Seats in the Mayflower?

Already there's lots of regular Argyle fans complaining they wont be able to get a ticket for Saturday. Surely the club should step up and get those seats put back into the Mayflower? 4k seats I believe cost 100k for a season or 12 months. Do it.

Coxside_Green wrote:

Already there's lots of regular Argyle fans complaining they wont be able to get a ticket for Saturday.  Surely the club should step up and get those seats put back into the Mayflower?  4k seats I believe cost 100k for a season or 12 months.  Do it.

This was debated somewhere else and the conclusion was that JB would not do this.

I wonder why not?

I feel for those regulars who will miss out and hope they're not put off attending next season.

Mock raised this the other day.

Its too late now in anycase to put the seats in given they will have to do groundwork to make it safe and get it signed off, PLUS given the price it would cost the demand has to be high enough. Plus Brent wont pay for it and i doubt the council will either.


But we dont need a big grandstand though do we???

Coxside_Green wrote:

Already there's lots of regular Argyle fans complaining they wont be able to get a ticket for Saturday.  

Since home the home attendance average is probably around 7,000 I would think that all 'regular' fans would be able to get a ticket.

If not... Blame those damn 'glory hunters' that Newell is always complaining about, but the club is always trying to attract, for ruining things....

Fair enough it's too late, they did have 2 weeks though. Yet another OG. I just hope this further outlines what crap 'owners' we have. The cost of seating would be largely met by Exeter alone. We've now lost income.

Rickler wrote:

Coxside_Green wrote:

Already there's lots of regular Argyle fans complaining they wont be able to get a ticket for Saturday.  

Since home the home attendance average is probably around 7,000 I would think that all 'regular' fans would be able to get a ticket.  

If not...  Blame those damn 'glory hunters' that Newell is always complaining about, but the club is always trying to attract, for ruining things....

Lolz, we all know it's the same 7k every week.  How many people on the Argo database?  You should know all this given your highly esteemed position

Am I being whooshed here?

The ideology you put forth clearly states you support the ministand. Surely not?

The core 7000 who go will get the tickets plus i wager there being close to double that on saturday.

Hope there is as itt will show the idiots like webb and brent that when the club does well the gate grows hence why building a smaller grandstand is the worst idea ever.

The fact those extra 4k seats haven't been made available takes away any real enjoyment of where we are. My Grandfather was right.

I'm not a "regular", but given the chance I will be there, because I'm a fan and having gone to probably a minimum of 5 games a season across the past shit 10 years since we last had a promotion, and obviously being nerd enough to rack up x amount of hours 'following' the club on here and otherwise from afar, I would like to be there and have the chance, at least, of something resembling a good time with the club - which has been all too rare fore shore.

Obviously there is still a decent enough chance that I get a ticket online on Thursday morning, and I understand that those who go to every match as season ticket holders or whatever get priority, but it is a shame that the capacity is so reduced. There might be thousands who hold a strong association with the club who might not bother next weekend because of the limited capacity - even if we don't sellout.

Otherwise I'll have to hope we get to Wembley, which to be fair is a much easier journey from where I am anyway!

I don't blame those non 'regulars' who get a ticket. It's the sort of game we all want to attend, it's big and ooj. Personally I won't be attempting to get a ticket but would love one if thrown at me. If it ain't a sell out then the club has severely fecked up (it wouldn't be a first).

Wembley? as rare as the eclipse, this plastic will attend with absolutely no guilt.

The cold, hard fact is that limited capacity limits the attendance figure.

For starters it puts pressure on ticketing arrangements. The actual task of getting a ticket is difficult no matter what the system is. Once tickets are purchased people get separated from other people. Others who don't have a ticket know that their mate does and that they won't be able to sit together and so they don't bother. And so it goes on.

If, on the day, the club was able to say "we've sold 15000 tickets but there's room for another 10000 so please come along and don't miss the big occasion" then how many people might go? We'll never know but it is sure to be more than we get next Saturday. I'd guess we'd get 20k without a problem. By the time a bit of "cup fever" takes hold we might even get 30000. But we can't so we won't and 15000 people are robbed of the big occasion that just might hook them for life.

But that is exactly what used to happen years ago e.g. when we got 27000 on a Tuesday night to play Blackburn. People just rocked up because they knew they'd get in - might have to queue but were sure to get in.

Who in their right mind would do that now? There's going to be the committed fans who get tickets anyway but the Glory Hunters never bother because they know they won't get in, know they will get the worst seats if they do and know they'll be separated from family and/or mates to boot.

Seats on the Mayflower would be a good start but, really, we need somewhere near 25000 seats if we are ever to shake off the mediocrity that we have allowed to engulf us.

Well said SFD.

I really don't understand why the seats aren't still there or at least put back in place. It started out as penny pinching from Keith Todd et al. Considering the way we were headed it sort of made sense, the fact we were unlikely to have a sell out crowd anytime soon.

Since then we've had local derbies and this season potential games that really should've attracted higher attendances. The turnout Vs Mansfield and Wimbledon was very disappointing but the club never 'sold' these games.

We have lost out financially, why?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

The cold, hard fact is that limited capacity limits the attendance figure.

For starters it puts pressure on ticketing arrangements. The actual task of getting a ticket is difficult no matter what the system is. Once tickets are purchased people get separated from other people. Others who don't have a ticket know that their mate does and that they won't be able to sit together and so they don't bother. And so it goes on.

If, on the day, the club was able to say "we've sold 15000 tickets but there's room for another 10000 so please come along and don't miss the big occasion" then how many people might go? We'll never know but it is sure to be more than we get next Saturday. I'd guess we'd get 20k without a problem. By the time a bit of "cup fever" takes hold we might even get 30000. But we can't so we won't and 15000 people are robbed of the big occasion that just might hook them for life.

But that is exactly what used to happen years ago e.g. when we got 27000 on a Tuesday night to play Blackburn. People just rocked up because they knew they'd get in - might have to queue but were sure to get in.

Who in their right mind would do that now? There's going to be the committed fans who get tickets anyway but the Glory Hunters never bother because they know they won't get in, know they will get the worst seats if they do and know they'll be separated from family and/or mates to boot.

Seats on the Mayflower would be a good start but, really, we need somewhere near 25000 seats if we are ever to shake off the mediocrity that we have allowed to engulf us.

The ole "temp" seats where popular as they you could sit were you liked as they werent allocated. Only draw backs is if the club could bring them back to accommodate demand is whether the reluctant one will use this as another excuse not to build a new stand for a few years if the club would be allowed to have them like the old board did when they brought them in under FA Rules.

Also as the seats can only be temporary would the FA allow the club to do it again that would have to be looked into seriously before it goes any futher.

Angry wrote:

Also as the seats can only be temporary would the FA allow the club to do it again that would have to be looked into seriously before it goes any futher.

A fair point and one I probably overlooked.  We really did get screwed over (as if it wasn't already obvious enough)

That said, it wouldn't be against any rules to call them permanent (albeit for a relatively short time)?

Safe-standing trial.

It's so obvious.

The club should contact whoever it is that does the safestanding for football grounds and volunteer themselves for a trial - the safestanding people would probably even pick up the cost were it to go ahead.

Then for a season we have the Mayflower Terrace back - and Brent doesn't even lose face for abandoning his crackpot scheme because it is only a fixed-term trial.

If only we had men of vision in charge instead of what we have.

SFD, you've missed one vital point. If the attendance was much higher there would only be a few thousand Wycombe fans left at home to watch the game on Sky.

How many people do Sky honestly think will watch this game on a Saturday night? Can anybody remember ever watching a game that started that late on a Saturday, when a sizable chunk of the football watching population are down the pub or watching one of those "X-Factor / Britains Got Talent" type programmes.

You've got to feel for the exiled fans who travel down on a Saturday and will now have to stay overnight or get home at stupid o'clock in the morning.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Safe-standing trial.

It's so obvious.

The club should contact whoever it is that does the safestanding for football grounds and volunteer themselves for a trial - the safestanding people would probably even pick up the cost were it to go ahead.

Then for a season we have the Mayflower Terrace back - and Brent doesn't even lose face for abandoning his crackpot scheme because it is only a fixed-term trial.

If only we had men of vision in charge instead of what we have.

It wouldnt be down to the club and the ones running the safestanding campaign it again would be down to the FA. They could try it i guess and see where it gets them.

Angry wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Safe-standing trial.

It's so obvious.

The club should contact whoever it is that does the safestanding for football grounds and volunteer themselves for a trial - the safestanding people would probably even pick up the cost were it to go ahead.

Then for a season we have the Mayflower Terrace back - and Brent doesn't even lose face for abandoning his crackpot scheme because it is only a fixed-term trial.

If only we had men of vision in charge instead of what we have.

It wouldnt be down to the club and the ones running the safestanding campaign it again would be down to the FA. They could try it i guess and see where it gets them.

What is there to lose?

Either we are allowed to trial safestanding in which case everybody is happy or we are not and everything is the same as it is anyway except the club could say "sorry fans, we'd love you have what you want and have tried to give it to you but the FA said we weren't allowed to".

It's not quite win/win/win but it isn't far off and it is nowhere near a "lose".

There is talk of six clubs being allowed to conduct a pilot scheme for safe standing. Not sure where they are with that, without looking it up.

The current terracing steps on the Mayflower is unlikely to be high enough to give the required height for the seats behind to see over the ones in front. I think it's called "rake". The terracing would probably need some alteration work to be able to install safe standing. I'd have to check it all out again, it's a while since I looked into for the Trust.

Richard Blight wrote:

There is talk of six clubs being allowed to conduct a pilot scheme for safe standing. Not sure where they are with that, without looking it up.

The current terracing steps on the Mayflower is unlikely to be high enough to give the required height for the seats behind to see over the ones in front. I think it's called "rake". The terracing would probably need some alteration work to be able to install safe standing. I'd have to check it all out again, it's a while since I looked into for the Trust.

so much easier to have a stand for standing/terracing without having it mixed with seating for me

If I was a decision maker I'd probably rule out any experiment of safe standing at Argyle for reasons already given by Richard. It would be too expensive and probably wouldn't prove anything. A club like Bournemouth would probably be a better example, they're sure to sell out. Or more preferably a club that doesn't always sell out, like Cardiff. As an experiment there's little to gleam from Argyle.

In a similar vein the club will make a chunk if they can get to Wembley. I reckon getting to the final could be worth min £400K based on the split the FL rules dictate.

Play-off incomeThe 4 teams in the semi's equally share 50% of the income from the four games and the rest to the ''Pool'' (my estimates for crowd size are Argyle 12K / WW 6K / Saffend 8K / Stevenage 8K and using £20 per ticket)
The two teams at Wembury share 50% of the gate money – not TV money. (40K at £40)

Tony, money from TV is no doubt welcome for Stevanage with their fans no doubt delighted to be playing the likes of Argyle, Pompey, Luton and many others in their journey.

Are we really at that level?  No disrespect to Stevanage but we are a long established professional outfit.  TV money is paltry (at this level) compared to what should be our longer term aims.