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!james

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  7. Bird nets….

    in Football Chat

    Posted

    Just now, CodeRed said:

    I noticed our other loan back signing Josh Stokes has lined up in central defence in 2 of Aldershot's 3 games since we signed him, I thought he was an attacking midfielder/ striker? ...or just very versatile 

    He hasn't, that's just BBC sport getting the formations very wrong. 

  23. Matchday Parking Scheme/Actual Crowd Attendances/No Shows

    in Football Chat

    Posted

    Just read the article in the post, to save you the pop up hell I'll post it below: 

    https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-citys-no-show-fa-9070302#google_vignette

    Quote

    More than 2,000 fans who bought tickets for Bristol City’s FA Cup replay triumph over Premier League West Ham United did not actually show up for the match - and that could end up saving bosses at Ashton Gate hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

    When Bristol Sport was given planning permission more than ten years ago to expand Ashton Gate to the 27,000-capacity stadium it is today, councillors included in the terms and conditions a rule that stadium bosses might have to set up and pay for a Matchday Parking Scheme for the streets around the ground, should crowds expand to regularly fill the stadium

    Some residents living around Ashton Gate have long complained that parking on matchdays is a nightmare - although many others rent their drives out to fans for the match and park on the roads themselves - and a Matchday Parking Scheme would see temporary parking restrictions on roads over quite a wide radius of the ground, enforced by tow trucks and parking wardens, all at Bristol City’s expense.

    There are two ways the ten-year old planning condition could be triggered. Firstly, it would be automatically triggered if Bristol City win promotion to the Premier League, and secondly, if three matches out of any five in a row see a crowd of more than 25,000. And that, according to the officially announced attendances would appear to be about to happen, with the visit on Friday of Leeds United, and a sell-out crowd expected at Ashton Gate.

    The announced attendances for the last three Bristol City home matches were: 25,616 for the visit of West Ham United in the FA Cup on Tuesday, January 16; then 23,611 for the visit of Watford on Saturday, January 20; and then the crowd was 25,787 for the 4th round FA Cup game against Premier League Nottingham Forest.

    With Ashton Gate announcing that this Friday’s Championship game against Leeds United is pretty much sold-out with a crowd of almost 26,000 expected, residents living around Ashton Gate who have been longing for a Matchday Parking Scheme to happen could be forgiven for watching the crowd figures closely.

    However, Ashton Gate Stadium has revealed that there is a catch. The planning condition stipulates the attendance trigger means the number of people who actually attended the game, rather than the numbers who paid for a ticket - and they are different things. The attendance figure announced at the end of the game, reported to the FA and published in the media has always meant the number of people who paid for a ticket - a practice brought in almost 140 years ago with the birth of professional football, to ensure transparency when it comes to football finances and the taxman.

    The club has told Bristol Live the number of fans who physically came through the turnstiles for the West Ham United game on January 16 was, in fact, 23,247 - some 2,369 fewer than the numbers who paid for a ticket.

    And when Nottingham Forest came for the 4th round match last Friday, 24,146 entered the stadium - which meant 1,641 people bought tickets but didn’t actually show up. FA Cup games are not included in the season ticket for City fans - season card holders would have had to buy their tickets like everyone else.

    Bristol Live understands that the phenomenon of ‘no-shows’ - season ticket holders or people who’ve bought tickets and then don’t actually make it to the game - has been noticeably higher since the return of football from the Covid pandemic.

    But it’s not the first time the difference between the announced attendances at Ashton Gate and the reality of bums on seats has enabled Bristol City to avoid triggering the city planners’ planning condition for a Matchday Parking Scheme. Back in the winter of 2017-18, City’s run to the semi-final of the League Cup involved two home games against Manchester United and then Manchester City - with a sell-out crowd for a league match against Wolves in between.

    Local councillors and residents saw the attendances for those three games going over 25,000, only for Bristol City to tell the city council that the actual attendance for that middle game against Wolves was lower than the 25,000 trigger point.

    Six years ago, after City told the council about the no-shows for the Wolves game, local residents and councillors weren’t happy. The then councillor for Southville, Stephen Clarke, accused the club of a ‘cynical and embarrassing attempt to avoid’ having to pay for the Matchday Parking Scheme. The club pointed to the wording of the planning condition and the computerised tally of turnstile clicks, and council planning officers ultimately agreed they couldn’t enforce it, despite councillors’ objections.

    Last weekend saw Ashton Gate proclaiming a huge triple header of live sport - perhaps the biggest since the stadium was redeveloped. Almost 60,000 people came to the stadium over three consecutive days - after the men’s FA Cup game, Bristol Bears won a thrilling rugby match against local rivals Bath in front of a sold-out crowd of 26,387 on the Saturday, before 6,214 came to see Bristol City women take on West Ham United in the WSL.

    But because Bristol’s rugby team was still playing at the Memorial Stadium when the planning condition was drawn up, the crowd trigger doesn’t include Bristol Bears games at all - only Bristol City.

    The issue of matchday parking for events at Ashton Gate has been the topic of some controversy already in 2024. North Somerset Council have started to enforce a ‘Red Route Clearway’ on the roads around Ashton Court and the Long Ashton Park and Ride - and a video of a long line of cars, each with a parking ticket, while fans were watching the match against Watford on January 20, went viral, and has now been viewed on various social media platforms more than three million times.

    Back in April 2022, the Mayor of Bristol said his council was ‘considering’ funding a Matchday Parking Scheme out of taxpayers’ money - and not waiting for the Ashton Gate planning condition to be triggered - because there was ‘overwhelming support’ for one among the residents of Ashton Gate, Bedminster and Southville.

    Such a scheme is in place around almost all the grounds in the Premier League and most of the grounds in the Championship, and usually involves residents being given permits to park on the roads around the ground while matches are on, but vehicles which aren’t displaying permits would be towed and drivers fined. The costs of such a scheme are not clearly known, but it would involve implementing and enforcing temporary parking systems for at least 24 home games every season, and is thought to be easily into the hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

    It has been nearly two years since the Mayor said such a scheme was being considered, and nothing has happened. With the no-show fans ensuring City are unlikely to trigger the planning condition this season, it looks like the local residents who want a Matchday Parking Scheme will have to continue to wait.

    The last hope for them is what City fans also hope for - promotion. Bristol City currently lie 13th in the Championship, although optimistic fans hope there could be a late-season surge towards the play-offs and the promised land of the Premier League and greater parking restrictions.

    I know people have longed wished for the club to announce the 'actual' attendances of crowds that include season ticket no shows etc. 

    Those figures seem insanely high to me considering cup games aren't included in season tickets?!

    2,369 no shows for West Ham and 1,641 for Forest...

     

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