecure pension provision from employers.
If well of retired supporters felt guilty about paying a reduced rate and wanted to help retired supporters who would genuinely benefit, maybe there could be a scheme in place for those well off to pay the full price, and the club would set the difference aside to help those struggling in their retirement.
In any case, this going off on a tangent away from the original thread...
Not true, reading.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/11944141/Pensioners-are-9-a-week-better-off-than-those-in-work.html
Current pensioners are better off than those in earlier years and probably better off than pensioners will be in future and on average certainly no worse of, probably better of than under 40s. Realistically the pensioners discount is unlikely to be removed for political reasons, but the discount from 60-65 certainly should be IMHO. (phased in if necessary).
Listening to Dev, it's like retirement is some kind of financial bliss, with sh!ttonnes of free money, living the high life.
I must have imagined those OAPs struggling to skimp by on meagre state pensions, struggling to warm their box of a flat.
Maybe Dev's pals are different to most OAPs.
I don't know why there is such resistance to the idea that the retired are (as @DevC keeps emphasising) on average better off than some other age groups.
Of course there are some pensioners who aren't very well off at all, but that's also true of non-pensioners too.
How many over 75's have a private pension to add to the state one? Mass private pensions are a newer thing and many who relied on a company final salary pension ended up out of pocket after the last two recessions. Once more a 'possibly' becomes a fact to keep one side of the debate propped up.
I'm talking from very real experiences talking to the older generation of Wycombe fans. I haven't read or needed to read a single Telegraph article to tell me what I can see with my own eyes.
One more point. It's not about cheaper tickets for seniors. It's just being in line with the majority of other clubs. Wycombe has a policy of charging them more and maybe the news about their vast pensions has been taken at face value?
Still no update from @AlanCecil yet? I now know from @DevC I can investe my families vast pension pots in to Wycombe Wanderers. Where do I sign up?
In the defence of Dev, I think his argument is that the 60-65 age category are generally better off, NOT the entire 65+ age category.
Without bothering to look at stats myself, which may or may not back that up, i would echo the sentiments that I'd prefer us to be generally in line with other clubs.
apologies, @AlanCecil . Should have linked you in to my question earlier... let me re-post it here, To your knowledge, has anyone offered an interest free loan and been turned down? If so, why?
One reason I'm not handing over that extra tenner per month is because it's entirely opaque as to where that money would go, and as quite a number of people have pointed out on here in the past, you'd likely get a lot closer to the 3000 if it supporters got something in return. This could be a trivial as first dibs on cup tickets, or as important as actually getting informed when a football match is taking place tens of miles from where we were initially told.
However, more important than either of of those two is some semblance of a two way street in communication. Wouldn't it be nice if a) this supporter owned club listened to its supporters who supposedly own it, and b) it sometimes spoke back to them. Just see the threads on disabled parking and people's season ticket seats being reallocated to see how utterly laughable this situation is. Give a voice to the supporters who pay, and we'll pay.
As things stand at the moment, the trust is a black box that nobody is allowed to look inside. Like good North Koreans, we're just told to trust our Great Leaders.
Excellent post drcongo which absolutely hits the nail on the head.
The club seems to me to be even less transparent than it was under the Hayes regime.
To be fair to @DevC if you look at who's shopping in M&S food and having sit down meals at motorway service stations (both signs of extreme affluence) it's not the young!
Well Righty, I note you ignore evidence from Government surveys and instead offer your evidence of a chat with a couple of mates. Oh dear.
As it happens, membership of occupational pension schemes peaked in the 60s, in time to cover most of the working life of most of even the over 75s (I note we have moved on from 60 to 65 and now focusing purely on the over 75s). Most of those schemes were final salary schemes, providing much better pensions than todays defined contribution schemes and most had inflation protection. So again I can only state that official data shows that the average pensioner has at least equal and in on some measures higher disposable income than the average under 40yo. Averages are averages and there will be some better off and some worse off than the average of course - both for pensioners and younger people.
Very very few people relying on a company final salary pension scheme have "ended up out of pocket after the last two recessions".
As the data published earlier shows, pensioners watching Wycombe pay about the same prices as those watching other Lg2 London suburb clubs.
That may be inconvenient to your prejudices, may be inconvenient for your own personal circumstances but they are the facts.
Not sure Government statistics out trump personal stories but it seems that's where we are. I'll stick to what I've seen with my own eyes and experienced with more than 'a couple of mates'.
You might want to reread your table again too.
Where's Alan gone to bring this topic back on to far bigger issues. I'm still annoyed at your post Alan.
I'd assume the DPRK have had him executed for talking by now.
I'm hoping he's right! I guess
well that's our choice. base opinions on hard data or base opinions on a chat with some mates. And seemingly be incapable of reading price data which shows that OAP seated prices are broadly in line with the majority.
Good time to leave it I guess.
I genuinely have no idea why I do this to myself but here goes.
Dev, your analysis of the OAP prices is ridiculous, even by your standards.
You say "generous in terms of when senior discounts kick in" and yet 50% are 60, 50% are 65. Neither generous nor ungenerous. If you were on the other side of the argument you could equally say the opposite and have just as much justification. Meaningless
And as for "in line with senior pricing apart from LO and Barnet who seem very cheap". In other words, you looked at 5 other clubs, and if you completely ignore 2 of them, or 40%, then it sort of supports your point (although, it actually doesn't even then)
This would actually be laughable if you weren't so consistently annoying. All it actually does is make all of our experience here a little less enjoyable
Leaving aside the OAP debate the main reason I have not considered investing in the Share Scheme was the total mismanagement that led to the forfeiture of the Lease for the Training Ground.
Following pressure from this messageboard the Trust subsequently issued a fairly detailed response but the point is that it should never have been allowed to happen.
What seemed to make matters worse was the sense of "fait accompli" from the Trust Directors at that time.
How much is that Land worth now - a lot more than we originally sold it for and the end value would certainly dwarf the Ibe transfer fees to be received.
While we are discussing OAP prices, can I throw in another Question. What is the ratio of the OAP's who have made a contribution to the Share Scheme. I have no data but I would guess they are more than 40%, and probably the majority are S/T holders as well.
So what you might say, but in line with a lot of this thread, it could be meaningless data to "debate" during the weakly (pun intended) gripe about the club's performance.
Eric
Numbers not your strong point. 50% of Lg2 clubs in the London area give senior discounts at 60 , the other 50% at 65. It would seem reasonable to judge that those who do at 60 are the more generous in this respect - not that all are equal.
4 out of 6 clubs price senior tickets in the £18 to £21 range. Two are materially cheaper. Which seems to me to suggest that our prices for seniors are in line with the majority and appears to reject Righty's suggestion that they are being badly treated.
Do you have any evidence to the contrary or do you just want as usual to "play the man not the ball"
You remind me of a broken record Dev. Give us all a rest and post something not including continual drivel about the rights and wrongs of discounts for OAP's.