Charlton Athletic initiatives
There are maybe certain things that are wrong in football but throughout the EFL & Premier League there are some great ideas & initiatives going on.
I went to watch Watford v Chelsea last week & it’s interesting to see the way Watford are leading the way on inclusion in football (something WW are trying to do too).
I’ve always held up Charlton Athletic’s move back to the Valley from ground-sharing at Crystal Palace as a blueprint of how to build support in the local community. But Charlton’s catchment area now extends to the whole of Kent. For their match at AFC Wimbledon on Boxing Day, Charlton are running 2 coaches that pick up from all over Kent - even as far away as Canterbury. This is to help supporters with little public transport on that day.
For their recent match v Plymouth Argyle they gave season-ticket holders the chance to claim 3 free tickets. They had a crowd of 25,500 (including 3,000 from Plymouth).
They are repeating this exercise v Ipswich on Tuesday 7th December. Already, 22,500 tickets have been snapped up and it looks as though the attempt to create a top atmosphere for a big game has worked again.
Maybe this would be a nice present for WW season-ticket holders on Boxing Day v Cambridge United? Wouldn’t it be lovely to see Adams Park full for a big holiday game?
Comments
Not great for the other Kent clubs is it?
We could send a free taxi to every ST holder's doorstep and we still wouldn't fill AP on Boxing Day
In the 70 and 80's Southampton coaching and Soccer schools were all over Wycombe and Bucks (albeit with what turns out to be some dubious coaches) promoting the Saints. Watford have done similar things, MK Franchise have flooded Aylesbury and North Bucks with free and discounted tickets for years.
In the mid 90's, after some financial woes Gillingham did a big promotion as 'The Kent club' and saw gates rise steeply.
It really is dog eat dog in neighbouring areas, but i've never seen us do anything extensive to drum up support in close by towns and villages to promote us as Bucks Premier sporting organisation.
As The Secret Affair once sang 'It's Time for Action' !!
Some of the coaching initiatives with a club logo and some free kids tickets attached have turned out to be massive scams, far from investing in areas for a bit of outreach some charge big fees for kit and sessions. The likes of Juventus and clubs of that size run schemes around the world and the kiddies get to pretend they play for a big team. Their parents get to pay out.
Think Rob has been largely against giving away too many free tickets as it can be a perpetual thing (Hello MK) and stop people actually buying and seeing the value. Have to do some introduction but balance that against simply giving days out to people who might have come anyway or won't come again regardless.
Rob Couhig seems to favour value over volume. In the past you could almost guarantee a few cheap ticket deals now. They've even chosen to remove the seven pound burger rather than discount off it as I thought they would. (Although clearly the app hasn't worked as intended).
Couhig has chosen to add fire and fireworks rather than discount to kid a quid days.
I miss the days of "Quid a Kid" and alike. It def helped fill the grounds with the merchandise sales that we liked with it. I do think that the club need to re-engage with the community, have a Community Day where schools and youth groups are actively invited to come along and build up that interest in the club.
I know that the club could lose money on the discounted tickets etc but if 500 of those fans return more frequently, surely thats only going to be a good thing.
It won't be like MK, our stadium is fit for purpose, we have a history and are more well established than them!
But 500 of those fans don't return though do they as all the other quid a kid days have proven. Might get a handful, but no more sadly.
@EwanHoosaami Sadly true. Since the early 90s explosion of interest, the only other time it's ever looked like the supporter base might undergo a sustained growth was after the Liverpool semi. Unfortunately, on-field performances took a turn for the worse, and within a few years we were back to where we were before, and relegated to boot.
Not only that. Quid a Kid matches almost invariably turned out to be amongst our worst, least entertaining games of the season.
If you want to attract kids and their families then we need to make the match day experience more entertaining for them...
Also the WSET must be engaging lots of young people across the town, there must be a way to engage them in encouraging youngsters to games
Maybe offer them something to eat other than overpriced pies...
I really like the Charlton 'Bring A Friend' initiative. Would be great to see a full Adams Park again.
One of my colleagues went to the Charlton game with his nipper....though a welcome idea there were a lot of restricted view seats included in the offer. Pictures show they had to view the game through a bit of a mesh...