Not just the ticket issues. When you have not made a financial commitment to go to a game there are so many other things to sway your decision. Bad weather, Cash flow, Game on sky, Poor form to name a few examples. Results make a big difference and would go a long way to help improve crowds, but we saw last year that the league as a whole has become much more competitive week to week so the chances of stringing together a good run of results is a much harder task.

Looks like we should make the most of having a good squad to watch this season.

here here, I for one cant wait, COYH

No need to be condescending.

And why is it bully for me?

If there were knee jerk reactions every time the fans started bleating the chairman would be described as a puppet. There were far too many on here who were too quick to criticise Radford before he'd taken charge of his first game. We were told there was a lot of dead wood which needed clearing out when he was first put in charge, that would take some time to sort out. So, we as fans knew this 2 years ago, yet the same criticism is aired. We have been told that THIS season is the make or break one. You cannot blame the bloke who has put his hand in his pocket for trying to rally the fans.

If he were to have sacked Radford at the end of last season, it would have been back to square one with a new coach wanting different player. There would be another 2 year transition. He has backed his man, it's time the fans backed the team.

What is clear on this forum is that there are some who would appear only happy when they are complaining about the club, it's players, it's coach or its owner. Sort of begs the question as to why they bother at all if it makes them to angry and unhappy.

.... and when you read comments like " I can't recall a decent performance at the kc at all last season." it makes you wonder what they're really expecting to see.

radford and tony have done a lot of good stuff off the field but on it we've been poor throughout his tenure as coach and are certainly one of the least entertaining sides to watch. I can see us winning enough games to scrape into the 8 but it will likely be bilge to watch yet again which will turn the fans away. Pass sales are poor and I'll bet there are plenty amongst those 5700 who seriously thought about not renewing this year and will be unlikely to if it's as bad again next season. 5 wins at home in 15 games is truly terrible and a recipe for disaster for pass renewals for 2017 if things don't improve significantly at the KC

We can't say this scenario wasn't discussed at some length, nor that pessimistic scenarios weren't ridiculed.

Indeed, I've been thinking about this all day and personally I find the whole thing a bit worrying and somewhat perplexing really. Adam made noises about us struggling five months ago, which many chose to ignore but since then we have continued to lose experienced staff at an alarming rate and now we see our owner again coming forward with this news, a few days after we were told that people were rushing to get tickets at the end of the last sales phase. This time he declared that ticket sales have dropped by what, if we are to believe what the owner says, is a very significant amount.

I'm positive that he's doing his best and we have to support him because quite frankly he's all we've got, but everyone, like me, was starting to relish the start of the campaign so it was a strange thing for the Club to come out with just now.

I think I would have kept quiet myself at least until we kicked off by which time we would have given ourselves the best chance of a big build up and would then be in possession of the full renewal figures which will still go up in the next 3 weeks. An announcement now for me is just counter productive! Just my thoughts however but as I say a bit baffling really!

It's OK, Wilf. Any cautions on finances are simply hysterical doom-mongering.

I think we got 9600 one year in the Rule/Agar were here, after finishing 12th in SL, or something like that. Crazy when you think about it.

Not every caution on finances is hysterical doom mongering, just the style you do it in. No one believes the club's finances are rosy but I guess that pearson is fully aware of his responsibilities as a director of the club so I wouldn't expect him to be handing out 3 and 4 year contracts that he didn't expect to be able to meet

Sure. Long term contracts have an intrinsic value though. See Tom Lineham.

Some long term contracts have an intrinsic value if you're not in the midst of a fire sale