Quote: Smithers99 "Not sure counting attendances is your forte, you always seem to count low!
I get your general point mind, but I'd suggest your nearly 50% short, although that is an improvement on your Portsmouth count!
There may have been a surge of sales in the last hour or so mind. I don't think all seats in 101-102 will be York fans based on previous matches. Even for Whitehaven (when the South Stand was closed) only some of the seats were away support.
Although I'm dubious of your attendance counting, I fully agree with your targeting of the Dewsbury match. Added benefit of being a Bank Holiday weekend so keep the entertainment / refreshments rolling post match. Linking it with Newcastle 12 days later would be an idea. Friday night, approaching longest day of the year. Those two matches just have to target the local community. And rather than feel sorry about the June break, the club needs to be lining up all attendees for the July/August games.
One thing that may not have been recognised about the football supporters is a large number are not local (or even close to local). It's hard to get them visit for another sport, a large number don't even go to every football match (30% of Season Ticket holders don't attend). Some pay but never use their seats. Targeting the local community is a must, but I'm not holding my breath.
Interestingly when I looked at the start of the week it looked around 400 including a handful in the South Stand. I'm not convinced though the same seats are now sold, perhaps there have been returns!'"
I agree I think the count is a little higher than OM has calculated. Inevitably though but it will be below the 750-1000 that I think would be unimpressive but acceptable and bring us back to pre-COVID levels.
In essence attendances aren’t really the point. A cunning plan to give away free tickets in bulk will no doubt lead to an end of year average of around 1000 allowing the club to indicate success. The problem is retention: who comes back and pays. The Widnes and Haven games were uncompetitive and dire respectively. Very few new prospective fans from the those 2 games will have been very impressed, many are unlikely to come again or give it one more shot. The off field effort was equally weak so we got no credit there. Dewsbury is the game to go for. The club should use any influence they have to try and get something in the media to raise awareness. Pack the club out with free tickets as well. If we lose that game it won’t matter in any event as I think relegation would be pretty likely but if we win and on and off field is decent progress might be made.