SC&T/FAN/Supporters meeting

[Bristol Rob]

So are we expecting an update from the suits today?

[RedM]

16 hours ago, Spoons said:

After 19 years sitting in block E30/ block E sitting with my grandad, dad and brother and cousins I'm moving to W2( was meant to be W3).

Bcfc are ripping up family tradition.

My seat gone up by £68 and kids gone up to £99 each.

An extra £168 to find is not acceptable so bcfc got your wish and forced me to sit in the family enclosure in W2.

Means my dad had to move with me as well, something he didn't want to do as he loves dolman central but he wants to be with me and grand kids. 

My dad is retired and not short of s few Bob and did offer me the money but I'm a 34 year old man with two kids and want to pay my own bills.

The choice of paying £699 or £445 is a no brainer. If club didn't change prices I would have stayed in dolman central.

It's more upset me than made me angry.

It's unjustified and after lengthy email exchanges I've been told it's not changing.

This is a publicly nightmare.

 

This is just the thing I feared when I first saw the prices, I posted about it at the time. The break up of tradition and the mixing young and old has been dealt a severe blow. I don’t know if things will ever be the same again. I could cry when I hear accounts like yours, and you aren’t alone.

Also, we are going to look like many grounds when on tv now, swathes of empty seats in prime locations. What a negative impression that gives. 

#MakingBristolSad

[RedM]

16 hours ago, CodeRed said:

I really think everyone should hold off renewing,  I don't think there's much to lose at the moment, in the past the prices were "Early Bird" and it was clearly stated they would go up - this time there's none of that.  BS know they can't increase any more and will try and get everyone to renew at these prices.

The threat now is "lose your seat" - but with nearly 15000 current S/T holders are there many out there waiting to buy for the first time and grab your seat? Seat movers?  Isn't  the overriding message coming out of the fanbase that most like where they sit and don't want to move?

 

Sure a few may want to move seats - but I doubt it's that many.  As for new S/T buyers - if they weren't tempted by last season's prices they surely won't be won over this time!

Bristol Sport clearly don't want to reconsider,  the only thing that might make a difference is lack of sales. 

Five months before the season starts - time IS on our side.

 One things for sure, if we all cave in and renew by the deadline then we send a message to Bristol Sport that they can do what they like in future and we'll just suck it up.

 

The only place there might be an interest in getting seats in is the South Stand by people being priced out of other areas. That’s the only choice isn’t it as an adult cannot go into the Family area (upper Lansdown) without a child/children. 

As for the renewal date, compare to Preson which I noticed whilst up there. ST’s go on sale 30th May and you have until July 1st to retain your seat. What a difference, if they can do it why can’t we!

[RedM]

15 hours ago, 42nite said:

@MattParsonsBCFCSLO

Are you reading all this?

Are you proposing any sort of liasing?

 @Matt Parsons BCFCSLO tagging this correctly.

[Ohbasso]

I’m annoyed at myself as I’ve only dipped in and out of these threads and after the last statement from the club saying they will make changes I thought everything had been resolved so I renewed my ticket in the South Stand.

After reading this I’m regretting it, is there a cooling off period where you can cancel a renewal? If not I’ll join in the concession boycott and I always get a halftime pie and pint.

I’ve not been directly affected but still think it’s a disgrace how some fans have been treated.

[RedM]

16 hours ago, Coombsy said:

What I think is wrong the club asking us to buy a season tick now before the season ends also my boy is 11 now they won't let me buy an under 12 ticket for 50.00 because he will be 12 in April 

It’s his age on the 1st August, always been like that I’m afraid. 

[RedM]

10 hours ago, Slack Bladder said:

I've never done it, but I'm willing to try a Clark's pie and a Natch on the wall.

Once tried you will never go back, trust me.

[Mr Popodopolous]

8 hours ago, Bryans Left Peg said:

That's a bit different though. People were moaning because they wanted things improved.

In this case, nobody was complaining and they've gone and created a ******* shitstorm for the sake of it, mainly because they are greedy ******* *****.

That's fair yeah. I was just saying it wasn't perfect by any stretch before, but this does feel different I must agree.

[Harry]

2 hours ago, Dollymarie said:

@Harry please reconsider. Certain individuals at the club want the ground nice and sterile, not us noisy, colourful lot in the corner. Don’t give them the satisfaction of getting that. Let’s see what they come back with after this weeks meeting. 

Sorry Dolls, I’m not reconsidering. If the club want to disgustingly take the pee out of our kids, elderly and disabled then they aren’t getting my support. 

It’s not an idle threat either. I’m not renewing if they don’t change their stance. I find it disgusting and I’m not going to support an organisation with such values. 

Will do more aways than I’ve been able to recently instead. 

[exAtyeoMax]

8 minutes ago, Harry said:

Sorry Dolls, I’m not reconsidering. If the club want to disgustingly take the pee out of our kids, elderly and disabled then they aren’t getting my support. 

It’s not an idle threat either. I’m not renewing if they don’t change their stance. I find it disgusting and I’m not going to support an organisation with such values. 

Will do more aways than I’ve been able to recently instead. 

I'm sad that you are not renewing but totally respect your stance on this and understand your decision 

[Up The City!]

Unless the deadline isn’t extended until the 1st June I won’t be renewing.

[gordie]

43 minutes ago, Harry said:

Sorry Dolls, I’m not reconsidering. If the club want to disgustingly take the pee out of our kids, elderly and disabled then they aren’t getting my support. 

It’s not an idle threat either. I’m not renewing if they don’t change their stance. I find it disgusting and I’m not going to support an organisation with such values. 

Will do more aways than I’ve been able to recently instead. 

Sad that it has even got to this stage, you would think with how things have moved forward on the pitch we would all be itching to renew, but instead with many threatening to boycott it just shows how the club has royally ****** up.

[Natchfever]

3 hours ago, Dollymarie said:

@Harry please reconsider. Certain individuals at the club want the ground nice and sterile, not us noisy, colourful lot in the corner. Don’t give them the satisfaction of getting that. Let’s see what they come back with after this weeks meeting. 

I get the impression the entire organisation wants a nice sterile ground. They will probably get it too. 

[RedLionLad]

This has to be one of the most depressing topics ever seen on OTIB.

We get a whiff of promotion to the Premier League and Bristol Sport shows it's true colours. It's now them versus us. We are not in this together.

['Orns]

22 hours ago, redordead1 said:

It was difficult to show restraint when Marshall reponded to a few of us explaining what it really meant to be a City fan and the importance of this shared matchday experience with "well you can always move" and Ashton followed up with, football fans always feel like they've got a god-given right to their seat and their part of the ground .

Wow, I'm not reading anymore of this thread after that point

Tells me everything you need to know. What an pair of absolute another schoolboy attempt to bypass the filters (ban me if it beats the swear filter, I don't care)

Fair play to anyone not re-newing, after all the good things that have happened this season they have really loaded the 12 bore and shot themselves in both feet

I can absolutely guarantee that we see a new design badge this summer, to show that the club do listen. We'll all forget about this then, won't we

Edit - fair play, the swear filter comment made me laugh. I think we should be allowed to use it on this thread though 

[nebristolred]

Yeah this is a grim read. Some of the price increases are totally understandable; heck I think the increase from £50 to £100 for some kids seats is fair enough, because it was such good value for money in the first place (although I appreciate those who actually pay for their kids may disagree). But the social engineering which has been alluded to and the attitude towards fans of who want to stay in the same area of the ground stinks.

Why can't the club have a more progressive attitude? 14,000 season tickets at an average selling price of £350 each would yield just under £4,900,000. Take a 'German' approach and convert that to an average selling price of say, £200, which would be insanely cheap - 18,000 ST's sold would only produce £1,300,000 less. A huge chunk of that could be made up by increased attendances spending more money in the ground, as well as getting great publicity to go with it and much more respect from the loyal fans of the club.

If you needed to make more money up, increase the prices of the corporate tickets and facilities - which by all accounts seem to be selling extremely well and have a service provided to them which justifies the high cost. If you need to raise profits, hit those who can afford to do it - Mark Ashton clearly plays a good game here so use his 'nous' to do so.

If we were to become the first club to take a more European approach to the match we would get national coverage for it and make only a minimal loss, if at all. Make ST's vastly cheaper, improve the bus and park and ride services and actually work with the council to make the parking work properly - before long we would be far outstripping a 26,000 capacity in my opinion. Isn't that the ultimate goal?

I appreciate SL's inputs, he's a club legend, and he makes up our massive losses year after year - but ultimately the club is his 'toy', it's his decision to make these losses. Don't force the fans to pay for it when they have no input on how much the club spends. If you expect them to pay unlimited prices to help the club buy more players with zero influence on how it is spent then that really is taking the piss.

[Ska Junkie]

12 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

To think I defended Ashton many times on here and even gave him allowances for his corporate BS.

I’ve no doubt he’s a very shrewd negotiator for player transfers and we’re a far more professional outfit now, but if this is the trade off? No thanks. Would rather have Pete Johnson and signings like Damion Stewart, Neil Kilkenny and Nicky Hunt if it meant fans were treated with decency. 

Phileas, there's bad, then there's hopeless, then there's utterly woeful, then there's Nicky bloody Hunt!!! 

[CodeRed]

12 minutes ago, RedLionLad said:

This has to be one of the most depressing topics ever seen on OTIB.

We get a whiff of promotion to the Premier League and Bristol Sport shows it's true colours. It's now them versus us. We are not in this together.

The meeting told us everything we needed to know.

I did think they might have thought - hang on we've not got this right regarding the moving and splitting up family /friend groups - but the three turned up with no proposals, no attempt to work together and ASK what would be acceptable, no attempt to meet halfway,  or look for a compromise, they simply came as a PR exercise to confirm what they'd decided and if you don't like it - tough.

I really thought - having listened to the very real and reasonable issues people have in simply wanting to continue to support the club as they've always done - the club would be willing to have a constructive dialog. 

More than the money it's the Bristol Sport F-you attitude shown to the fans that really angers.

[RedLionLad]

2 minutes ago, CodeRed said:

The meeting told us everything we needed to know.

I did think they might have thought - hang on we've not got this right regarding the moving and splitting up family /friend groups - but the three turned up with no proposals, no attempt to work together and ASK what would be acceptable, no attempt to meet halfway,  or look for a compromise, they simply came as a PR exercise to confirm what they'd decided and if you don't like it - tough.

I really thought - having listened to the very real and reasonable issues people have in simply wanting to continue to support the club as they've always done - the club would be willing to have a constructive dialog. 

More than the money it's the Bristol Sport F-you attitude shown to the fans that really angers.

The very fact that it's making the news, goes to prove that what BS is doing is considered to be wrong.

[Mr Popodopolous]

I remember a £30 season ticket for kids at one point- this would have been a while ago though so that's just how it is...

At the current time though, a 98% rise, (believe one of them was £50 to £99, in the Dolman)? That's exorbitant- well it is and isn't because it's from a very low base, but despite an improving economy times are not too good in a variety of ways for cash etc...

Let's compare and contrast some prices- admittedly these are notable because they are in an article and other clubs maybe better or worse but...

• At Forest, it will cost £10 for a 4-11 year old's season ticket, £50 for 12-17 year olds and £100 for 18-23 year olds.
• At Millwall- "saver period" season ticket prices? Start at £99 for under-18's and £149 for 18-21 if purchased before April 4th. This saver period incidentally is a 25% reduction in price.
• At Cardiff, 16-21 start at £99.
• At Reading, 18-24 begin at £120.

Forest's is the most eye-catching and it's worth pointing out that the other 3 clubs, though they may have those cheap offers, may also have expensive tickets elsewhere. However there seems to be on the face of it a decent range there, for younger supporters.

[myol'man]

9 minutes ago, nebristolred said:

Yeah this is a grim read. Some of the price increases are totally understandable; heck I think the increase from £50 to £100 for some kids seats is fair enough, because it was such good value for money in the first place (although I appreciate those who actually pay for their kids may disagree). But the social engineering which has been alluded to and the attitude towards fans of who want to stay in the same area of the ground stinks.

Why can't the club have a more progressive attitude? 14,000 season tickets at an average selling price of £350 each would yield just under £4,900,000. Take a 'German' approach and convert that to an average selling price of say, £200, which would be insanely cheap - 18,000 ST's sold would only produce £1,300,000 less. A huge chunk of that could be made up by increased attendances spending more money in the ground, as well as getting great publicity to go with it and much more respect from the loyal fans of the club.

If you needed to make more money up, increase the prices of the corporate tickets and facilities - which by all accounts seem to be selling extremely well and have a service provided to them which justifies the high cost. If you need to raise profits, hit those who can afford to do it - Mark Ashton clearly plays a good game here so use his 'nous' to do so.

If we were to become the first club to take a more European approach to the match we would get national coverage for it and make only a minimal loss, if at all. Make ST's vastly cheaper, improve the bus and park and ride services and actually work with the council to make the parking work properly - before long we would be far outstripping a 26,000 capacity in my opinion. Isn't that the ultimate goal?

I appreciate SL's inputs, he's a club legend, and he makes up our massive losses year after year - but ultimately the club is his 'toy', it's his decision to make these losses. Don't force the fans to pay for it when they have no input on how much the club spends. If you expect them to pay unlimited prices to help the club by more players with zero influence then that really is taking the piss.

No way were they ever going to reduce prices like this, I think most ST holders would have swallowed a moderate increase, say 5% or even 10% at a stretch across the board, but by going for a much bigger hit on some areas than others, they've ended up with a PR disaster. 

It's such a shame because on the back of the Man Utd and Man City games the half season ticket sales went through the roof,  they had a chance to retain all of those extras into full season tickets. I have a feeling that ST sales will actually drop because of this  

[CodeRed]

10 minutes ago, nebristolred said:

 

I appreciate SL's inputs, he's a club legend, and he makes up our massive losses year after year - but ultimately the club is his 'toy', it's his decision to make these losses. Don't force the fans to pay for it when they have no input on how much the club spends. If you expect them to pay unlimited prices to help the club by more players with zero influence then that really is taking the piss.

Excellent point.

It was SL's decision to throw money at LJ in amounts that previous managers (even GJ) could only have dreamt of ..and the waste of (his) money on the likes of Engval, Hegelar, Diony, Moore, Eliasson, O'Neil, Woodrow, Kent, shows there's plenty of scope and opportunity to improve the balance sheet by reducing the amount of costly mistakes before forcing fans to pay (much) more than  inflation.

I doubt any of the above players will get another  start,  the loans will be returned and the 4 we paid fees for will be sold at a big loss.

[nebristolred]

5 minutes ago, myol'man said:

No way were they ever going to reduce prices like this, I think most ST holders would have swallowed a moderate increase, say 5% or even 10% at a stretch across the board, but by going for a much bigger hit on some areas than others, they've ended up with a PR disaster. 

It's such a shame because on the back of the Man Utd and Man City games the half season ticket sales went through the roof,  they had a chance to retain all of those extras into full season tickets. I have a feeling that ST sales will actually drop because of this  

I didn't expect them to mate. I'm just saying it's well within their capability. They just choose not to (as does the rest of English football).

[Mr Popodopolous]

11 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

No it’s never been fantastic. I was just making a point though using that as a metaphor; in a nutshell would take good fan treatment and experience over footballing success.

That's a fair point. Ideal world would have both though...is it possible in the modern UK football in general however?

[BigAl&Toby]

13 minutes ago, CodeRed said:

Excellent point.

It was SL's decision to throw money at LJ in amounts that previous managers (even GJ) could only have dreamt of ..and the waste of (his) money on the likes of Engval, Hegelar, Diony, Moore, Eliasson, O'Neil, Woodrow, Kent, shows there's plenty of scope and opportunity to improve the balance sheet by reducing the amount of costly mistakes before forcing fans to pay (much) more than  inflation.

I doubt any of the above players will get another  start,  the loans will be returned and the 4 we paid fees for will be sold at a big loss.

Lansdown will never be a City legend in my eyes. His choice to do what he’s done and continues to do. He’s no fool and he’s doing what he does for his own reasons.

And let’s face it. Whatever the amount “the legend” has put into the club isn’t money he’s ever going to lose. As you’ve said, it’s his play thing.

He’s a businessman with more money than any true fan will ever have. He’s not interested in BCFC. If he was he’d have been there in the 80s.

Or at Stockport when it pissed down and we got soaked. Or at the County Ground when again we got soaked. Or at Crewe when we were already relegated and Akinbiyi ran all night.

Where were the likes of “the legend” and Ashton then? Working hard in their bedrooms I guess.

Buy hey ho. All’s good in BS3. Bristol is proud. We can have pies and pints and watch replays on big screens. We can get to watch other sports that form part of the empire that’s called Bristol Sport.

We are also treated like chumps. We only really want those who believe. Belief in the BS vision.

No red and white cards. No concessions for those less fortunate than many others. Or the fans of the future.

We can offer you a matchday experience with high heeled hosts but if you’re in a wheelchair we can’t offer you an area where you’ll be kept dry.

Its nothing short of a ******* disgrace. The clowns that make these decisions should hang their heads in shame.

[cidered abroad]

26 minutes ago, myol'man said:

No way were they ever going to reduce prices like this, I think most ST holders would have swallowed a moderate increase, say 5% or even 10% at a stretch across the board, but by going for a much bigger hit on some areas than others, they've ended up with a PR disaster. 

It's such a shame because on the back of the Man Utd and Man City games the half season ticket sales went through the roof,  they had a chance to retain all of those extras into full season tickets. I have a feeling that ST sales will actually drop because of this  

I believe that this is a cast iron certainty. Only partially due to the pricing cock up that this thread is all about.

The reduction in ST sales will be due to those who bought a half ST solely to get tickets for Man U and Man C, coming to realise that we are not also going to the Prem at the end of this season as they may have thought we would. Will they pay a for a full season of inconsistency like most of us put up with?

No because they are the gloryhunters - Man U. Man C, top teams of the Prem but Burton Albion, and even League One again in a year or two? Not a chance of them lasting that long!

[exAtyeoMax]

17 days to renew (from today)…

[screech]

6 minutes ago, BigAlToby&Liam said:

Lansdown will never be a City legend in my eyes. His choice to do what he’s done and continues to do. He’s no fool and he’s doing what he does for his own reasons.

And let’s face it. Whatever the amount “the legend” has put into the club isn’t money he’s ever going to lose. As you’ve said, it’s his play thing.

He’s a businessman with more money than any true fan will ever have. He’s not interested in BCFC. If he was he’d have been there in the 80s.

Or at Stockport when it pissed down and we got soaked. Or at the County Ground when again we got soaked. Or at Crewe when we were already relegated and Akinbiyi ran all night.

Where were the likes of “the legend” and Ashton then? Working hard in their bedrooms I guess.

Buy hey ho. All’s good in BS3. Bristol is proud. We can have pies and pints and watch replays on big screens. We can get to watch other sports that form part of the empire that’s called Bristol Sport.

We are also treated like chumps. We only really want those who believe. Belief in the BS vision.

No red and white cards. No concessions for those less fortunate than many others. Or the fans of the future.

We can offer you a matchday experience with high heeled hosts but if you’re in a wheelchair we can’t offer you an area where you’ll be kept dry.

Its nothing short of a ******* disgrace. The clowns that make these decisions should hang their heads in shame.

Deluded.

The bloke has chucked 10's of millions into the football club, tell you what, lets replace him with the clown down the road with the monopoly money, I'm all for hitting them with a stick over these disgusting attacks on the less well off, but calling Steve Lansdown out for not being a supporter is bullshit. They have made a mistake and it's a big one, but lets not go down this route of calling him out for being a charlatan. How many others have stepped forward and put their money with there mouth is since you have been watching, I'll give you a clue, it's one other, Harry Dolman, that's it. 

[The Original OTIB]

20 hours ago, Spoons said:

After 19 years sitting in block E30/ block E sitting with my grandad, dad and brother and cousins I'm moving to W2( was meant to be W3).

Bcfc are ripping up family tradition.

My seat gone up by £68 and kids gone up to £99 each.

An extra £168 to find is not acceptable so bcfc got your wish and forced me to sit in the family enclosure in W2.

Means my dad had to move with me as well, something he didn't want to do as he loves dolman central but he wants to be with me and grand kids. 

My dad is retired and not short of s few Bob and did offer me the money but I'm a 34 year old man with two kids and want to pay my own bills.

The choice of paying £699 or £445 is a no brainer. If club didn't change prices I would have stayed in dolman central.

It's more upset me than made me angry.

It's unjustified and after lengthy email exchanges I've been told it's not changing.

This is a publicly nightmare.

 

Why did you renew so early? If a large majority simply waited and did not renew, panic would undoubtedly set in at B.S.

[CotswoldRed]

4 hours ago, RedM said:

This is just the thing I feared when I first saw the prices, I posted about it at the time. The break up of tradition and the mixing young and old has been dealt a severe blow. I don’t know if things will ever be the same again. I could cry when I hear accounts like yours, and you aren’t alone.

Also, we are going to look like many grounds when on tv now, swathes of empty seats in prime locations. What a negative impression that gives. 

#MakingBristolSad

I genuinely don't want Prem football as it will exacerbate the situation even more. 

I want us to stay in the Championship.