Commercial Manager

[OxshottShrimp]

After yet another season in the Football League, and one that should see us stay in the League for another season, given we now have 50 points, I believe the Club should start looking at the Commercial aspects more closely. Let us face it, since moving to the Globe, the attendances haven't been great and do not show any signs of improving in the future. Even when we have been top of the league early doors we still struggle to get 2,000 on a regular basis.

Why is it that we cannot attract fans? Is the Globe harder to get to on public transport? Can we attract Students? U14 kids for £1 entry, to get them locked in for the future? Our budget is and will remain small until this is properly addressed. It is for that reason that the Commercial Manager (or equivalent) needs to be called to account to look to improve this position. What has been put in place is evidently not working with new ideas needed.

[Shrimpy]

Why is it that we cannot attract fans? Is the Globe harder to get to on public transport? Can we attract Students? U14 kids for £1 entry, to get them locked in for the future?

None are significant issues, people are staying away because we lose more often than we win at home.

[halftimeresults]

It's our style of football! Can it be sorted?
Bus Service to the Globe! Can it be sorted?
Train service! Can it be sorted?
Car Parking at the Globe! Can it be sorted?
Match day Experience! Can it be sorted?

[Wild Bill]

I don't believe we currently have a commercial manager?

Think to be fair the club have tried quite a few ideas to get more fans in, but not all have been successful:

Free bus from uni with £5 tickets (once came with one student on a 52 seater)
Free entry for kids with paying adult
Discounted tickets following the successful free entry match against Dagenham
Decent deals on season tickets

The main problems for me are the football we are currently playing (not very exciting), poor facilities (on three sides), poor transport links to the ground and tickets generally being quite expensive (especially to sit down). All of these probably couldn't be fixed without significant investment.

What the new commercial manager could do though is improve relations with local businesses as there seems to be a worrying amount of fixtures this season without a match sponsor.

[Blackpool Shrimp]

Fleetwood run a free bus service on a match day picking people up from surrounding areas

Why can't we do something like that ???

[Shrimpy]

Fleetwood run a free bus service on a match day picking people up from surrounding areas

Why can't we do something like that ???

Because we don't have a stinking rich chairman that chucks money at every problem encountered.

[Christies Child]

Play entertaining football and the crowds will return. It's down to Jimbo and his tactics I'm afraid.

We play at home as if we are the away team which is OK away from The Globe but NOT at home.

[nobbyshrimp]

Once again a subject which keeps coming back every couple of weeks. Believe it or not other clubs are suffering too. Shrewsbury, who are almost certain to get promoted this season have seen their home attendance drop significantly this season so you see it's not just Morecambe or our style of play

[Pablo]

Play entertaining football and the crowds will return. It's down to Jimbo and his tactics I'm afraid.

We play at home as if we are the away team which is OK away from The Globe but NOT at home.

and your tactics would be ???????????????
Give us a clue

[Pablo]

Once again a subject which keeps coming back every couple of weeks. Believe it or not other clubs are suffering too. Shrewsbury, who are almost certain to get promoted this season have seen their home attendance drop significantly this season so you see it's not just Morecambe or our style of play

totally agree.

[Pablo]

Fleetwood run a free bus service on a match day picking people up from surrounding areas

Why can't we do something like that ???

Because we don't have a stinking rich chairman that chucks money at every problem encountered.

Top facilities being built. Passed it a few times. Training ground and a hotel. Not to sure how many cods it will attract. But hey ho.

[Blackpool Shrimp]

Blackpool transport don't charge Fleetwood for the free bus service so its nothing to do with having a rich chairman
Its a case of if you don't ask you don't get

[Wild Bill]

Why would a local bus company put on a free bus for a football club? Free advertising?

[mfcbro]

Quote from c.c."Play entertaining football and the crowds will return. It's down to Jimbo and his tactics I'm afraid".Do you honestly think Jims tactic are to blame? Ask the players ?Jim sets up to win every game,i can assure you,for some reason it isnt happening.Give it a rest c.c stop running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

[Heysham_Shrimp]

When I go down Morecambe Road into Lancaster about 6-30pm any night of the week , there is a Stagecoach double decker bus full of people coming out of Lancaster in the opposite direction and the destination according to the sign is "Gala Bingo Morecambe".

This may be part of the deal when they shut down "Gala Bingo" in Lancaster to enable Lancaster people to continue playing bingo at Gala.

I am not sure whether it is a free bus for the passengers with Gala picking up the bill for chartering it or if they take the Bingo players and charge them a commercial bus fare.

But if it means 40 or 50 extra fans @ £15 or £20 a head it could be worth our Commercial Department looking into.

[Christies Child]

Quote from c.c."Play entertaining football and the crowds will return. It's down to Jimbo and his tactics I'm afraid".Do you honestly think Jims tactic are to blame? Ask the players ?Jim sets up to win every game,i can assure you,for some reason it isnt happening.Give it a rest c.c stop running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Only an opinion.....but let's agree to disagree. We BOTH want our club to play entertaining football..... that we do agree on.

[Shrimpy]

Quote from c.c."Play entertaining football and the crowds will return. It's down to Jimbo and his tactics I'm afraid".Do you honestly think Jims tactic are to blame? Ask the players ?Jim sets up to win every game,i can assure you,for some reason it isnt happening.Give it a rest c.c stop running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Only an opinion.....but let's agree to disagree. We BOTH want our club to play entertaining football..... that we do agree on.

If we played this entertaining football that you speak of how many more fans do you envision this will bring through the gate?

[BoroRedShrimp]

What I would like to see is discounts for people who may not be working & those employed by emergency & NHS services. Some of these measures do help to encourage people to attend more, as well as other ideas. £21 is a lot of money considering our home form has been poor. Shrewsbury & Wycombe I remember did double decker buses for £3 a fan, but they get better support as to why the buses get used more.

[underbank]

If we played this entertaining football that you speak of how many more fans do you envision this will bring through the gate?

Well in the past couple of seasons, I've seen at least two dozen friends/associates at The Globe ONCE, never to see them again. When I've asked them, they've all said the same - basically they're not wanting to waste their time watching crap football! My brother in law used to be a season ticket holder with his dad and son. They didn't renew two years ago and haven't been since. The reason - the poor football! These are people for whom the usual excuse (Money) isn't relevant as none of these are unemployed/OAPs or redundant - most are professionals or skilled workers who can afford it, but are choosing not to bother.

As for initiatives, a free bus needs to be operated for months to build up the numbers - pointless doing it a few times and scrapping the idea without giving it chance to build. Where was the free entry match this year - doesn't the club constitution say there should be initiatives every year? What have there been this season? The club needs to start advertising in different places and doing different things, but none of that matters if any new supporters we get are put off at the first match by poor entertainment on the pitch.

[Heysham_Shrimp]

We no longer use the advertising board at Skerton as that is now advertising for HGV drivers !

It was never kept up to date though so was of little use.

I used to think that advert in Asda was useful when you think how many people per week walked past it.

[George Dawes]

People dont want to part with their hard earned money to watch this stuff served up on the pitch at home.

We had a hard core 3 seasons ago of 1800 come rain or shine, what is it now?

[BoroRedShrimp]

If we played this entertaining football that you speak of how many more fans do you envision this will bring through the gate?

Well in the past couple of seasons, I've seen at least two dozen friends/associates at The Globe ONCE, never to see them again. When I've asked them, they've all said the same - basically they're not wanting to waste their time watching crap football! My brother in law used to be a season ticket holder with his dad and son. They didn't renew two years ago and haven't been since. The reason - the poor football! These are people for whom the usual excuse (Money) isn't relevant as none of these are unemployed/OAPs or redundant - most are professionals or skilled workers who can afford it, but are choosing not to bother.

As for initiatives, a free bus needs to be operated for months to build up the numbers - pointless doing it a few times and scrapping the idea without giving it chance to build. Where was the free entry match this year - doesn't the club constitution say there should be initiatives every year? What have there been this season? The club needs to start advertising in different places and doing different things, but none of that matters if any new supporters we get are put off at the first match by poor entertainment on the pitch.

You are talking about one family who refuse to pay out for season tickets and attend because of the lack of entertainment. This is not the reason why everybody on the planet doesn't attend football matches, many clubs attendances are down. Fans may presume it is the football when their is a variety of things why people don't attend matches & we are not exclusive in this matter. Bury have an unemployed discount which is an option which may attract a few more fans, surely not everyone who is a football fan is working. NHS discount is another good option, as well as getting NHS students to attend the word can spread, but we can talk to we are blue in the face but to get bums on seats we have to try every option possible.

[Wild Bill]

doesn't the club constitution say there should be initiatives every year? What have there been this season?

Call this wild speculation (what are forums for eh?) but perhaps the directors have held fire on any discounted matches whilst home form has been so crap? Losing in front of a decent crowd of floaters might be counter productive.

[Seasider9601]

Don't forget the Fans Forum next Thurs night (9th) when questions like these can be raised to the powers that be.

[SupermarketShrimp]

Can someone please point to the exact point we played free flowing football and had crowds down Lancaster road?

Bollocks its jims tactics. We had the worst anti football hoofball when we finished 4th.

The games after Christmas sre pretty meaningless as we don't ever had the squad to truly threaten either end of the table so people don't care.

We don't get the squad as we have a tiny fan base.

Nothing constructive has ever been done to truly change this in 20 years (aggressively market towards kids basically) as it's far too much effort as its much easier to cobble together a weird pricing plan and promotions to stick it on a website that no one reads except the people that are going anyway and just end up spending less.

I could get us averaging 2500 at home but I doubt they'd pay me what I want and I'm not relocating back north any time soon!