I’m writing this as a North End fan for over 24 years simply because I’m really struggling to stomach the way the club is being run currently. I’m going to focus more on the day-to-day running of North End rather than the squad and tactics etc. I’ve not a clue on football management honestly! I don’t think I’ve ever survived a full season on Football Manager even!
What pains me the most is that I compare North End at the moment to forgotten high street stores that now no longer exist. As a club my belief is that we simply have not adapted to the changing climate in football. Yes money and location will always be a factor for our club but I think that we can be smarter with our money and as a club, as a city, as a community we can do better.
The main things I think we should be working on is matchday experience, retail and getting bums on seats. Why? We sell more and make more money. Yes we don’t get as much money as selling someone like Jordan Hugil but I think that if the club did better at the day-to-day running to entice more people to visit then the positivity would travel to all aspects of the club.
For those who attended the game at the weekend (Football aside) has anything really changed around Deepdale with the exception of the fanzone?
I read somewhere that we have sold just over 5,000 season tickets for the upcoming season which is down year on year. At the weekend the attendance was 12,452 with 1798 Hull City fans making our fans a total of 10,654 (thank you calculator). A few years ago our average attendance was around the 13k mark. Now we are around 10k-12k, the amount of fans going to Deepdale is decreasing. You can look at a number of factors effecting this – One major one currently is due to Covid. Plus I’ll bet that the crowd will be even less against Peterborough (Unless we provide a 4-0, 5-0, 4-0 Frankie masterclass against Huddersfield, Mansfield and Reading). ( It does of course get effected by the football).
I think the addition of the fanzone is a plus and it was great to see photos of people having a chat and drink before the game at the weekend. But this has taken the club 4 years to organise! I understand these things can be difficult with permits, health & safety etc. however 4 years seems a long time. If it has taken 4 years due to no fault of the club then I want my club to be more transparent.
Transparency is key – it gives fans/customers an understanding behind the clubs strategy and what is happening. The club have got better at this over the past 12 months especially with the ‘messages to the supporters’ from Peter Risdale. Yes you can’t tell us every single detail but be open with us. Silence can be deafening sometimes. Look at the whole training ground in Ingol situation.
I mentioned earlier that season tickets sales are down. I have not seen any evidence of the club advertising/promoting season tickets to attract new supporters. The last I saw was billboards maybe at the start of the season which was eventually interrupted by Covid. Billboards are incredibly expensive and there is a big question mark over whether they are the best form of advertising. This years season ticket advertising seemed to be a promo video on social media which has no cost. Look at the cost of creating the video then I’ll be we did this through our media team which again includes no cost.
I want our club to do some ‘thinking outside of the box’ and be clever about how to attract new fans to watch our beloved football club.
Some examples that spring to mind
It pained me to hear reports of the roof leaking at the weekend and Jake pointed out on the FTF podcast that he was greeted with a Sky Sports camera and scaffolding on his seat at the weekend. Can the club not look to get these leaks repaired and speak with fans about Sky Sports effecting where they plan to sit? I know these things aren’t super important but its just crap and makes fans feel undervalued. There would be no Preston North End without its supporters.
As for the retail well I personally feel like it’s a complete joke. We have had the same products in store for the past few years. The best merchandise we’ve had recently has all been done by The Terrace Store who don’t even work for the club. I think we’ve agreed a licence with them to supply merch with our logo on or something. As I’ve said earlier the merch has been the same for a few seasons, just seems to be the same products with a north end badge slapped on.
Home shirt has been out for just over a month now. The official launch date was 2nd July. My wife was in Preston last Thursday and I asked her to pick up the new home shirt for me and one for my son… Infant kits aren’t released until 6th August and they had sold out of my size shirt. (Luckily I’ve got a bit of a stomach in lockdown so I’ve moved up a size). It was the same last season – Why is the infant kit released a few weeks later? Jimmy said on the podcast that the infant kit doesn’t even have the Nike logo and the shorts are just plain navy!
We should expect more from the club on this – Yes some fans are not bothered about the kit but I’ve noticed that the price of the shirt has remained at £49.95 however the shirt quality has gone down. (Design is subjective so lets leave that out)
Season after season the club have been cutting back on the shirt features, decreased as much cost of manufacturing as possible. The only cost that’s stayed the same is the cost the supporter has to pay to purchase the shirt.
(I said I wasn’t going to mention football so I apologise) Now we look to the football. We don’t seem to have learnt our lesson with key players entering last years of their contracts e.g. Pearson, Davies, Browne, Johnson and now Barky. We appear to have hired a manager who is likely one of the cheapest options (Obviously this was also due to the superb job Frankie did for us last year).
The whole running of the club just seems lethargic.
Problem – We need new fans
Answer – I’ll just do a billboard
Problem – New season is coming what’s the kit going to look like
Answer – White
Problem – First game of the seasons coming up, How much food should we stock?
Answer – Just get the usual amount.
And finally we keep hearing from Peter Risdale about how this club is not in any debt however we struggle to pay/attract players that our scouting team have identified as players that would improve our squad. It might not be much but if we improve the retail, improve the matchday experience and improve the marketing to attract new people to watch North End then maybe, just maybe we might start making a little more profit which can be used to improve things at the club. It also still makes my blood boil about how patronising he can come across in interviews!!
Why am I writing this then? What’s my point?
I’m basically just fed up with the way the club is being run. As supporters of Preston North End we expect better, we DESERVE better and we should demand better.
I worry that the club is going backwards, I believe we are stuck in our own ways and have been for some time and I worry that we might go back to League One or continue to lose supporters and dwindle down. One thing that gives me great joy in life is football including my football club. When I watched the heartbroken fans of Bury, Macclesfield and Bolton on the news when their clubs were in dire straits it just makes me worry that we are on a similar path.
What pains me the most is that I compare North End at the moment to forgotten high street stores that now no longer exist. As a club my belief is that we simply have not adapted to the changing climate in football. Yes money and location will always be a factor for our club but I think that we can be smarter with our money and as a club, as a city, as a community we can do better.
The main things I think we should be working on is matchday experience, retail and getting bums on seats. Why? We sell more and make more money. Yes we don’t get as much money as selling someone like Jordan Hugil but I think that if the club did better at the day-to-day running to entice more people to visit then the positivity would travel to all aspects of the club.
For those who attended the game at the weekend (Football aside) has anything really changed around Deepdale with the exception of the fanzone?
I read somewhere that we have sold just over 5,000 season tickets for the upcoming season which is down year on year. At the weekend the attendance was 12,452 with 1798 Hull City fans making our fans a total of 10,654 (thank you calculator). A few years ago our average attendance was around the 13k mark. Now we are around 10k-12k, the amount of fans going to Deepdale is decreasing. You can look at a number of factors effecting this – One major one currently is due to Covid. Plus I’ll bet that the crowd will be even less against Peterborough (Unless we provide a 4-0, 5-0, 4-0 Frankie masterclass against Huddersfield, Mansfield and Reading). ( It does of course get effected by the football).
I think the addition of the fanzone is a plus and it was great to see photos of people having a chat and drink before the game at the weekend. But this has taken the club 4 years to organise! I understand these things can be difficult with permits, health & safety etc. however 4 years seems a long time. If it has taken 4 years due to no fault of the club then I want my club to be more transparent.
Transparency is key – it gives fans/customers an understanding behind the clubs strategy and what is happening. The club have got better at this over the past 12 months especially with the ‘messages to the supporters’ from Peter Risdale. Yes you can’t tell us every single detail but be open with us. Silence can be deafening sometimes. Look at the whole training ground in Ingol situation.
I mentioned earlier that season tickets sales are down. I have not seen any evidence of the club advertising/promoting season tickets to attract new supporters. The last I saw was billboards maybe at the start of the season which was eventually interrupted by Covid. Billboards are incredibly expensive and there is a big question mark over whether they are the best form of advertising. This years season ticket advertising seemed to be a promo video on social media which has no cost. Look at the cost of creating the video then I’ll be we did this through our media team which again includes no cost.
I want our club to do some ‘thinking outside of the box’ and be clever about how to attract new fans to watch our beloved football club.
Some examples that spring to mind
- Offer discounted tickets for students, from what I’ve seen the Uni has come on a lot over the past few years. Invite students down. My University based in Warrington had offers to go and watch the Warrington Wolves and a lot of students including myself went!
- New build housing estates – There’s a good chance that new families have come to the area so why not target a mail drop to new housing? Lots of the houses at Buckshaw are relatively new there’s potentially a lot of families that have moved from another part of the country. A mail drop is a hell of a lot cheaper than a billboard from my experience from previous work.
- Video – Yes we have done videos to promote season tickets pretty much every season. Its clear the videos are done by our media team. Why not look to outsource this to a media company who can create something really exciting and post this as paid campaigns on social media targeting new families or specific areas of Preston. My wife used to be a media manager of a Super League Rugby club and I understand that they are pulled left right and centre. What Hannah does at North End is brilliant and I bet that the media team were restricted on what they could do for a season ticket promo as it will be bogged down with other work responsibilities.
It pained me to hear reports of the roof leaking at the weekend and Jake pointed out on the FTF podcast that he was greeted with a Sky Sports camera and scaffolding on his seat at the weekend. Can the club not look to get these leaks repaired and speak with fans about Sky Sports effecting where they plan to sit? I know these things aren’t super important but its just crap and makes fans feel undervalued. There would be no Preston North End without its supporters.
As for the retail well I personally feel like it’s a complete joke. We have had the same products in store for the past few years. The best merchandise we’ve had recently has all been done by The Terrace Store who don’t even work for the club. I think we’ve agreed a licence with them to supply merch with our logo on or something. As I’ve said earlier the merch has been the same for a few seasons, just seems to be the same products with a north end badge slapped on.
Home shirt has been out for just over a month now. The official launch date was 2nd July. My wife was in Preston last Thursday and I asked her to pick up the new home shirt for me and one for my son… Infant kits aren’t released until 6th August and they had sold out of my size shirt. (Luckily I’ve got a bit of a stomach in lockdown so I’ve moved up a size). It was the same last season – Why is the infant kit released a few weeks later? Jimmy said on the podcast that the infant kit doesn’t even have the Nike logo and the shorts are just plain navy!
We should expect more from the club on this – Yes some fans are not bothered about the kit but I’ve noticed that the price of the shirt has remained at £49.95 however the shirt quality has gone down. (Design is subjective so lets leave that out)
- Team crest has gone from a stitched design to essentially a sticker which will decrease the manufacturing cost.
- Personal touches on the shirt like “North End” written on the back of the Canterbury home shirt from 2009/10 season. Again the reduction of the club personalisation will reduce manufacturing costs.
- Templates, we have been using shirt templates making everything on our shirt the same as other teams bar colour, sponsorship and crest. Again a decrease in manufacturing costs.
Season after season the club have been cutting back on the shirt features, decreased as much cost of manufacturing as possible. The only cost that’s stayed the same is the cost the supporter has to pay to purchase the shirt.
(I said I wasn’t going to mention football so I apologise) Now we look to the football. We don’t seem to have learnt our lesson with key players entering last years of their contracts e.g. Pearson, Davies, Browne, Johnson and now Barky. We appear to have hired a manager who is likely one of the cheapest options (Obviously this was also due to the superb job Frankie did for us last year).
The whole running of the club just seems lethargic.
Problem – We need new fans
Answer – I’ll just do a billboard
Problem – New season is coming what’s the kit going to look like
Answer – White
Problem – First game of the seasons coming up, How much food should we stock?
Answer – Just get the usual amount.
And finally we keep hearing from Peter Risdale about how this club is not in any debt however we struggle to pay/attract players that our scouting team have identified as players that would improve our squad. It might not be much but if we improve the retail, improve the matchday experience and improve the marketing to attract new people to watch North End then maybe, just maybe we might start making a little more profit which can be used to improve things at the club. It also still makes my blood boil about how patronising he can come across in interviews!!
Why am I writing this then? What’s my point?
I’m basically just fed up with the way the club is being run. As supporters of Preston North End we expect better, we DESERVE better and we should demand better.
I worry that the club is going backwards, I believe we are stuck in our own ways and have been for some time and I worry that we might go back to League One or continue to lose supporters and dwindle down. One thing that gives me great joy in life is football including my football club. When I watched the heartbroken fans of Bury, Macclesfield and Bolton on the news when their clubs were in dire straits it just makes me worry that we are on a similar path.
