Drop in attendences following promtion

Kopite87

Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I should preface this post by saying hello, I'm new to the forums - so be gentle. Also I *think* that I already know the reasons behind what I'm about to talk about, but I just want to get confirmation - and if I'm right to place on record how impressed I am that the game is complex enough to recognise and create this situation!

My Kidderminster save has been the best experience I've had on football manager, without question. Losing the playoff final in my first season was followed up with back to back promotions through winning titles, and then, astonishingly a third in a row via the playoffs against Bradford. This was actually my third trip to Wembley in just 4 seasons, as we also lost the JPT final in the League 1 playoff year. The championship is ridiculously hard at the moment. West Ham, Swansea, Wigan (managed to a 100% record in mid-November by Gary Neville), and even Villa are in my division. Villa are looking to loan Steven Ireland, who is on 56k per week, 12k per week more than my entire wage budget. Sadly they want 50% of his wages paying! I played Swansea who had a player valued at 15M in their line up.

When we got promotion to the Championship the board were forced to invest in the facilities at Aggborough and convert it to an all seated ground for league regulations, and we are currently playing our home games at the Bescott stadium, home to Wallsall. From selling out Aggborough every week last season (around 6k), I'm now only getting 4.5k average in a bigger ground, in a higher league. I assume this is due to fact that it's not actually my ground and my supporters will be having issues getting there? I hope so, as we are due to move back in February, and while it looks like I might just keep us up, it's by no means certain, and the club needs the financial benefits of the gate receipts and hopefully an average crowd of around 7-8k if we are ever to upgrade the half star training and youth facilities.

Anybody who has been in a similar situation - can you advise me as to whether the drop in attendances is due to the fact that we're not playing at 'home' or the fact that we aren't in the top end of the table, or what? I don't expect the fanbase to be the same as established Championship clubs overnight, but it has certainly grown hugely since the days in the conference, I'm hoping that they are going to stick with us for the ride!

A final question as well - I am not complaining about the lack of financial resources available, truth be told promotion to the Championship has probably come before the club could hope to be ready for it, but it does make my aim of keeping us there very difficult. Having attained over 90% in the club stature satisfaction bar, and being on a 5 year contract, I would hope and assume that I should keep my job if the club were relegated? I've heard that the board sometimes expect you to attempt to avoid relegation, rather than to actually avoid it, but in this case I have been told to avoid it. If I can't - is my Kidderminster project toast? Should I have kept the expectations realistic and thrown the playoff final, I would still be way ahead of the curve and could have gone up at a more manageable pace? They board are 'pleased' at the moment with the season objectives, but we're outside the relegation zone - JUST. Media prediction pre-season was for me to finish 24th by the way, so I will feel very harshly treated if I'm sacked!
 
Firstly well done on the back to back promotions. Your attendances will pick up once you're back at your stadium so don't worry. Regarding the expectations you may have shot yourself in the foot. I usually keep my expectations lol unless I the board a giving me a much larger budget. I think you wil be fine if you just avoid relegation
 
Firstly well done on the back to back promotions. Your attendances will pick up once you're back at your stadium so don't worry. Regarding the expectations you may have shot yourself in the foot. I usually keep my expectations lol unless I the board a giving me a much larger budget. I think you wil be fine if you just avoid relegation

They never offered me the attempt to avoid option, they did offer me mid table and even top half, but with such minor budget increases that it wasn't even close to worth it. I would certainly have chosen the 'attempt' option if I could have, but alas triple promotions must have made the suits greedy.

Good news regarding the stadium anyway, if I can keep us up I will feel well placed to consolidate next year. Now that I'm four years into the game clubs like Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool are starting to demand loan fees and wage contributions which they haven't done in the past, with my tiny wage budget this means I've effectively lost one of the my best weapons in the story so far. I'm hoping that this will go back to normal sooner rather than later, as my squad is wafer thin.
 
Hey mid table in the champ is kinda easy don't get me wroung "mid table" in game means just outa relegation so in the championship you could finish 21st and be perfectly fine and not get sacked and i also think that the board would give you some slack if you got relegated anyways due to getting them there don't worry just keep going you will be fine and once you move back home you will be getting 100% of the gate money (atm your only getting 10% of the gate money) just stick with it you will do fine
 
Hey mid table in the champ is kinda easy don't get me wroung "mid table" in game means just outa relegation so in the championship you could finish 21st and be perfectly fine and not get sacked and i also think that the board would give you some slack if you got relegated anyways due to getting them there don't worry just keep going you will be fine and once you move back home you will be getting 100% of the gate money (atm your only getting 10% of the gate money) just stick with it you will do fine

Hi mate, thanks for the reply - I was actually just logging on to ask about this gate reciept question. I've been having a look at the clubs finances screen and noticed the huge difference from last season to this in terms of income from gate receipts. We have just moved back to our own ground so the money should start coming in again! It really looks like if I can keep the team up this year I will be in a much stronger position to build in the summer. It's really tight at the moment with 9 games left we are only outside the drop zone on goal difference. Going to be nerve shredding!
 
Hi mate, thanks for the reply - I was actually just logging on to ask about this gate reciept question. I've been having a look at the clubs finances screen and noticed the huge difference from last season to this in terms of income from gate receipts. We have just moved back to our own ground so the money should start coming in again! It really looks like if I can keep the team up this year I will be in a much stronger position to build in the summer. It's really tight at the moment with 9 games left we are only outside the drop zone on goal difference. Going to be nerve shredding!

you should be fine even if you drop aslong as you are close to staying up, i.e. 22nd and only dropped on goal difference or a few points, especially after what you've done for the club in the last few seasons.
 
Well an update and another question.... We went down on the last day of the season, and I went from very secure to stable in the blink of an eye. Bit of rebuilding over the summer and the board came to there senses telling me to aim for mid table in league one. Won the title on the last day, (back to untouchable) although it should have been wrapped up a long time before that, but a stunning collapse (1 draw and 5 defeats from six games) almost cost us promotion. We also managed to lose another JPT final, this time to York, in League 2!!! So it's back to the Championship, the board have cancelled the improvement of the training facilities which has ****** me off no end as my potential 4.5 star players slowly drop to 4 and then 3.5 as I don't have the facilities to develop them, but they are improving the youth facilities which I suppose is good.

I have no had the board agree that we need a parent club either for loans, or for financial reasons on at least 10 occasions, and they are always unable to find a suitable club. What the ****? Are my board especially incompetent, or is this a well known issue?
 
pretty sure that's a well known bug unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen it actually work out.
 
I won promotion to the blue square prem with Corby,With that they started work on my stadium? meanwhile i played games along the road at Ketterings old ground and my attendances dropped by about 200? Now i have just got promotion to the Npower league...They have to start work AGAIN on my stadium so they have had to put me up in Peterboroughs ground? And my attendances have dropped about 300? So i think you are spot on :)
 
Been following this thread this week, its very similar to my situation with Gloucester City in the championship. I'm still playing through the season now, have about 15 games left. I'm amazingly sitting 7 points clear of relegation after a terrible 12 game winless streak (only 2 draws in there too!) to open the season, and I'm hoping to be able to stay up. I'm just lucky that there seem to be a few other very weak teams in the league.

I'm battling through 8 injuries right now and am playing a number of guys under 2 stars :s Somehow I managed a draw with the team currently sitting 2nd playing a half-star 35 year old DM that was a starter for me in BSB-N (I'm just waiting for him to retire!), among a few other horrible players.

My board also sounds similar to you, in the 4 years they've been in control they haven't approved any upgrades in training or youth facilities, and weren't able to find a suitable parent club (they won't even try looking anymore). That and my wage budget is only 60k per week. They're just bastards in general, I feel your pain. There's nothing more fun than bringing an underdog up the ranks tho!
 
Back in the Championship and heading for an upper mid table finish. Had a very productive summer in the transfer market, for the first time I've been able to invest in the future and I've got a lot of potentially excellent players out on loan without leaving my first team squad bare. Very excited about next season, and the one after that - could very well be in the Premier League by then. So who needs parent clubs anyway?
 
Back in the Championship and heading for an upper mid table finish. Had a very productive summer in the transfer market, for the first time I've been able to invest in the future and I've got a lot of potentially excellent players out on loan without leaving my first team squad bare. Very excited about next season, and the one after that - could very well be in the Premier League by then. So who needs parent clubs anyway?
Nice! Great that you're able to do so well after going up again, and that you have a decent sized squad by the sound of it. I'm playing pretty slowly at the moment, but with 2 games left I'm 5 points clear of relegation in 18th place (the table is crowded at the bottom) so it looks like I'll be able to scrape into another season.

Oh, my stadium finished its rennos and I played my first game there since being in league 1, immediately set an attendance record of 5.9k and took $110k at the gates! That income is going to help my wage budget so much! Might even be able to afford to upgrade my half-star training facilities too. Looking forward to next season already.
 
Top