There are lots of reasons why so many feel such a disconnect. There will be dozens of things that different supporters want to change and make suggestions about.
Not all of them are possible of course.
For me there are 3 huge current failures to address:
1. Communication and PR is terrible.
The Club - or rather senior figures - communicate appallingly.
They don’t listen and appear uninterested in feedback, let alone criticism.
There is a distance, an arrogance, bordering on distain and contempt.
The utter fiasco around EB 2024 perfectly illustrates.
The audiences granted to approved select groups do not help. These groups don’t even communicate to the wider fans. How on earth can they claim to be, or be considered as representative?
Some of the attendees supposedly do challenge, but on what subject and in what way, we have no idea.
Everyone is so afraid of the elephant in the room.
Gibson does fund the losses made, he has no palatable alternative. So he is different in that respect to Amer.
But in the detached, removed, high handed way he operates, there are some glaring similarities.
2. Ticket price strategy is idiotic.
There is a perception that prices are too high, and then some complete idiots say the lunatic GRFZ should be extended everywhere.
Match day Prices versus EB in GRFZ is binary. Both opposing poles of stupidity.
EB SC prices do offer reasonable value.
All Concession EB SC prices offer good value.
GRFZ prices are unnecessarily low. The section generates far too little.
Yet match day attendees are positioned with insult pricing, making taking a family simply unjustifiable on anything other than a very occasional basis.
Treating new applicants as another premium opportunity is sad.
If I had paid over £120 on Saturday to take my missus and two primary school kids, I don’t think I would be rushing back soon.
The pricing structure is so stubbornly inflexible.
Our stadium could be full in the second tier, and in the top tier.
The notion the stadium is too big is coming from the vacuous brains that think MFC catchment area is only a part of the Tees Valley, let alone daring to extend into North Yorks or County Durham.
Of course our attendance is status and performance elastic, as it is price and experience elastic.
But it is mind numbingly dim to think that there can’t be pricing policy to flex with the other levers.
It is about having the skill to price and to communicate.
3. Commercial incompetence
Everything to do with the Commercial operation is shoddy: Range, quality, pricing, availability, presentation, service.
Not to recognise this implies you live underground and never leave home.
To leave so many and so much opportunity unsatisfied or dissatisfied is negligent.
There is for me a 4th reason for feeling a current real disconnect, but I accept it doesn’t seem to be for others.
I personally have absolutely no faith in Kieran Scott and this “model” of trusting a recruitment guru to provide a promotion winning squad whilst also generating huge transfer profits to offset the losses guaranteed in the Championship without Parachute Payments.
Kieran may short term deliver transfer profits, but we will languish where we are.
There are no players in the current squad who get me out of my seat, or even impact my heart rate. I wouldn’t care if any player left.
I do still care about Carrick because I saw what he did with quality last season. We didn’t go up, but played outstanding football and I felt a huge connection with that team.
Of course we need recruitment expertise, but implying Scott provides this is akin to thinking the only way to address ticket pricing is to extend the GRFZ.
or even buy 3 consecutive tickets and its a sliding scale, say 20,25,30 quid im a st holder and am happy to pay up front but we all know the state of teesside, but a full stadium and good atmosphere must be better than a few quid more and a half empty ground