The Manifesto for Change in Non League Footballpt2

8/6/2019 The Manifesto for Change in Non League Footballpt2

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The Manifesto for change in Non League football Part 2

Stuart Fuller from The Ball is Round brings us the second of a three part

document on some sensible changes needed for Non League football to

continue to survive.

Non league football is the lifeblood of the game today, yet gets little attention from themedia (apart from radio shows like the excellent BBC Non League Show or the NonLeague Paper). It is not in the best of shape to put it mildly. In the past year numerousclubs have gone to the wall, with not even a batting of an eye from the Premier Leagueor the Football League. So what can we do about it? Well, we've got our headstogether and come up with our 10 point agenda for change, our manifesto if you like.

After the successful launch of our campaign, and our feature on the BBC Non LeagueShow no less we are ploughing on with points 4 to 6 on our agenda for change.

4. All clubs to offer free entry to under 16's.Let's face it, children should not have to pay to watchfootball. In fact how many actually watch the whole

game anyway? Earlier in March I took both of my youngchildren to Chelmsford City. They were charged 3.50each. 7 for two under ten's who were then going tospend about the same on snacks, sweets and drinks.They saw no value in the 7. How is charging thatamount encouraging parents to bring their children to thegames.

Families are being priced out of the professional game.Even in League Two, a child of 7 years old can be

charged at up to 10. In the Blue Square Bet Premiersome clubs charge up to 7 for juniors which again is fartoo high.

My reasoning? The pocket money test. Apparently the average weekly pocket moneyfor a ten year old in England is 4.92, well according to the Daily Mail so it's not 100%correct. In the Fuller household it is 2.50, rising to 3.50 for chores. So according toCrawley Town, if a ten year old wanted to go to a game they will have to pay twice theweekly "salary" of my ten year old. To put that in an adult context, if they charged thesame twice the weekly wage to get in then a ticket to watch a Blue Square Bet Premierleague game would cost over 1,600!


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At the start of this season I did some research on behalf of Lewes FC on ticket prices.The cheapest basic entry in the league was 9, the most expensive 11.50

(Chelmsford City again). But only two clubs offered free entry for the under 16's -Lewes and Farnborough. Since then a number of clubs have brought in the schemerealising the value it has as a marketing tool.

As Peter Kay said, children are the future so clubs should be doing everything they canto get them in young AND engage with them. It costs the clubs zero, not a bean, zilch,nothing to accommodate a child standing on the terrace, so why charge them at all?You know full well that they will harrang their parent(s) for money to spend when inside

so let them in free.

Benefit for the clubs - it boosts their attendance figures, kids will want to come back if

you engage with them and they MAY just realise there are more bragging rights atschool about being an actual attending Dartford/Boston/Hyde fan than an armchairSpurs/Liverpool/Portsmouth one.

No brainer really, but we all know that some clubs keep their brains in their wallets.

5. Allow fans to be able to drink beer on the terraces whilst watching the game. On the day that Lewes FC were relegated from the Blue Square Premier in March 2009a number of fans actually rejoiced as the demotion back to the regional league meantthat they could once again enjoy a fine pint of Harveys beer on the terrace. One of the

joys of the non league game is being able to have a beer and enjoy the game in front ofyou.

Not all clubs are allowed, or even allowfans to drink outside of their club housesfor a number of reasons. It may be downto specific licencing regulations, it may bedown to covenants on the ground or itmay simply be because they do not trusttheir fans to behave. I would hope it is notthe latter, but there does seem to be some

huge inconsistencies on the regulationsregarding alcohol and watching nonleague football. So let's make it simple.Allow beer to be drunk on the terraces at

all games. I simply do not see what theissue is?

Bar staff can still refuse to serve fans who appear to be already under the influence, theclub boosts its revenues as instead of a mad rush in the fifteen minutes of half time


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trade will be more spread out and their premises becomes more appealing to breweriesfor promotions.

We've seen a number of large travelling groups of support down at The Dripping Panthis season. Dartford came in their hundreds, drank lots, sang lots and thoroughlyenjoyed themselves. Ditto Chelmsford City and Woking. One of the reasons was thatLewes is seen as a "good day out" in their calendar - and one reason is the fact you canhave a beer whilst you watch the game. Ditto The Beveree, home of Hampton &Richmond Borough.

Let's assume that you have a crowd of 500.Of those, 250 are having a beer. Asensible (chortle) man may have a beer

every thirty minutes, so they may have 3during the game. A beer costs 3.50, ofwhich the club makes 1. So allowingalcohol on the terraces is worth in this case

250 x 3 x 1 = 750, times 24 games (league plus a couple of cups) = 18,000 profit forthe club. If it is not allowed then this number will be reduced dramatically.

I am not going to get into this whole cricket/rugby debate as to why they can drink whilsta game is going on and at football you cannot. Test matches go on for 7/8 hours butalcohol is served for the whole period (bar a one hour "cooling off period" after lunch)without any issue at all. 23,500 pissed up people at an Ashes test at the Oval or 100watching Worthing versus Ramsgate? Which one poses the biggest issue? Wellapparently the latter as alcohol would not be allowed to be served for such a game atthe A2B Arena.

One final point...The FA Trophy and Vase. The cup competition for steps 1 to 7 in theNon League pyramid. Step 1 (Blue Square Bet Premier) clubs do not allow fans to drinkin sight of the pitch....yet the competition is sponsored by....Carlsberg. Insert your own"if Carlsberg did" tag lines there.

6. Play the FA Trophy and FA Vase at Wembley on the same day.

Last May Wembley Stadium hosted seven "cup finals" plus an England International.The level of criticism that was aimed at the FA for playing so much football on a poor

pitch was understandable, but they claimed they could do nothing about it. Well, withthe UEFA cash cow rolling into town this year it is amazing to see that they have bentover backwards to ensure the pitch is used sparingly prior to the showpeice event.

Two particular events do not need separate dates in the calendar. The FA Trophy andVase competitions are worthwhile for the clubs who play in them, but do they reallyneed to be played at Wembley on different days? Look at the attendances for each inthe past three seasons:-


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FA Trophy2010 - Barrow 2 Stevenage Borough 1 - 21,2232009 - Stevenage Borough 2 York City 0 - 27,1022008 - Ebbsfleet United 1 Torquay United 0 - 40,186

FA Vase2010 - Whitley Bay 6 Wroxham 1 - 8,9202009 - Whitley Bay 2 Glossup North End 0 - 12,2122008 - Kirkham & Wesham 2 Lowestoft Town 1 - 18,000

So in a good year the combinedattendance is less than 60,000 or twothirds of the stadium. Last season it was

half of that. How difficult would it be toplay both games on the same day? Makeit a real Non league day out - a celebrationof the grass roots. Wembley can easilycope. The stadium can be segregated in anumber of ways, the changing rooms arebig enough to cope with two NFL teamsplus their huge entourages so four footballteams will not be an issue, and then theground staff have an extra day in thecalendar to repair the pitch.

In fact the FA could actively encourageneutral fans to the finals day. Last season ticket prices for the FA Trophy ranged from25 to 45. Eventual winners Barrow AFC charge visitors to their fantastic HolkerStreet ground 13.and For the FA Vase they were 25 for Adults and 12.50 forconcessions. Again, call me old fashioned, but why should Kings Lynn (semi finaliststhis year)or Barrow fans be expected to pay almost 4 x as much for a final ticket as theywould for a semi final one at their ground? But if you make it a double header thenthere is value in the combined ticket - 30 for two games at Wembley Stadium.

And whilst we are at it, why not give every club in steps 1 to 7 (aka all the teams thatcould make it to either final) some free tickets to give away for the finals day? Thisseason a total of 815 teams entered the combined competitions. If we assume that amaximum of 60,000 tickets are allocated to the four finalists, and that 10,000 tickets areused for segregation and the corporate bunnies, that leaves 20,000 that could bedistributed. Give each club 20 tickets to be distributed or used as competition prizes.Fill up the stadium, make it a real Non league day out. 9,000 people who have paid

25, sitting in a stadium for 90,000 is not a good day out irrespective of the result.


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Documents

The Manifesto for Change in Non League Footballpt2