From an outsider looking in that sums it up perfectly. I think the start of the middle eights could be the start of a long slow revival for you. You have to realise realistically you aren't going to remedy all those years of mismanagement overnight. good luck in the middle eights.

I'm not trying to justify any particular age related discount - it's a decision for the individual business/ service. I'm just saying that you can't expect people who've had a discount to be over the moon if it's taken away. Some will still buy the product but some won't. If the change we're going to be introduced it would have been better if it were phased in over 2 or 3 seasons.

Four main reasons Wakefield struggle:

1) What's happened on the pitch the last 2 seasons.

2) What's happened off the pitch the last 2 decades.

3) Leeds Rhinos. (I grew up in Ossett and I'd say over 50% of the people who grew up with me support the Rhinos over Wakefield. It's sad.)

4) No incentives to attract new fans and bad season ticket decisions. No student prices is indefensible.

We all have opinions as to why the decline in attendance but hows this for a !!FACT!!, I talked to a group of late 30 year olds at the weekend ive known these lads all their life and as kids went to watch Wakefield with their dads, to say i was supprised is puting it lightly when they said they got fed up with Wakefield and they all go to watch CASTLEFORD TIGERS.
Now its no good coming back with negative remarks on the above statement, as i say its a fact and the management at Wakefield want to take a hard look at this and ask themselves WHY?.

Did you ask them why they left Wakefield and went to Cas? You had a closer interaction with these lost fans than the club does.

Did they say it is because Cas are winning at the moment, they have an amazing ground, the atmosphere is better, the price is better?

Well that says more about those individuals than anything the club has done!

Supporting your club is ingrained, it's not negotiable.

I would stop watching all together before I would change to watching another club.

We have continually shot ourselves in the foot over the last 10 years or so. No investment in the ground or the match day experience, the "stewarding" issues of the last two seasons have certainly alienated a significant number of long standing fans and the clubs PR is non existent. It comes to to money, MC has worked wonders to save the club from folding last year, and has openly said he will not spend more than income. A prudent move at the time, but, and this is a big but, this will ultimately lead to us going under as the current gates leave the club financially non viable. If, and I think we will, survive the middle 8's the club must "go for broke" on marketing, promotion, for next season, especially if we are playing elsewhere rather than Belle Vue. Where we get this money from, i do not know, that's what the Board and the Marketing / sponsorship people are there for, but without it we will fade away.

"Supporting your club is ingrained, it's not negotiable."
If that were only the case nowadays, for the older ones, maybe, but for the kids, it's not, they are fickle, and will want to watch the best in the best surroundings and will make their allegiences to suit. We have to snare the next generation and do it quickly....

I fear for this clubs future, hopefully someone will have the answers......

Regarding the over 60 discount can I say that in my own case I don't work having taken the decision to retire on my railway pension. This means that I could afford the discounted season ticket and thought it value for money. When the discount was withdrawn to 60 to 65 year olds the ticket price effectively went up 120%. Would you pay that sort of increase on anything? I've watched Trinity since 1960 but that sort of increase was too much for me. I now choose my games and to be honest after seeing 3 or 4 games when the players weren't interested I didn't go again until the Hull game by which time I could at least see some kind of effort.

I think there are perhaps differences between supporting and watching a club and you will be a lot more patient with poor performances if you are a supporter than if you are just a watcher. To me it's all about value for money and nobody wants to watch really poor performances in what can only be described as a dump of a ground to most people even though us older supporters love the place.

It is a fact of life that most people want to watch a winning team. Why else would you go to Headingley?

Bradford Bulls are another example a well marketed winning team attracted very good attendances but now there are a lot less people there. It's not rocket science, is it?

I appreciate what you say Two Points, however since I am a non-pensioner could I ask a few things please?

- Firstly, when you got the discounted rate from the age of 60, did you not think it was unusual to get such a discount before the age of 65?

- As an early retired person, what other items/services that you pay for give you a pensioner discount before the age of 65?

- During the Glover era we all had access to "cheap" tickets. I think from year 1 to year 2, my east stand seated season ticket increased by maybe 30-50%, or something of that nature. I appreciate I am still employed but it was still a significant hike up.

As a general few observations to all:-

- do we have any context as to how many over 60 and under 65 year old season ticket holders we have lost? Is it maybe 2 dozen or a few hundred?

- didn't Carter say that the new season ticket prices resulted in lower ticket sales but a substantial increase in income from season ticket sales? (was it 40% increase?) The club has to survive by increasing revenue. Can we really be so critical of a strategy to be financially sustainable because a minority of supporters have benefited from an unusually early pensioner discount?

- when I was in the ticket shop on Sunday I noticed that staff were telling customers that a number of other clubs (she quoted a few but I remember specifically Leeds Rhinos being mentioned) only offer a pensioner discount from the age of 65 onwards. (Was Kath Hetherington influential in this decision?)

I appreciate there is a very vocal dissent on here to a favourable discounted price of the past now being removed.

I also have been affected by the rise in ticket prices. I used to buy 2 season tickets until this year when I only bought one. It was more affordable for us now and my wife doesn't come to every game.

However, overall Carter has indicated that pre-season we were financially better off.

Whilst some will say look at the attendances now, I would respond with look the results this season and comments by our prior coach. You can't say that a primary factor as to why attendances are down is because heavily discounted tickets have been removed.

Unfortunately, we need someone like a Koukash to survive, to underwrite the potential losses. The club need to find out why people aren't going and address it. The impression I get is that they are more interested in making it our duty to attend.

From reading Brian Smith's interview in Forty Twenty, however, if we can get through the season and hang onto him, it does seem that he may have a role in looking at the business structure of the club as a whole. He is more than just a rugby coach. His video thanking the fans might have been nonsense, or it might have reflected his true feelings, but he saw the need to make it.

For me, there are two musts: survive this year, and then hang onto Brian Smith, for more than the rugby stuff.

At the beginning of the season Carter says he'd rather have 4,000 paying full price than 8,000 with discounted tickets and freebees.
Assuming he knows where the break point is before making that statement, the crowd itself doesn't matter.

It may look poor to have 3,500 for a game but if the books look better on it than they did when the place was rocking in the Glover era then all's still good.
If assume we want above 4k to make it workable but that is a different target to 8,000-10,000 as some would think.

I'd like to know what that number is from Carter.

I would've thought that having more people in the ground could only be a good thing.

If the ST prices were reduced by say 10%, and that meant we sold 200 more season tickets (no math behind the numbers, just guessing). Would the revenue from STs not be roughly the same amount of money as what we got this year? (i.e. the extra 200 tickets cover for the loss of 10% discount). Plus you then have 200 extra people in the club shop to buy kits, and also 200 more people in the ground on match days to buy food/drinks and produce a better atmosphere which could attract more fans.

Wildshot - at the time that I took early retirement you could have your free bus pass at 60. This was swiped away shortly before I reached 60. You still get free prescriptions at 60 and there are other things. Quite a few companies offer reduced prices from the age of 60. I think it's called marketing.

I understand what you are saying about increased income but I was replying about poor/reduced attendances. Pop Tart hit the nail on the head though. Would you rather have 8000 paying ten quid or 4000 paying 20?

You don't double your attendances by halfing the ticket price though.

Mr Carter must have done the sums to work out the optimum prices.

I'm not sure how many people aged 60 to 64 have stopped coming because of the concession age change. I am equally unsure how many students have stopped coming because we don't have a student ST.

I am fairly confident in saying that some people across the demographic range, have stopped coming cos we are crap.