newyddion
Well-known member
Hmm.. a very different experience to the previous consultation evenings with a few of our concerns being confirmed and the clubs failings and weaknesses being all that more apparent.
Head of Marketing a huge red flag right from the off (for me) For someone who is involved in sales he is dull as dishwater.. can’t even sell himself. No enthusiasm or passion. Can’t even sell the night to the folks that have turned up for it. How to improve the matchday experience? The fan engagement night was an ideal opportunity to show that they were trying and that they were capable of.. something. But no.. no music no match day footage, no crowd noise.. just a very stale function room with a very awkward atmosphere.
Anyway.. after one single solitary clap (so awkward) we were off!!
Folks were grouped onto tables and a club facilitator was assigned.. great stuff.
“So.. what would you do to improve the atmosphere then” - pretty stark, blunt and to the point. No prompts, no structure no prior discussion of what the club actually would like to hear of acknowledgment of areas they would like to improve. (This felt very much like a box ticking exercise) I think our table were quite taken back by this and no one looked comfortable enough to set the ball rolling. But hey it’s one of them things.. you gotta start somewhere and maybe there would be a more structured part to it later on.
I’m not scared..
The matchday experience, the atmosphere will always come from the fans.. if there are no fans there there will be no atmosphere.. we’ve seen fan groups like the Early incarnation of Red Faction put some great stuff together with tifos and flares.. and the club has came down on them like a ton of bricks.. it seems whatever magic that they brought has been quashed or cut out. Maybe the club needed to take the rough with the smooth a little bit more with that.
The club makes it hard for people to support the club.. from buying shirts to buying tickets it doesn’t need to be as hard as they make it. The early bird ticket fiasco created a LOT of resentment within the fanbase and that resentment is still there.. it planted a seed of doubt and made a lot of fans feel like they were being taken for granted.. even the hardcore fans.. let alone those who were maybe sitting on the fence. That hasn’t been addressed and the club never held their hands up over that.. just business as usual. They may feel quite smug that they only lost a few thousand tickets that season.. but it will continue.
Why do the club make it so hard for fans to hand money over to them in return for good and services? Friends that are visiting from out of town struggle to get a ticket on the odd impromptu visit.. elder relatives who do not use the internet or have a boro id.. they find it really difficult to get a ticket too.
The main priority should be to sell out the riverside stadium at every single home come. There is no point patting yourselves on the back saying you have waiting lists for family tickets when I sit down and see empty seats. Pat yourselves on the back if the stadium is sold out and you have waiting lists by all means.. but definitely not when there’s nearly 10,000 empty seats.
The gap between the home and away fans.. why can’t we just have a barrier.. a moveable barrier between the groups of fans?
We digress to the facilitator who starts to talk about the atmosphere at other clubs and how it isn’t as good as they like to make out. Liverpool, the kop.. it’s not as good as the make out y’know.
Last time I checked it was a fans consultation for the match day experience.. not a talk on how other clubs atmosphere isn’t as good as they like to make out.
Let’s get back on track shall we..
Let’s get back on track shall we.. I could sell out the Riverside Stadium. Which was met with a dismissive snigger. Go on then..
Change the pricing structure.. offer year long season tickets a Xmas that can be paid off monthly. People have more money at Xmas for luxuries and presents and if there is something that could be paid in the same way we pay for mobile phones and Netflix subscriptions.. we’d have a better chance of selling season tickets that way imo. The point is.. not enough is done.. the fans are taken for granted. Nobody want to see empty seats in the ground. What are the marketing and sales teams doing?
Suggestion of a samba themed day/night for a match that were not expected to sell well went down like a lead balloon..we don’t want to water down the things that we are already doing (head of marketing) - you’re doing nothing!
Talk moved on to kids being charged too much for tickets outside of the family area..
Kids (who were at the table) felt left out with the fan cam only ever capturing the lower stands. Kids feeling left out when they did the walkaround as they thought they would get to go on the pitch and take penalties. They’d like to see both goals being used and instead of just penalties they’d like to see the option of doing/seeing a cross bar challenge or ‘top bins’ when they asked if they could be put into a raffle to get the opportunity to take part at half time.. this was cut off by the facilitator saying they were too young too be in a raffle. We suggested that it could just be part of the kids ticket.. no need to buy a raffle ticket. Just have them randomly selected before a game.
Hey kids.. the facilitator finally stopped talking about the ticketing scheme some clubs used involving European matches (like that has any relevance to us right now)
What do you think about the half time DJ..
not good was the answer.. it feels like the club are trying to do things they think we like but it is not good.
I must say at this point there was a guy on our table that shot down every single suggestion! we can’t do that, there’s no way we could do that, that wouldn’t happen. I pointed out that ideas can be put across and if they don’t land they can be discussed or looked at from a different angle to come to generate better ideas or to gain a better understanding or what what actually being said. I then reminded him that he had ordered a ticket for a fan consultation, driven down to the stadium, walked up the stairs to the function room and if he’s only contribution was going to shoot down every single suggestion he would be better off moving his chair and sitting facing the wall in the corner of the room.
The kids asked and were not being listened too.. if half time could be made five minutes longer.. which our ‘facilitator’ having had his conversation interrupted.. said could not happen as it against the rules.. pretty dismissive tbh given that he hadn’t listened and didn’t understand the reason why. A few on the table promoted him to ask why.. because they didn’t want to spend half time in the queue. From the mouths of babes!
Nobody does! It’s chronic.. nobody wants to spend half time in the quewe just standing.. or just not bothering to leave their seat to attempt to have a pint with their mate because it’s utterly pointless.
Now the kids had chance to speak over the conversation the facilitator was having about Crystal Palace.. the kids had a few more ideas they wanted to share. It was about the goal music.. they wanted every Boro player to have their own music played when they scored a goal.. canny idea.. it’s a bit American and all that.. but we were getting input from young fans heard.
THE INK IS RUNNING OUT IN MY PEN
(I laughed out loud at that, classic)
Away Games.. ‘it’s an occasion’ - it’s a celebration. they are hugely impressed with our away following. Why can’t we have that at the Riverside. This was pretty much dropped flat on its asre. ‘Fans who sing won’t sit next to each other at the Riverside and will be dotted around the ground’ was the answer given. There’s something different to do.. it’s a day out. You can stand up and sing. Home fans are taken for granted.. just pushed through the turnstiles and then hurried out.. the stewards do all their linking arms stuff and it’s time to go.
The issue of fans leaving early came up.. maybe we can try to keep more fans at the stadium after the game? “We can’t keep fans at the stadium” lol
The emphasis seems to be to get fans out straight away.. one guy remarked that the clubs don’t let us buy a pint at half time (due to the queues being so bad) and then they shove us out as soon as they can to fill the pubs up. Make more of what is there.. expand on the fanzine outside maybe? The MLS for all of their many faults do seem to have the match day experience down.. the day starts really early with cars on huge parking lots that bring food and beer and they have kids having a kick about.. like a festival atmosphere.. obviously you can’t just graft other cultures onto our own and expect it into work the same.. but given that the stadium is on a huge industrial area.. you would think maybe that there is some space available to do something similarly.
Later on I picked the away game atmosphere the fact home games are an occasion, it is an event it’s a day out especially at the the prices they are charging it has to be! But it isn’t treated as such by the club. The idea of improving the atmosphere at the Riverside was..
A MEMORIAL
Somebody had to say it.. but it was horrific and totally inappropriate. Nobody is going to say that a memorial should not be respected.. but there really is no need for it. The table we’re in agreement that it was awful.. the length the tone.. the whole thing.
One guy was really rallying for it to the point you would have thought it was his idea! even saying that it wasn’t done on the new year year.. it was done at the start of the season. So just goes to show how much he know about it given he didn’t even know when it was! The question of why couldn’t we do something to pay our respects that was positive and more of a celebration like Preston’s Gentry Day.. this was by a grandmother with her two grandkids. The answer: Because fans didn’t want to pay their respects travelling away. So they are that bothered about doing it.. but they don’t want to have to bother going to an away game.. and they don’t even know when it was on. They (whoever they are) just wanted it to happen.. so much that they didn’t know when it was done. It was dreadful, I’ve said it, many others who were actually at the stadium said it and it was confirmed in the group. The guilt got hold of the group.. ‘I suppose we have to do something’ - but the truth is.. we don’t., we really don’t have to. People die and people pay their respects.. there’s a time and a place for it and that time and place isn’t after xmas at a football stadium.
There was mention of pre match music.. one fan group asked for the music to be turned off then.. didn’t do anything it fell flat.. the one who asked didn’t go to the match.
Asking for match day programs to be available when your in the stadium.. erm.. they are available in the club shop.
Concourse specific consultations? Because they changed the crisps and no one bought the crisps.
Conclusion:
There is a culture of defeat, ineptitude and excuses at the club. Fans feel taken for granted, Young fans feel left out and small groups rule the roost that do not represent the wider fan base.
The club need to sort their act out with tickets and pricing. Start treating the fans with respect instead and start actually listening to the fans fans rather than following orders from ‘fangroups’
Next time.. put a bit of music on and and splash out on some biros ffs
Summary
The problem is the club do not listen.. they say they can’t do things that they clearly can. Excuses are always the same ‘we tried that and it didn’t work’ or ‘actually we had some good feedback about that’
Club Badge..‘we know how much the fans hate the current badge and love the old one ‘SAME SHYT BADGE’
Retail.. we’re revamping it.. giving it a cool name. ‘CLUB SHOP’
Kit Launch.. ‘check em out ey’
‘NO YOU CAN’T BUY IT’
Match Day Experience.. ‘the kop isn’t as good as they say it is’
MY INK RAN OUT
Head of Marketing a huge red flag right from the off (for me) For someone who is involved in sales he is dull as dishwater.. can’t even sell himself. No enthusiasm or passion. Can’t even sell the night to the folks that have turned up for it. How to improve the matchday experience? The fan engagement night was an ideal opportunity to show that they were trying and that they were capable of.. something. But no.. no music no match day footage, no crowd noise.. just a very stale function room with a very awkward atmosphere.
Anyway.. after one single solitary clap (so awkward) we were off!!
Folks were grouped onto tables and a club facilitator was assigned.. great stuff.
“So.. what would you do to improve the atmosphere then” - pretty stark, blunt and to the point. No prompts, no structure no prior discussion of what the club actually would like to hear of acknowledgment of areas they would like to improve. (This felt very much like a box ticking exercise) I think our table were quite taken back by this and no one looked comfortable enough to set the ball rolling. But hey it’s one of them things.. you gotta start somewhere and maybe there would be a more structured part to it later on.
I’m not scared..
The matchday experience, the atmosphere will always come from the fans.. if there are no fans there there will be no atmosphere.. we’ve seen fan groups like the Early incarnation of Red Faction put some great stuff together with tifos and flares.. and the club has came down on them like a ton of bricks.. it seems whatever magic that they brought has been quashed or cut out. Maybe the club needed to take the rough with the smooth a little bit more with that.
The club makes it hard for people to support the club.. from buying shirts to buying tickets it doesn’t need to be as hard as they make it. The early bird ticket fiasco created a LOT of resentment within the fanbase and that resentment is still there.. it planted a seed of doubt and made a lot of fans feel like they were being taken for granted.. even the hardcore fans.. let alone those who were maybe sitting on the fence. That hasn’t been addressed and the club never held their hands up over that.. just business as usual. They may feel quite smug that they only lost a few thousand tickets that season.. but it will continue.
Why do the club make it so hard for fans to hand money over to them in return for good and services? Friends that are visiting from out of town struggle to get a ticket on the odd impromptu visit.. elder relatives who do not use the internet or have a boro id.. they find it really difficult to get a ticket too.
The main priority should be to sell out the riverside stadium at every single home come. There is no point patting yourselves on the back saying you have waiting lists for family tickets when I sit down and see empty seats. Pat yourselves on the back if the stadium is sold out and you have waiting lists by all means.. but definitely not when there’s nearly 10,000 empty seats.
The gap between the home and away fans.. why can’t we just have a barrier.. a moveable barrier between the groups of fans?
We digress to the facilitator who starts to talk about the atmosphere at other clubs and how it isn’t as good as they like to make out. Liverpool, the kop.. it’s not as good as the make out y’know.
Last time I checked it was a fans consultation for the match day experience.. not a talk on how other clubs atmosphere isn’t as good as they like to make out.
Let’s get back on track shall we..
Let’s get back on track shall we.. I could sell out the Riverside Stadium. Which was met with a dismissive snigger. Go on then..
Change the pricing structure.. offer year long season tickets a Xmas that can be paid off monthly. People have more money at Xmas for luxuries and presents and if there is something that could be paid in the same way we pay for mobile phones and Netflix subscriptions.. we’d have a better chance of selling season tickets that way imo. The point is.. not enough is done.. the fans are taken for granted. Nobody want to see empty seats in the ground. What are the marketing and sales teams doing?
Suggestion of a samba themed day/night for a match that were not expected to sell well went down like a lead balloon..we don’t want to water down the things that we are already doing (head of marketing) - you’re doing nothing!
Talk moved on to kids being charged too much for tickets outside of the family area..
Kids (who were at the table) felt left out with the fan cam only ever capturing the lower stands. Kids feeling left out when they did the walkaround as they thought they would get to go on the pitch and take penalties. They’d like to see both goals being used and instead of just penalties they’d like to see the option of doing/seeing a cross bar challenge or ‘top bins’ when they asked if they could be put into a raffle to get the opportunity to take part at half time.. this was cut off by the facilitator saying they were too young too be in a raffle. We suggested that it could just be part of the kids ticket.. no need to buy a raffle ticket. Just have them randomly selected before a game.
Hey kids.. the facilitator finally stopped talking about the ticketing scheme some clubs used involving European matches (like that has any relevance to us right now)
What do you think about the half time DJ..
not good was the answer.. it feels like the club are trying to do things they think we like but it is not good.
I must say at this point there was a guy on our table that shot down every single suggestion! we can’t do that, there’s no way we could do that, that wouldn’t happen. I pointed out that ideas can be put across and if they don’t land they can be discussed or looked at from a different angle to come to generate better ideas or to gain a better understanding or what what actually being said. I then reminded him that he had ordered a ticket for a fan consultation, driven down to the stadium, walked up the stairs to the function room and if he’s only contribution was going to shoot down every single suggestion he would be better off moving his chair and sitting facing the wall in the corner of the room.
The kids asked and were not being listened too.. if half time could be made five minutes longer.. which our ‘facilitator’ having had his conversation interrupted.. said could not happen as it against the rules.. pretty dismissive tbh given that he hadn’t listened and didn’t understand the reason why. A few on the table promoted him to ask why.. because they didn’t want to spend half time in the queue. From the mouths of babes!
Nobody does! It’s chronic.. nobody wants to spend half time in the quewe just standing.. or just not bothering to leave their seat to attempt to have a pint with their mate because it’s utterly pointless.
Now the kids had chance to speak over the conversation the facilitator was having about Crystal Palace.. the kids had a few more ideas they wanted to share. It was about the goal music.. they wanted every Boro player to have their own music played when they scored a goal.. canny idea.. it’s a bit American and all that.. but we were getting input from young fans heard.
THE INK IS RUNNING OUT IN MY PEN
(I laughed out loud at that, classic)
Away Games.. ‘it’s an occasion’ - it’s a celebration. they are hugely impressed with our away following. Why can’t we have that at the Riverside. This was pretty much dropped flat on its asre. ‘Fans who sing won’t sit next to each other at the Riverside and will be dotted around the ground’ was the answer given. There’s something different to do.. it’s a day out. You can stand up and sing. Home fans are taken for granted.. just pushed through the turnstiles and then hurried out.. the stewards do all their linking arms stuff and it’s time to go.
The issue of fans leaving early came up.. maybe we can try to keep more fans at the stadium after the game? “We can’t keep fans at the stadium” lol
The emphasis seems to be to get fans out straight away.. one guy remarked that the clubs don’t let us buy a pint at half time (due to the queues being so bad) and then they shove us out as soon as they can to fill the pubs up. Make more of what is there.. expand on the fanzine outside maybe? The MLS for all of their many faults do seem to have the match day experience down.. the day starts really early with cars on huge parking lots that bring food and beer and they have kids having a kick about.. like a festival atmosphere.. obviously you can’t just graft other cultures onto our own and expect it into work the same.. but given that the stadium is on a huge industrial area.. you would think maybe that there is some space available to do something similarly.
Later on I picked the away game atmosphere the fact home games are an occasion, it is an event it’s a day out especially at the the prices they are charging it has to be! But it isn’t treated as such by the club. The idea of improving the atmosphere at the Riverside was..
A MEMORIAL
Somebody had to say it.. but it was horrific and totally inappropriate. Nobody is going to say that a memorial should not be respected.. but there really is no need for it. The table we’re in agreement that it was awful.. the length the tone.. the whole thing.
One guy was really rallying for it to the point you would have thought it was his idea! even saying that it wasn’t done on the new year year.. it was done at the start of the season. So just goes to show how much he know about it given he didn’t even know when it was! The question of why couldn’t we do something to pay our respects that was positive and more of a celebration like Preston’s Gentry Day.. this was by a grandmother with her two grandkids. The answer: Because fans didn’t want to pay their respects travelling away. So they are that bothered about doing it.. but they don’t want to have to bother going to an away game.. and they don’t even know when it was on. They (whoever they are) just wanted it to happen.. so much that they didn’t know when it was done. It was dreadful, I’ve said it, many others who were actually at the stadium said it and it was confirmed in the group. The guilt got hold of the group.. ‘I suppose we have to do something’ - but the truth is.. we don’t., we really don’t have to. People die and people pay their respects.. there’s a time and a place for it and that time and place isn’t after xmas at a football stadium.
There was mention of pre match music.. one fan group asked for the music to be turned off then.. didn’t do anything it fell flat.. the one who asked didn’t go to the match.
Asking for match day programs to be available when your in the stadium.. erm.. they are available in the club shop.
Concourse specific consultations? Because they changed the crisps and no one bought the crisps.
Conclusion:
There is a culture of defeat, ineptitude and excuses at the club. Fans feel taken for granted, Young fans feel left out and small groups rule the roost that do not represent the wider fan base.
The club need to sort their act out with tickets and pricing. Start treating the fans with respect instead and start actually listening to the fans fans rather than following orders from ‘fangroups’
Next time.. put a bit of music on and and splash out on some biros ffs
Summary
The problem is the club do not listen.. they say they can’t do things that they clearly can. Excuses are always the same ‘we tried that and it didn’t work’ or ‘actually we had some good feedback about that’
Club Badge..‘we know how much the fans hate the current badge and love the old one ‘SAME SHYT BADGE’
Retail.. we’re revamping it.. giving it a cool name. ‘CLUB SHOP’
Kit Launch.. ‘check em out ey’
‘NO YOU CAN’T BUY IT’
Match Day Experience.. ‘the kop isn’t as good as they say it is’
MY INK RAN OUT
