A few were away around me. Was "Kids for a Quid" though (hence the defeat!)... Derby didn't bring more than 900 either. Bets its 14/15k for West Ham/Birmingham.
These are strange days...not just in London, but yeah specifically London. When things cool down, numbers should recover.
I know lots of people who once went to every home game that are now being selective about which matches they attend. "Money's too tight to mention" sang the ginger soulman
Derby didn't bring many, which would've contributed, Rookery seemed fairly packed but Rous & Rd end can't haven been too busy then!
August games are often poorly supported due to a lot of people being on holiday, and quite a few football fans are also cricket fans, and a lot even play cricket, which also affects the gate. Add to that the other problems, such as the riots, which might have put some people off, and of course the current economic climate, and hey presto!!! Low attendances.
Sadly this seasons attendances will be down on last season again. There seems to be a number of factors as to why. Some of the more obvious reasons are selling your best players etc but to think of someway to increase attendances I think you have to improve the product on offer also to make it easier to attend. Parking. A. The Council for years seem to have a policy which discourages driving into Watford. Parking near Vicarage Road now is impossible. Provide parking nearby (like their used to be) or Turn the allotments into a multi story car park for football fans and hospital workers/visitors. B. Public Transport to Vicarage Road is poor. Trying to get to the ground on a matchday is very time consuming, expensive and sometimes impossible even from other Hertfordshire areas. Not sure how to solve this one but a few years back we had a Stadium Halt station and special busses from other towns coming to the ground. C. Tickets. Watford is the cheapest place to watch football in the Championship, great. Kids for a pound etc is fantastic even though we always lose. These fans are the future, look after them and they will return. As a season ticket holder I would much prefer to have a full ground than half empty.PLEASE DON'T PUT THE FAMILY TICKETS IN THE VICARAGE ROAD STAND for obvious reasons its not much fun! D. New Main Stand. This cant come soon enough it really should have been done with the Premiership money. The east side in its current state is embarrassing. Thanks Mr. Ashton & co I remember when the three other stands where completed there was a feeling of real pride and achievement with fans on each occasion. The replacement should be big enough for the odd season in the premiership. Which brings me to: E. Ambition. Gates would increase if WFC HAD AMBITION. At the moment there is only one, to stay in the Championship. Look at the clubs with ambition, their gates reflect the mood at the club. I know its all about money now ..... "ELTON HELP!" There are loads more ways to encourage more fans to attend like improving the atmosphere (over the top stewards) and generally improving the whole matchday experience like losing the ENJOY THE GAMMMMME twot whats he gonna sound like with the new pa system. Take the drum off Harry. The Hornets Shop is non league.etc etc ...rant over..
Think you'll find that if there is a small increase in season tickets there are less pay on the day customers. The Season Ticket prices were very good value.
:S You imply that the decrease in pay on the day was a result of those people taking up the cheaper season tickets, which means the same amount of people would be going. We will have the same attendances we usually do, which are entirely in proportion to the size of the town.
The attendances have be decreasing for a while now and will continue to do so. The size of the town hasn't got much to do with it. There are no boundries for supporting a football club. I don't live in Watford and still go. I think Watford are not alone with smaller attendances this season, Palace 13,000 Barnsley 10,000 Ipswich 18,000 all way down on last season, stood out yesterday.
TBF I am not sure we could complain about lack of ambition as such because we are limited in someway by previous mis-management. But I guess people paying high prices do have expectations to see some good football which is fair enough.
That's complete and utter toliet and you know it. You are not paying high prices as Watford come out the cheapest to watch football in a recent survey at Championship level.
Some might think paying £26 isn't worth the expense though IF they are the type that want to see great football in a nice ground which ours isn't ATM. I agree its certainly not the most costly though and we do a good job encouraging the future fans to come but shame we always seem to lose as pointed out before. We're never going to attract the big crowds like some do in this league ofcourse. Anyway my main point was about some saying we lack ambition (it could be argued we are paying for the supposed ambition shown by Boothroyd and co pre Premiership days infact!)
I think its a number of factors to be honest... - Time of year, holidays and whatever - Some sections of the fans disillusioned after another manager leaving and then trying to nick players - Money in general and people being careful I also noticed that the town was pretty dead before and after the match.
Watching Championship football nowdays will set you back around 25 sheets on average unless you buy a season ticket. That's not going to change in the near future. Lets not forget this was your first match at home of the season and everyone should be buzzing. That's my two pennies worth anyway.
Of it is to do with the size of the town! Why on earth would somebody not from Watford, or at least the immediate surrounding towns, support Watford? There is absolutely no reason why they would, especially in the second tier and especially with so many successful London clubs down the road. Watford is about the same size as Barnsley, so we get similar attendances. Derby has a population of 250,000, so they get 25,000+ fans. Same with Norwich, Leicester, Southampton etc, and now Brighton too. Small, shyte clubs in big towns like Stoke, Hull, Foolam, Wigan and that have had money pumped in to make them successful. We haven't, and are pretty much the same size we have been for the last twenty years. I don't know why we would be getting more than a 13,000 average in the second tier. I'm not sure we ever have, at least since the Premiershyte appeared. Our natural attendance is somewhere between 11-14,000. When big clubs come to town like Wet Spam we might get 18,000, when normal teams come to town we will get 12-13. If we charged a quid we would get 500,000 obviously, but for £25+ we aren't going to be pulling many more than 13,000 very often I don't think.
I have met loads of fans who support a club that they have no logical reason to do so. Watford has its fair share. Watfords average crowds in the last few years is this: 13,108 10/11 14,344 09/10 14,858 08/09 16,876 07/08 18,751 06/07 (prem)
Exactly my point. In the Prem naturally you will sell out, since then we have lost the glory hunters who only wanted to see us promoted. Since then it has fallen in line with how many proper fans there are. Broadly speaking. As nascot said, Maybe even 11,000 is an overestimation.
I have no logical reason to support Watford other than I happened come to a match as they were doing a kid deal many years ago... have bought a season ticket for me and the family for the last 10 yrs now. I live 50 miles away, and always have, and have never lived in Watford
The cost of the football isn't an issue for me at Watford. I get the impression there are a lot of fans like me though, who have to shell out £40 odd for a train ticket to get to every game. 40 X (23+3(for the cups)) = £1,060. Hence why I, a student, didn't renew my season ticket. I also thing Watford has one of the youngest fan bases, based on my away trips, so this cost all added together is too much. Our next wave of support will naturally come from our premiership years. Those 18, like me now, will have been drawn in by the 2 promotions 97-99 and the prem, and now a lot of us will be going to uni and so I reckon that could contribute. I haven't written that well I know, sorry, but I hope you get my gist.
Tedious point. If you're good people will go to watch if you're not they won't. The argument about 'proper' fans versus 'glory hunters' is just small minded and counter productive.
Because I got Hospitality at about 3 hours notice I wanted to give my season ticket away, did not want any money just wanted it to be used and hoped the person who used bought a beer or even shirt to help the club, and may come back in the future if they enjoyed it. I called ten people and not one wanted it, it just got wasted, this has never happend before, sign of the times?
