Is Project 6000 and sustainability in L1 compatible with selling our "Gems"?

[denzel]

Hope Tom doesn't mind I've taken the liberty of adding last seasons corresponding figures
Home - average Last Season
142,965 - 6,215 143,092 - 6,221

Total - average Last Season
156,390 - 6,799 157,456 - 6,846

Away - average Last Season
13,425 - 583 14,364 - 625

So the average number of home fans actually fell by 6 this season. I wonder who the "quitters" were?

When it comes to travelling Grecians our own away followings were as follows:
This Season Last Season
13,373 - - 581 17,164 - 746
So quite a drop there. As well as loss of "novelty" factor - and the departure of two of our nearer rivals - this year I wonder how much of this was also due to increasing travel costs and frequent disruptions to rail travel this year?

Good analysis. Yep, I suspect a few will have gone to the likes of Bolton and Derby last season, and not this. I know I did.

 

[Elstree Grecian]

Fewer City fans at away games perhaps also due to the number of midweek games because of postponements as a result of international call ups and bad weather. Same could partly explain drop in home attendances. I haven't checked this though but it feels like thee have been more midweek games this season than last.

 

[denzel]

Fewer City fans at away games perhaps also due to the number of midweek games because of postponements as a result of international call ups and bad weather. Same could partly explain drop in home attendances. I haven't checked this though but it feels like thee have been more midweek games this season than last.

The likelihood of games being rearranged for Sky won't help for next season, especially with earlier kick offs

 

[Grecian2K]

The likelihood of games being rearranged for Sky won't help for next season, especially with earlier kick offs

Good point.
On the plus side fewer Grecian travellers means less bounce in the enemy coffers.
On the negative side, less in ours from our own visitors.
But who cares. The cosy Sky/Prem cartel (and their grovelling FA and EFL poodles) don't really give a sh!t about the real game, do they?

 

[SaintJames]

Given we have been told by the Chief Exec at a Fans Forum a few months back that gates of 6,000 aren't sustainable without ongoing player sales should 'Project 6000' now be consigned to the bin and a new mission be agreed on?

 

[edwin_price]

Given we have been told by the Chief Exec at a Fans Forum a few months back that gates of 6,000 aren't sustainable without ongoing player sales should 'Project 6000' now be consigned to the bin and a new mission be agreed on?

Any 'model' that doesn't include selling players will see us doing less well than if we do sell players. I'm not sure ending player sales is a realistic or desirable goal.

 

[tom_ecfc]

Given we have been told by the Chief Exec at a Fans Forum a few months back that gates of 6,000 aren't sustainable without ongoing player sales should 'Project 6000' now be consigned to the bin and a new mission be agreed on?

Project 6,001?

 

[SaintJames]

I'm not sure ending player sales is a realistic or desirable goal.

I don't think it's as black and white as that. The issue is that Project 6000 was a strategy for sustainability. We have reached 6000 and some and according to the Chief Exec we aren't sustainable therefore we are in need of a new Strategy. We will always be a selling club but we can't rely on selling players to become sustainable as that's out of our control

 

[!luke!]

Our stadium is now the biggest limiting factor for us to progress much further. We have been regularly selling out the home stands this season with the seated areas in particular not quite meeting demand.
I think the best way to expand the ground next would be replacing the away end. If that was a seated stand with corners joining up with the Stansfield and IP office stands holding ~1500, we could start being more flexible with the away allocation, the 'away end' could be say one or two seated blocks and the remainder used for homes fans when we are playing the likes of burton, for any teams with bigger followings they could have the full away end and some IP office blocks. The current away stand has too many shared facilities/entrances for this to be possible at the moment.

 

[edwin_price]

I don't think it's as black and white as that. The issue is that Project 6000 was a strategy for sustainability. We have reached 6000 and some and according to the Chief Exec we aren't sustainable therefore we are in need of a new Strategy. We will always be a selling club but we can't rely on selling players to become sustainable as that's out of our control

Right, but we're sustainable if we can keep making profits on player sales. We've been doing that pretty regularly now for long enough that our first batch are in retirement. Not sure why we can rely on this any less than people turning up to watch. If we bring in £1M a year, that's a lot of extra headcount... About an extra 2500 season tickets. Were sustaining.

There's nothing in football that can guarantee youre secure... Whatever level you're at, the finances will be stretched. Sustainable in league one will in reality be battling to be there. Not sure what sustainable means beyond that. We are sustaining in league one right now. If were sustaining, we must be sustainable. We can't become immune from relegation, unfortunately. Lot of clubs with massively bigger budgets than us, who were sustainable, didn't sustain.