I've told you a million times that I have my own team and therefore I can only generally go when we don't have a game. That's either the odd Tuesday or if a game gets called off at the last minute. It means I have no choice but to pay the cost as a walk up fan. The going rate, as I have also said many times, may be 'competitive' but it is not affordable. I wouldn't be going on about this so much if you would just listen and acknowledge that quite a few fans (myself included) are not prepared to pay £23 to watch the team play.
The Stoke game was different to a normal fixture, as I would have been prepared to sack my own match off to go (in advance). For £23 it's not going to happen though. Funnily enough, 2 of my players actually said exactly the same thing. I guess they are just full of shit too?
The match package thing is also another flawed argument. If someone is struggling to put the cash up front for a ticket on the gate, how are they supposed to have the capital to fund a match package? I think they are good schemes, but it doesn't solve the problem for everyone like you think it does.
Just look at how many walk ups we get per week. It's alarmingly low considering we are in the automatic spots and have been in the playoffs consistently. I know when we were in this position with Mowbray (around the same time of year) it was in a division higher, but we got some really decent attendances and they were growing each week. A ticket was £18 in advance.
It makes a difference to people like me.
So you would sack your match off for £20 but not £23? This is the point I am making where you make out so many are sat at home with a £20 note on the table saying they can't go because it is £23. I know people exactly the same and it's guaranteed that when the tickets are for example £20 they will spend more than that on beer and probably chuck more than that in a fruit machine as well for the game.
This is where I say I can understand if they were £60 and everybody else was £20 that it would be silly. It isn't though, you are saying you would not bother with your own game if it was a couple of quid less but wouldn't over a couple of quid more which is the point I'm making about the differences.
You don't have to pay the gate price, I went and bought tickets on the day on Saturday and didn't pay gate / walk up price.
I understand people have priorities, would I expect somebody to buy a match ticket over paying rent, feeding themselves and kids etc etc of course not. I can fully understand people would need to use £3 for electric and things like that.
It also comes down to then if people really are that arsed as to where it comes in their list of priorities, not saying you at all but just in general and examples I know where people will happily chuck loads at beer, chuck some in the casino before or after, chuck some in the bandit and judging by some games chuck some up their nose but then moan about a couple of quid on the match ticket.
I have pointed out multiple times about the vouchers in the JSB pack, sign a kid up and get family tickets of 2 adults 2 kids for £22 so £11 per adult and the kids are free (plus the JSB is free as well). I have never understood why people would pay full whack for a kid when they can sign them up as a JSB.
If 2 people have a kid each, sign them both up for £25 and said kid then get's free tickets to games, they get a free gift, invites to party and christmas cards etc so it's well worth it before any vouchers.
They then get 2 vouchers each for family tickets for £22, that's potentially 4 games at £11 each at whichever home games they want.