AV -

How many times have I brought Derby examples out on the blog? Not me being clever just reporting what can be done.

How many times have we talked about the disenfranchising groups of fans block by block with ticketing for big games?

Is it too late? I fear it will be because once the horse has bolted you are left with the hardcore.

The glory days have gone, the fans who were attracted by the glamour were not brought up on a diet of Leyton Orient on a Tuesday night.

I wonder what the age spread is of the people on this blog? I suspect we are talking an average age of 50+. I wouldnt be surprised if it was something similar in the ground.

Good article Anthony.

Derby's idea was a way forward in my eyes. The club simply have to do something. And here's something that I can't fathom out. Blackburn and Wigan do Season Tickets for £250. And have richer owners .Yet we can't do something similar? Both are similar sized clubs to us.

You should get the job in The Marketing Dept at Boro and sort it all out. I would much rather have a fuller stadium than how it is now. And I'm a season ticket holder.

It's easy!! Just re-sign Juninho

AV, excellent analysis and some creative and lateral thinking that really should be exercising the minds of the marketing folk at the club.

I was rung up by the club in the summer to be congratulated on my loyalty and support soon after season tickets went on sale. I think this was because I was one of the first to renew.

I made the point to the club emphatically that I wanted them to fill the ground through a more imaginative, cost effective pricing structure and as a season ticket holder I am not bothered whether concessions are given to other supporters. I want to be in a vibrant, noisy stadium not a morgue.

It is hard to understand why there has been no movement on this because I do not believe existing season ticket holders are the stumbling block but the apparent inflexibility of the club.

How Gibson with the money he has poured into the club, can bear to look at rows of empty seats is beyond me. This is about raising income, why is there so much inertia on this topic?.

Teesside is a low wage economy, with high unemployment- mainly part time work, low disposable income.It is crazy to assume people can fork out £54 for two home matches.I can, but I am in the minority and for too long the majority have been forsaken

I don't have a problem with any of those suggestions. I particularly like the....actually at that point I scrolled up to see the list again to highlight one or two, but they are ALL decent ideas. And, no doubt, contributors will provide other good ones.

The club needs supporters to attend, to put money into the club. Having the ticket priced at £35 (but no-one buying it) is absolutely pointless. Many of us here ARE season card holders (some of us with the extended season cards) and the sense I get is that few of us would complain about "new followers" getting a good deal. Better that than an empty, quiet, ground.

"Dear Former Season Ticket Holder,

We noticed that you haven't renewed your membership but the club really would like to welcome you back into the fold. In the hope of tempting you, we enclose a free ticket for you to attend the home game against Sheffield Wednesday on Friday 9th November. We appreciate it is not for your "old" seat because that has been sold to another supporter, but all seats at the ground have a good view, and it is for free...

"If you take up the free ticket, we can offer you tickets for the same seat for the next two games, against Bristol City on Saturday 24th and Huddersfield Town on 27th November, for £15 each. Just pop into the Ticket Office which will stay open after the Sheffield game, and we will sort out the tickets for you. That's three home games for £30!

"Even if you are not available to attend any of those three games, but would like to attend other matches, we have arranged other schemes to assist and, because you are a former member, we will give you a similar discount.

"We have set aside a special phone line at the Ticket Office to deal with any "returner" enquiries so please feel free to phone us on the dedicated number XXXXXXXX or by e-mail on YYYYYYY@hotmail.com.

"We want you back at the ground supporting the team we look forward to seeing you on 9th November.

Yours Faithfully,
Steve Gibson & the Ticket Office Staff"

Surely worth a try?

Look, Middlesbrough FC....this is your support, your market, trying to help the club collect further support and sell more tickets. We are not going to be upset at the club "undermining" our position. We want the ground to be full, the club to take more money at the Ticket Office and the food & drink outlets. We want the club to be a success.

How many other companies have their customers begging the board to make decisions like these? If these ideas come from the top of our heads, surely just as many, possibly better ideas, could come from professional marketing staff.

I'm not trying to "stalk" this Blog but....

The "Make Us an Offer" point listed by AV is a good one. Empower the staff to HELP people who want, or might be persuaded, to spend money at the club. There should be a "can do" attitude. We want to help, let's see a way to finding a solution.

I'm not trying to criticise the Ticket Office staff. On the rare occasions I have had to go in, they have always been fine with me. But then, I go to all home games and get any home cup games as part of the package (NOT THAT THERE HAVE BEEN ANY FOR 11 CONSECUTIVE TIES) so I suppose I don't have many queries.

The alternative to getting this right, in the absence of a rich benefactor coming forward, is a slow decline, with the remaining fans gradually being whittled down by apathy, unemployment or other financial realities intervening, or by moving away from the area or dying in their seats. We need new blood in the seats at the Riverside or, within 5-10 years, it will be our Darlington Arena. *shudder*

PS When speaking to individuals at the club they are invariably friendly. It is just as a body that the problems have existed.

I feel quite strongly about season tickets. Being an average side in the Championship means we struggle to attract people in. Less people affects the matchday experience.

I speak as a season ticket holder living in exile in Barnsley. I accept that I cannot make every game and I am not really interested in having them paid back, but I do like the idea of winning back the disaffected and encouraging children to catch the bug.

Some of AVs ideas are really good, particularly the intelligent pricing system, and I really like the idea of manipulating where people sit to put people together. Some clubs give away a free child season ticket with every adult one. That would be really good and would encourage me to bring my eight year old every week instead of every four weeks.

Ultimately success on the pitch is what will bring people back. When success returns, and it will, I hope the club remembers those of us season ticket holders sticking with them now, we really are hard core!

The Case for and against.

There are some very valid arguments here and toes will need be stepped on in order to improve the "Match Day Experience".

The problem starts on the pitch. Last week we saw four static midfielders almost frightened to go forward like rabbits in the headlamps. As much as 25,000 cheering can inspire, 25,000 on their backs can have similar negative effects. Last seasons disastrous home form also did a lot to deter the casual from returning.

As a season ticket holder I still want my loyalty to be rewarded so if the decision to fill the seats is to undercut the season ticket price then we should be recompensed otherwise in order to get the fans back they will have kicked in the teeth those who have stuck with them.

The ground does need reconfiguration in order to get some form of atmosphere, and this is another area where noses will be put out of joint.

My plans would probably be too radical however if this didn't work nothing would.

1. Appease the Season Ticket Holders. We have put our money where our mouth is how about the club do the same. If we go up then the season ticket next year is free for existing season ticket holders as a thank you (£500k tops). If we don't then if pay on the door price is lower than ST price this difference will be doubled and given as an additional reduction to the 2013/14 Season Ticket.

This provides huge flexibility in pay on the door ticket prices and one off deals and gives existing Season Ticket holders a financial break in these hard times.

2. Abandon the Boro Pride Card. It serves no purpose when we can't even fill a third of a ground.

3. Kids for a Quid when bought with any adult ticket for the rest of the season. Children are hungry and want stuff from the club shop. For £1 to fill an empty seat can generate £40 in food, drink, souvenirs, etc

4. Incremental Pricing (which I think Cardiff do). Buy a week in advance at say £20 against an on the door price of £25.

5. Waive the booking fee online, it's obstructive and makes an expensive ticket even more so.

6. Now to the stadium. This is where I will become grossly unpopular. First, move the visiting fans to the South West Upper and close the rest of the Upper tier of the West Stand (the one not shown on the TV).

7. Move the Red Faction to the South Stand behind the goal in the SEATING area (I am 100% against the return of standing but that's another rant / post !!)

8. Look to make certain areas / blocks unreserved seating so those who will sing / create atmosphere can buy a ticket for a block and sit together rather than being in small pockets throughout the stadium.

9. Make an area of the South East Corner or East Lower into a family areas for specially priced family tickets.

Just a few suggestions ....

An awful lot of good sense and rationale given by you AV on this key issue but why oh why have'nt the obdurate, closed minds at the club not recognised the desperate need to initiate the creative, interventionist measures, that are needed to combat an ever increasing annual mass defection away from the "Riverside revolution" in the post Eindhoven era.

I would suggest, that such measures now would be totally ineffective. This particular horse has well and truly bolted, is long gone and lost. Those hard core season ticket holders marooned off shore or stuck in 12 hour shift patterns experience great difficulty in giving them away - fewer and fewer takers for the dubious delights of witnessing drab,dreary product, on a cold night time pitch in winter.

These interventions were required during our later days in the Premier League when we could not sell out the stadium for the big games.

As you elude to the apparent main reason for the clubs paralysis of creative thinking is founded in a fear of a backlash from an increasingly shrinking narrow season ticket fan base.

Your description of a small and angry section of dissenters and baulkers at any attempts of concession to the great unwashed is indeed, in my view misguided, myopic and mean spirited.

The big issue for me is that the club have pandered to and indeed cowered to this angry, vocal minority and never bothered to find out what the majority feeling is amongst the season ticket fan base.

They don't know and have not been bothered to try and determine what the majority view was and is - if they had they might of got a pleasant surprise of support.

In my experience of anecdotal opinions the vast majority were happy to see the club offer more attractive matchday pricing packages for targeted fixtures (ie televised ones) in the hope that the stadium actually looked like it contained a crowd.

Blackburn for instance regularly commissioned fan surveys to try and find out what it was that deterred people from actually attending matches.

The description of match day prices as punitive is very apt because I have always felt the disproportionate pricing structure was designed at best to encourage and convince regular matchday fans that it was economically more savvy to invest in a season ticket; or a more cynical view would be that it was a vindictive price hike, kicking out at season ticket refusers.

Other clubs of a similar or indeed greater status have found it necessary to intervene with pricing packages etc. but we seem to be unique in our 'can't do' mentality, when in fact we with our narrow fan base, inferior brand and top economically deprived area we needed to be more proactive than most in this area.

How frustrating and yes infuriating to find that the people we rely on to run our club's affairs with some degree of intellect and aspiration are apparently completely devoid of either.

They continue to defy the gravitational economic force of supply and demand that applies in any other business; ie when supply of your product increases greatly, and the demand slumps, prices(should) fall.

Anthony -

What you suggest has been raised and argued hundreds of times amongst Boro fans. On FMTTM many agree prices are ridiculous and swathes of empty seats are an embarrassment.

The clubs stuffy, out - of - date attitude towards change stinks of arrogance and conceit.I agree fans need more than an appeal to blind "loyalty". Fans dont have the money or inclination to sit like a light house in a sea of emptiness.

Behind the goal in the south stand is an embarrassment. The stewards treatment of Red Faction and the teenage kids in the S.E corner is beyond contempt. The club hide behind "health and safety" to ban drums and flags, unlike Leicester or Nottingham Forest, amongst many others. The club "officials" wear posh suits that must cost a few walk - up tickets to provide to some employees. Why not give em a tie and let them buy their own suits? Its doing nothing to attract ordinary working - class fans back to the club and its not filling all the corporate boxes!

Time for a change: it starts with Steve Gibson and permeates downwards throughout the club. How ironic the club sacked the lowest paid workers in the fans shop at the ground to save(?) money, whilst continuing to pay people cosy - upped managers underneath the West Stand.

Kids for a quid and redesigning the different areas of the ground is essential to move on.

We`ve had enough of "sit - down and shut up". Time for the club to shut up (!) and listen to the dwindling attendees, or go bust!

"The situation can only get worse. Boro can't sit on their hands waiting and hoping that promotion will save the day. Something must be done."

But this is exactly what they are doing.

Of all of the possible alternatives my own personal one is £20 a ticket, it's marketable, easy to deal with and process on a matchday (could even have a cash turnstile) and it seems on the face of it a good price in this day and age.

However the club just aren't willing to move and try ANYTHING. All of those suggestions in this great article require more man power, especially in a ticket office that has been shred to the bare bones of staffing.

The incompetence I see on a match day now when there are only about 11k there would magnify with higher crowds, the concourses filled with staff that barely know the layouts of the tills is one.

They are all great ideas but the club just don't want to know.

* of all of the things I thought I would ever see complained about on here, about five people in the entire ground wearing a club suit is possibly the last!

AV -

Sorry, the problems were there long before the cull you mentioned. I doubt whether those people had any influence on the way the club was/is run.

How many times have you mentioned being an outcast and not trusted because of your comments and daring to suggest improvements. They were not in the last four
months.

Not Invented Here Syndrome.

**AV writes: Of course. But nevertheless, those problems have been compounded by the current to-the-bone staffing levels. That makes the situation (indeed, almost any situation beyond the routine) more difficult to manage.

I view my season ticket as a membership card. I probably attend less than a third of the home games, but I can do so if I choose, and retain priority bookings for games I want to go to.

As a result, I don't even really look at it as a match-by-match cost. I pay a certain amount for a certain package, and anyone who has the same package has to pay the same amount.

Beyond that, I don't care if they give away the remaining 20,000 tickets, if they can show that it's benefiting the club (although I'm equally unbothered by the number of empty seats if they can show that it's not harming the club).

Evan Davis said on Dragon's Den this week "if you don't innovate you don't have a business". OK, football's slightly different, especially if you're winning, but the evidence seems to be that something's not right and nobody's trying to fix it.

This "roofie" character who posted about dwindling attendances has a nerve as he is famous on a certain Boro forum for NEVER attending any matches no matter whether the Boro are doing well or struggling. If only fans could be as keen and vociferous in the event of actually turning up to a Boro game as they are on the idiot boards.

**AV writes: Any point-scoring arising from other arenas is best fought out there.

For sale, one Boro matchday ticket.

£25, comprises of...Burger/Pie, Pint/Tea/Coffee, plus match day programme.

Apply Middlesbrough FC ticket office.

I think the problem is that the performances and results are not making fans want to come. I would pay £27 if I thought there was a good chance the team were going to have a right go and start winning regularly. There is nothing worse than paying £27 to see an ineffective team (Which in my opinion we are most of the time).

When was the last time the Riverside was rocking and the players delivered in front of a big crowd? When the team has had opportunities in front of fairly big crowds the players/manager have let the fans down by putting in gutless, pathetic performances eg. Leeds at home last season.

I'll come back when I get my money's worth, otherwise the £27 is going on something else......

Close the West Stand upper completly, put advertising tarpaulin covers over the corner seating areas (Bulkhaul advertsing FOC?). The intention would be to artificially reduce capacity to no more than 20K.

Hoping and assuming that our performances and League position improves (as I believe it will once we get some of our injuries down) demand will increase and with it the fear of not getting a ticket (this is when the club have to hold their nerve).

If there is over subscription for the available 20K there will be more part-season tickets sold for the remainder and less pay on the day walk up availability.

It would be easy to panic and open up closed sections for one off knee jerk games but to ensure steady prolonged and healthy growth there has to be severe and ruthless pruning. It may even be worth closing the entire West Stand to give a better TV impression.

**AV writes: You can't close the entire stand because that is where the corporate seating, boxes and restaurant are and they bring in cash. You can certainly look at the rest of the upper tier and corners though and consider way to encourage people there to migrate.

All good ideas, lads and lasses, as many have already said.

But as WillBiff said, who is listening at the club? If they've cut back staff massively then probably no-one has the time or responsibility to sift through the message boards or to survey what fans really think. But this issue is so important for the future of the club that it must be taken seriously.

So how can you use your influence, AV? Can you let Steve Gibson have a copy of all the responses here? Can you organise a Gazette survey and publish the results? Can you and Philip seek a high level meeting with Steve Gibson and Neil Bausor? Can you suggest establishing a fans' focus group to come up with marketing ideas? There would be plenty of volunteers!

In short, how do we get the club to take notice?

**AV writes: There was a fans' focus group that was quite active a couple of years ago (it helped introduce the bands outside the ground on matchdays and the Boro Bar in the South Stand) but with cuts in PR/marketing staff I am not sure if it is still functioning or if it has met this year. Maybe a regular reader knows more?

I'm sure the people who matter at the club have read the column. I think we will collate the best responses and publish them too so they will definitely see them too. It is important to be constructive and pro-active on this. It can't be a club bashing exercise because people are frustrated with the football. I hope Boro take the ideas on board and mine the best, the most viable and cost effective of them on board.

I understand there are problems with manpower, finance (and some cultural resistance to being nudged from outside) but there are powerful economic factors at play here and they have to do something. Soon.

As everyone else has said, the walk-up prices are just too high. When I'm back at home from uni, my Dad always likes to take me to a game, but tickets for two adults, a warm drink at half time, and getting there and back easily knocks it above £60 - a lot of money when my Dad doesn't even support them.

I'm always amazed that we don't seem to have any schemes to bring people in. Sheffield Wednesday give up an entire block (or more for lower key games), then offer all of the tickets to the students unions to sell for a fiver each. Sure, they don't always manage to sell them all, but it means that they've got a few hundred young people in a difficult to fill section of the ground, some of whom wouldn't normally go and see a match.

Last year, they worked hard on selling it to people as an integral part of 'experiencing' Sheffield. This year, they're selling it as "a bit on the side for those missing their home team".

Why couldn't we do that? Set aside a few hundred difficult to fill seats, then send a tickets round to colleges and universities. Promise them 10% of the money for every ticket sold (NE colleges are desperate for income, however minor), and sell them one per student for five quid.

You could even dress the thing up as supporting local grassroots by insisting that they use the money to maintain sporting facilities.

AV, I am a long standing season ticket holder and I would welcome any change or reduction in price that would bring more bodies and atmosphere into the ground. I would happily see non season ticket holders taking advantage of offers and be damned the pennies I might have saved.

The current situation is embarrassing and only provides ammunition to our local rivals and the Teesside-based bandwagon Manchester city fans that have appeared out of nowhere over the last few years.

Come on boro fans, lets encourage the club to be proactive for a change.

I have had a look at the attendances match by match over the last couple of years.

We had the big crowd for the Leeds derby just before Strachan left. That was 23,500 and live on TV so creditable. For Mogga's first match there were over 19,000 but we lost despite having loads of chances.

Next match was down in the 15k again. Not even a Mogga halo effect could keep people going

The end of that season saw some great home games in the sense second halves were good with late winners etc. First halves poor but the crowds didn't go up despite a long unbeaten run - last match had its usual good crowd.

Last season we got an average 17500'ish, Now gates are in a free fall.

I cant see that the football is going to bring fans back in any numbers unless we are running away with the league in a promotion push. The answer has to be ticketing to get decent numbers of people back.

The club has to take the lead to make fans think they are wanted. We do loads of community work and must use those links.

Get in to the schools, not just one or two but all of them. Offer family tickets through the schools, do the equivalent of chocolate at the tills and get the kids to take home details of the offers. Dad and two kids £20, can take friends as well.

Get in touch with the local Licensed Victuallers Association. Do the same sort of thing for pubs and clubs.

Ask local football leagues to play on Saturday mornings of home matches and give block ticket facilities at reduced prices if they do so. Approach Sunday leagues with the same type of offer.

Get reciprocal pricing agreements with Pool and Darlo. Approach teams in the pyramid. Contact rugby clubs to see if they could play Saturday morning and get cheap tickets for the afternoon home games.

Where clubs are tied in to Saturday afternoon make a real drive for midweek games. Throw in a training session at Crockcliffe.

Special deals for childrens wards at hospital, childrens care facilities.

Catterick Garrison - tickets for heroes.

Saturday morning kids tournament at Crockcliffe followed by a match at the Riverside. Do it over a number of weeks with a mini season ticket.

Something needs to be done to turn the tide.

The discounted tickets for schools is still expensive from experience. Dad and lad ticket schemes (Kids offers) for £20 in say East Lower.

Upper West Corners should be moved to help fill the horseshoe / west lower.

I work away but go to as many home games as possible when home. Loads of lads who work abroad are in the same boat. No point in us having season tickets as they currently work. I would buy something like a half season ticket where you use club ticket website to pick your ten games etc. That could attract a thousand or so offshore / overseas workers back.

It would also be good for the club to make a stand for safe standing. With the Hillsborough report showing that police were to blame, managable safe standing could be trialled if agreed by the FA. The cost of the installation would probably make it a no no but surely worth a look.

The other thing that springs to mind is the fact that the cheap season ticket deal didn't apply to everyone. Surely it would be better to attract everyone early than make those who are umming and arghing pay £80 more.

Bring back the sky Sumos, proper half time entertainment.

Good football with plenty of home goals.

That's about it.

Well this has article has really stoked the fire.

AV your in the perfect position to get some sort of petition going.
Im sure thousands of signatures asking for change along with promises of attendance will change their minds.

The lack of any marketing strategy or appreciation of desire for a decent match day experience has to be honest been frightening. Those involved on the commercial side at the club should hang their heads in shame!

Kids for a quid is so obvious it beggars belief! They are the Boro fans of the future. They also buy burgers, coke, programmes etc which is all extra revenue into the club coffers.

I seem to remember a home game against Charlton, just before Christmas so hardly a big draw. The club trialed kids for a quid and what was the crowd.........oh yes 33,000!!!

Great article AV.

On the other hand, one might ask Mr Gibson: "If you and the club are not prepared to listen to decent ideas from people who have the club's interests at heart, how long do you expect those same people to be prepared to continue to support the club?"

You can, of course, ignore the views of the supporters. But in that case, you could hardly blame the supporters for turning away from the club. There are other things to do on a matchday - many of them rather pleasant and much cheaper than going to the Riverside.

What would it feel like, pumping in £1M a month into a club that is no longer supported by its community, watching a team in a spartan, mostly empty, arena?

Of course Richard you are right to point out Boro are not exactly in a position to take any moral high ground by having a pawn broker as sponsor rather than an internet loan shark - though my post was some-what tongue-in-cheek.

Though I agree with your points about the wisdom of the club sacrificing key employees to subsidise the no longer justifiable inflated wages of players - I guess the problem is the club no longer gets it's Premier League bounty and is in a long drawn out crisis management strategy.

Steve Gibson is still an enigma wrapped up in a riddle - I posted yesterday on the previous thread arguing that Boro's stated ambition of a PL return is merely only lip service as they don't have any serious means of achieving them ahead of any other club in the Championship.

As for solutions posed by AV's article - it really depends on what the point of the exercise is. Increased attendance? or Increased income to fund the club's ambition? Then on top of that a general improvement in the matchday experience of those attending? Or is it a modern revoluton on how to operate a football club?

Perhaps, the answer is all of them - personally I'm always in favour of anything that shakes things out of the 'this is always the way it has been done mentality.' What is the point of sticking to a business model that clearly has so many faults?

For me a season ticket is for seat on a train for a journey you can't avoid making every week. This is not what being a follower of a middle-ranking football club in a downturn needs. They need motivating and engaging into continued active involvement - plus the need to keep an eye on the club's future by the enticement of new followers.

The problem is that most people don't like change - especially if they believe they have something to lose - so it will be important to get the existing season ticket contingent on board. Perhaps some kind of fans forum is the way to start - though it will need someone to lead the process, someone who the fans trust. A few names intially spring to mind, maybe it could be your calling AV?

Werdermouth -

You say that people don't like change. I don't think that's true. I think that people do not like to be changed, but change itself is welcomed so long as you are involved in the decision.

That is how Boro can win this battle. They can put suggestions like the ones on this board into a survey and poll opinion. They can then act on the resultant information and fans who may have to move seats or face whatever other consequence can do so without the feeling that this has been lumped upon them.

It absolutely can be done, but is there the will?

May I expand on @Dendog's idea.

Most expats work on a rota system. Six weeks on, two off, eight weeks on two off and offshore workers four and four or two and two. There are other combinations but my point (and Dendog's I think) is that most know exactly when they will be back in Blighty or on dry land.

If you could cherry pick the games you would be home for, get a season ticket based on those games priced accordingly then for me it's a no brainer. I'm sure the corporate pricing has A, B and C rated games so that pricing strategy could be extended.

It would be an easy addition to the Boro website and it would look like the ones used on airline websites where you pick the combinations of outward and inward flights.

Click the ten (or more or less) games you're home for, press the button and a price comes out, if it's cheaper than £27 quid x 10 (and it should be if they do it properly) you've got yourself a half season ticket holder. Easy peasy!

Alternative pricing structures may help attendances...but not by much.

It has long been observed that the biggest two drivers of attendances at football are:

1. Anticipated entertainment value of the fixture
2. How well the season has gone and is expected to go.

Evidence shows that the cost of tickets has far less impact on attendances than either of points 1. & 2.

The big challenge for Steve Gibson and Neil Bausor is whether the modest pick up in attendances following price deals would actually generate any meaningful benefit for the club either in terms of income or atmosphere.

I am confident that Steve and Neil have considered pricing at length and have made an informed decision. It's OK to disagree with their policy but it would foolish to think that the club isn't aware of others' pricing structures.

The way to boost attendances is for our team to play entertaining and generally winning football. That's in Tony Mowbray's hands...

**AV writes: Boro won their first three games at home this term playing some decent stuff and scoring a series of sizzling goals. Then beat leaders Blackburn away in a good display on TV and won away in a monsoon at Preston. In this division you can't really have much better run up to home games. Yet the crowd still dipped.

What strikes me most about this particular issue and thread are the number of fans posting who don't post regularly, that tells me how important this issue is to the fans. I hope the club takes note.

I like the idea of closing down sections of the stadium and using banners or something similar to hide the empty seats and thus creating a smaller stadium. Concentrating the fans together more has to create a better atmosphere which the fans and players will both enjoy more.

As for ticket pricing innovations, there has to be loads of creative ways of getting fans in by reducing prices. There are some great ideas on here for doing that. Surely if the club, players and fans all want the same thing, in other words a better atmosphere and more fans in the stadium, then the solution can be readily found?

A stadium which is flexible enough to be expanded/contracted even if it's an illusion created by banners etc has to be an asset to a club which spends half it's life in the top division and half in the second division. The same is true of ticket pricing, a system which is flexible enough to react to demand has to be a good thing.

Come on you boys at MFC , get together and do some brainstorming, there are plenty of ideas on here to give you a great start, we all want it. It's not a contentious issue.

I wonder if the problem with semi-season tickets is that they may prove too popular.

I would expect them to sell well amongst those who cannot commit to every game but what if current season ticket holders prefer the semi offer themselves? How many season ticket holders don't go to every game as it is?

The pricing would have to be very well thought out so as to retain the season ticket as the most attractive offer. I suspect that there are a significant number of season ticket holders who might prefer to go to most of the home matches, rather than all.

A semi-season ticket of 12 games costing, say, £240, plus four walk-up games at £27 would come to about £50 less than a season ticket. You can make the semi-season ticket more expensive but it at more than £20 a game I think begins to lose it's appeal over fewer walk-up games.

**AV writes: Yes I appreciate it is a fine balancing act. But would you gain more than you may potentially lose? Would it lure back enough currently semi-detached fans who used to be ST holders but who drifted away and now only go to, say six or seven games, to be viable? It needs some serious number-crunching.

Any proposal must be based on getting the local fans in to the ground. Whilst I kept away from the Riverside for lack of entertainment reasons it would financial suicide to go to every home game with current fuel costs.

Even as a Boro Pride card holder the diesel is still twice the ticket price so you can say £70 a match for home games with no food or drink added. I may as well just set fire to tenners!

I will go when Mrs G goes to York or I visit my brother. Sadly it means I see more away games so my money doesnt go to Boro.

I like the membership idea, the season card and Boro Pride cards are that but there is scope to exploit them further. Especially the Pride Card.

Use the cards for buying away tickets, not a discount but reward away fans in other ways. If they bring someone along add that as a credit. When there is a reduced price offer reward Season card and Pride card holders for getting someone to come along with them.

Reduce the early bird deal and instead reward card holders for getting other people to go. Reward fans for getting groups to go via their card.

If every adult season card holder could get a another fan in for £16 at every match that builds his discount for the following year. You could build healthy discounts on the season card with that extra revenue.

Same goes for junior and concessionary cards.

AV, if as you say, the average ticket price is around £15 taking into account concessions, the club would be risking very little in revenue by dropping day prices.

By my reckoning we are only getting in around 2000 walk ups, thereby bringing in about £30k in income. If we dropped the day price to £18 (therefore still not undercutting ST holders - which I am one) and kids for a quid, crude maths might suggest the average ticket price drops to £9 or £10 if each adult brought a child.

If this was the case we would only need to bring in an extra thousand (3000 pay on the day that is) to match the revenue from the old, higher prices. And I am convinced such a gesture would yield a bigger increase in walk ups than that!

What has the club to lose? It would probably also result in higher merchandise, food, programme sales anyway - not to mention the prospect of recruiting the next generation.

The only issue might be those who bought £95 junior ST's, but the club could recompense them with vouchers or reductions next year

I have had a ST for 39 years and just want to see the ground full(er) again with a better atmosphere, I'd probably take my 2 kids aged 8 and 6 for the sake of an extra 2 quid! Right now it would cost me £28 to do so, and they aren't yet keen enough for me to buy kids ST for them.

Come on Boro, you know it makes sense...

I get a ST to force myself to attend because I enjoy it. If I didn't it would be easy to not make the effort as I live two hours away. I find it slightly annoying that I have to miss games on occasion.

Instead of £400 all up front, why not have a buy-in cost of say £150 and then a ticket price of £10. I can always find a tenner and would still feel compelled to go. I can also have MY seat by prepaying online a max of 3 days before kick off.

At £150, surely more fans could find the initial outlay, especially with a form of 0% payment plan (without an admin fee equivalent to 5%+) over the summer.

The more bought in at the outset with a reasonable stakeholding should lead to ongoing attendance.

I like the observation made by Nigel Reeve in regards to the new posters who have felt the need (not the urge) to throw their twopenneth worth at this issue. You can't help but feel the passion in what bloggers are posting, plus the ideas are as good as, if not better than the brains trust at the Riverside could put together.

As for a forum and a voting system for the way forward, having upped sticks and moved to Oz many moons ago, I would feel as though I was voting for a system that I would only use on my occasional trips home to visit the rellies, which isn’t that often. So it wouldn’t be fair really, it has to be those that go, want to go, but need change to achieve that.

Atmosphere at the ground is key to what happens on the pitch, what happens on the pitch is key to the number of bums on seats, simple. To create the atmosphere you need people through the gates, there are no end of schemes here to achieve that and to totally ignore the fact that numbers are on the slide is ivory tower syndrome.

As a kid I was able to go in to the Bob End, and over the wall for a better slot when the coppers weren’t looking of course, but I could pay for that out of my pocket money. It would take a rich kid to that these days. The kids are the club’s future and you can’t shy away from that fact, because when you get to my age the seasons left to support my club are definitely in shorter number than a bairn.

Lastly, before I did up sticks, I used to hang around with some bloke, who unlike myself on top cash working abroad, could only afford to pick certain games but still managed to attend the vast majority of games in a season.

All of that stopped after the shift to the Riverside, firstly the success of the early years meant that unless you were a ST you couldn’t rock up at the door and get in, and secondly the prices were restrictive in reflection to their salaries. Still is really, but a generation of loyal supporters were lost to the Hurray Henry’s that jumped on the band wagon. Doctors, dentists and other well heeled professionals that wouldn’t grace the terraces of Ayesome Park, but just loved to be seen at the “Game” with their offspring. Where are they now???

I know where my old mates are, following their beloved team from newspapers, Sky Sports and radio, because they can’t afford the £27 to get in. We’ve lost these lads I’m afraid, the matchday ritual has long been replaced by other regimes and pastimes, cheaper ones too.

So we need to entice the next generation, but that’s only possible with forward thinking to get parents to bring them in. Is it the price putting them off, or the mentality of the board and the way in which they’ve been treat in the past?

Finally, I’ve blogged before about the legions of Boro fans (self) exiled in foreign lands, but would love nothing else than to contribute in some way, any way to the Boro cause. Any of you schemers out there got any ideas on how to get my donation?

**AV writes: If there was a meaningul membership scheme you could join up and get your newsletter, birthday card and take part in surveys, generally feel included in the Boro 'family' despite the distance.

I have been giving some thought to the culling of staff at MFC. Tragic for people who will probably be Boro fans as well.

I just wonder if the club may be more receptive now there are fewer people. We all have dealings with companies with layers of management all of whom can constipate decision making.

Maybe the whole structure was institutionally resistant to change, maybe the fact there are fewer people means there will be fewer obstacles, less reinforcement of the status quo.

Just a thought

Tinkering with prices does have it's risks as mentioned above by a few people but surely there are some quick wins which don't require alienating ST holders or risking the revenue from walk ups.

Marketing to Uni students sounds very sensible to me as it could bring new people to the ground, people who have never been and wouldn't have otherwise gone. Maybe a couple of players could man the stand at the Uni for an hour to draw people in?

There must be loads of other opportunities like this where there is good or moderate potential upside with little to no downside.

A suggestion for improvement of the match day experience is to sort the beer out. The current offering is awful. I tend to have a pint elsewhere unless I feel brave or depressed at half time.

'Boro must find a new direction and bring in new blood and new cash immediately or risk drifting slowly towards a deeper crisis.'

I'm sure I mentioned something previously, last season perhaps, about the dangers of losing regular fans from the Riverside due to lack of investment - still the penny didn't seem to drop for most.

The rabbit staring at the headlights in a state of paralysis is the next rabbit in the pie - dead meat that is!

The rabbit is the Boro. The state of paralysis is the business culture of cutbacks and lack of investment and bad decision making. The headlights coming at it, the Boro that is, is the very real risk of implosion - ask Pompey, they know.

My conclusion is a sad one in that real change will only come when the club hits rock bottom and slips into the red on the accounting sheet and there's no where else to cut costs.(Bit like the junky who can only kick drugs when they're so far gone there is no other choice)

Those who turn up in future may see Mogga in the ticket office selling match day tickets before he goes off to shine the boots and fill the water bucket for on field niggles and the rest. Please don't mock the bucket example cause anything more expensive won't be in the budget.

There's a certain manager up the road who came a couple of seasons ago, saw and buggered off sharpish when he saw how the land lay and what the future was to bring. I believe he's still operating in the Premiership.

The running down of the club started in the Premiership. A hiccup of investment came along with GS2 then the well for all intensive purposes dried up. The rot starts from the very top with executive decisions and continues unabated. thus therein lies the problem with an autocracy - it can simply run out of ideas, enthusiasm and eventually money. New blood, new money indeed, AV.

Austerity strategies suck and only delay the inevitable.

It will get worse, only hope that eventually it gets better.

Maybe there's a silver lining where the club goes bust and is bought by the fans where it's then re-admitted into League Two. It'll be time to dust yer boots off then AV and start doing the stretching exercises.

* Note Psychological studies into the behaviour patterns of the rich suggest that the danger to their overall wealth causes them to lose a great deal of sleep at night and clam up on the spending or at least follow a 'golden rule' of not spending more than 10% of the pot on any given year. That's how they stay rich.

How much in relative terms does SG contribute to the Boro now that the banks have closed their shop windows and refuse to pay out? Is the Boro simply a victim to a historic psychological truism? Just a thought!

UTB

Another issue, which has links to how well the area and its people are doing financially is, perceived elitism.

We are pretty susceptible to this and the politics of envy around these parts. Its endemic from our history, its a negative slant to the steel we are based on.

But it does mean that for every misplaced quip from the high ups, every little petulant comment from a player, every Big Time Charlie etc dents the bond that we all wear as a badge of honour from the dark days.

Taking Steve Gibson as one of us, yes he is a fan, but he is a wealthy man living miles away and is touched with blue paint as far as his politics are concerned. You cant tell me that doesnt rear its ugly head in most peoples Boronoia when he makes a public gaff?

But he is one of us in as much as he has an obvious strong emotional attachment to the club, he has to have, £1m per month is crazy on so many levels that if he was your mate you would advise him to walk away!

But if the club fails to react to the real problem, the falling gates, then all the tiny tinkering will mean nothing. History is littered with such failures to act. The hindsight we all possess on history makes you shake your head at how simple the solution always was and how it was ignored.

As an ex ST holder, and when I say ex, I mean a decade ago, I have had over the years possibly three/four attempts by the club to woo me back in, they need to take a leaf out of the people who insist I have been mis sold PPI, I was allowed to walk away too easily.

I had hoped after the counts retreat back to his lair that this would usher in a positive change at the club?

There are people on job seekers allowance (if they are that lucky) who have the drive and imagination to help steer the club out of this, if the club can massively effect the number of bums on seats and even if they only manage to increase net revenue by 19% overall, the intangible benefits of that 10% in the stadium, in the area and on the team has to be of positive benefit.

We are all talking about the alternative...and it isnt good is it?

But Vic, in reply to your response at 11.51am, imagine a firm of accountants on Teesside. Not a large global concern like KPMG (or Man Utd, Barcelona etc) but a local firm whose clients were mostly the Teesside self-employed businessmen, plumbers' firms, electricians, driving instructors etc.

Imagine that firm of accountants to be paying £30K a week to one employee, £20K a week to another and smaller amounts to others so that even fairly newly-qualified bean-counters were being paid £3 or £4K a week. And they spent their time, not auditing the accounts of the Microsofts, the Coca-Colas, or the British Telecoms of the world, but the local plumber's firm, the accounts of the local sub-postmaster, the hairdresser and the girl who has just set up a local dancing school.

I have a fairly good idea that the local accountancy firm would soon be out of business, it's costs vastly outweighing its income. OR the accountancy firm would have to maintain "international" fee-levels in order to pay for its staff...in which case the firm would STILL go out of business because the local hairdresser, plumber etc couldn't afford to pay the fees at a level that would keep the whole edifice standing.

If Premier ticket prices are paid for a Championship product, few will want to carry on buying. In order to balance the books we have to reduce the wage bill - maybe bean counters who trained at Kirby College tend to earn less than those who honed their skills at Harvard?. But we also have to lower the ticket prices to reflect the different product now on offer.

I'm not sure you can say, any more, that those who attend football matches should follow their club unconditionally. If clubs attempt to run themselves as a business, with a Chief Executive, selling advertising and sponsorship, selling club merchandise (some of it made cheaply abroad, to sell to the supporters at a good profit), if they control the media outlets through which information can be had about the club (eg selling internet commentary rights etc), if they franchise the food outlets at their grounds and invite large companies to pay good money to have the naming rights to the stadiums etc...then that does sound to me like a genuine commercial enterprise.

That's not a members' club, whether in Pall Mall or your local cricket club. At my local cricket club there is a willingness to work for free on the pitch, cutting the grass, rolling the wicket, working behind the bar for nothing, bringing sandwiches, pies, sausage rolls and cakes along to pool for the players' (and spectators') teas - £2 each for a decent plateful, with a pot of tea thrown in! Then a pint after the game.

I accept that some teams employ a professional (not sure if that's a good thing though), and some leagues might allow two. But if every player was getting paid, even if at a tiny fraction of the thousands of pounds I mentioned earlier, I don't suppose anyone would be prepared to continue cutting the grass for free, running the bar etc. They would no longer feel the club was "theirs", but instead might feel they were contributing for others to take out - and in amounts vastly exceeding the value of any contributions those people could claim to have made.

The idea of a football club being able to count on the unconditional support of the local populace is out of date.

Of course, if you expect people to pay large amounts of money before the season begins in order to be able to buy the product, you must also expect those who are disappointed with the product to complain about it and, perhaps, to be less than enthusiastic about buying again the next year.

Of course it doesn't help if you upset some of the customers (for that is what they are - buying the product the club puts up for sale) by throwing them out for falling asleep, or sending warning letters to those felt to be "too loud" - I could understand it if people were shouting at the opera, in church or at the cinema....

Not many people are now prepared to go into domestic service, to "know their place", to defer to authority, to age, to parents. Why should they be prepared to follow a football club unconditionally?

**AV writes: You can't equate football with any other product though. That's where it all goes pear shaped for anyone who tries to calculate support as some kind of economic relationship. It isn't, it is an emotional one. A bond with a club should never be predecated on the expectation of success.

Fans have been fooled by TV into thinking that the product, the norm, is sexy football, skill and success. It isn't and it never has been. For most clubs outside the elite the norm is treading water for year after year punctuated by short bursts of crisis ridden near drowning and the odd moment of wave jumping buoyancy.

If you support an average club EXPECTING success you are going to be bitterly disappointed. You can desire it, aspire to it and dream of it and revel in it when it comes because you deserve it and should share in it, but don't expect it because for most fans at most clubs the natural state is frustrated medocrity.

One of Boro's biggest collective psychological problems right now - supporters, wider public, the chairman, some of the players, most of the media that surround the club - is that the club are just slipping out of what is without any question the most sustained spell of unprecedented success in our history. We have witnessed a golden age of money, top flight football, world class players, cup finals, a trophy success, full houses, Europe. We have lived the dream.

Now everything is measured against that high-water mark as if that is the natural state and anything that falls short is deemed failure. That is crazy. We have to measure current performance against where we actually are in status. We are a team who have slashed the wage budget by two-thirds over the past three years, who had a net transfer spend of minus £3m in the summer and who when the current manager took over were heading towards the rocks of relegation.

AV wrote (in response to AdyMac): "I think people need to be realistic about the nature of this division and this team and about what is actually possible. As a general principle I think people should support their team and club unconditionally in the here and now, not provisionally and only on the condition that they deliver success. It's not a business transaction."

From a much wider perspective than the blinkered one of the football fan, there are two quite contradictory paradigms in this one paragraph! And in that schizophrenic world, it's the former that is on the ascendancy.

It's systemic and it's also capriciousness. It's all the things that people are in the modern world where there's much more to life than football on a Saturday afternoon, played by overpaid egos with enough misplaced hubris and perception of self-worth to fuel several nuclear power stations!

Football's days are numbered. At least football as the nostalgists and traditionalists would wish it to to be. The lid's been opened - like women getting the vote, like the Berlin Wall coming down, like the formation of the EEC. And the cork ain't goin' back in them bottles anytime soon!

Changing attitudes in changing times! It's bigger than just Boro. It ain't what it used to be - and neither are we. No rights, no wrongs. It's just different in a different world in different times.

The recalibration goes on..... and on...... and on!

If your life depended on getting the answer right, how many people reading this blog believe that the club will make some positive ticket-pricing/marketing decisions for next season? On the other hand, how many people believe things will go on as before?

My guess is that a smaller number would say "yes" (that some bright spark in the club will decide to listen to views expressed by the majority of people contributing to this blog, and actually take positive steps to address the issue of falling support). And that a larger number would say "no" (that the club will just grind relentlessly on, with no-one taking any decision that might address the issue of ticket-pricing and the falling support we see at the Riverside - despite the many ideas put forward on this blog).

But I am prepared to be shown wrong....

A show of hands? Yes, or no?

An immutable truth broken? Typical of the Untypical Boro Blog.

"**AV writes: I think the same problem is being encountered right across the Premier League. I've had tweets from Leeds, Forest, Ipswich, Birmingham, Palace and Hull fans saying they have the same kind of issues as raised in this blog."

^^^^^^^^

In a perverse way it is reassuring to know that the decline is part of a wider trend.

However, I would argue our drop is more alarming than any of those other clubs. While to some extent this may be due to the hangover from the Golden Era (ie we've had further to fall than the rest), that doesn't explain why our AWAY following continues to be relatively strong and defies the myth that we are 'a small club in Yorkshire', or wherever.

For that reason, I would agree that we are clearly not fulfilling our potential at home (comparable gates to Watford are not really the stuff of history), and the club needs to creatively address this problem by exploring some of the ideas suggested above along with any other options.

Forever -

GHW made his run too early and was offside. He doesnt need to go so early, just bide his time on the shoulder of the last poster, maybe he could pull away to the far poster or take a chance and go to near post.

But knowing GHW he will just appear in the six yard box. As the old saying goes, God saves but GHW knocks in the rebound.

**AV writes: He'll need to sharpen up. I'll have to check (need to add together the figures from three different templates we've used on here) but we must be VERY close to the 200,000th comment.

Interesting subject and good debate. Of course as I have always lived over 1000 miles from Boro, I haven't been able to buy a season ticket/card. To me the ticket price is secondary as I need to pay £ 200...300 for the traveling alone plus accommodation!

But I am as worried as everybody else about the attendances. I would rather see 20,000 fellow supporters there when I visit. I'll try to make two visits this season and to see at least two games - but at least one visit is guaranteed. Up the Boro!

Had a quick look at Derby attendances.

Ignored first match of the season because they were traditional big crowd matches with a bit of bite and had similar crowds.

The next four were similar fixtures and got an average of 23716 last season and 21019 this. Obviously it is only a small sample and gives some credence to my colleagues view.

It will be interesting to see what the Derby journalists think.

It's of great merit that the 200,000th post of all time (not to undervalue the 100th of this post) is approaching on a blog which is unifying in how we can improve the fate and future of the club we all support.

It's also a great testimony to AV that in the dullest of International breaks the level of interest generated on Boro is hitting 100 posts (with top quality debate) without the need for a miserable defeat, tactical disaster, massive signing or even dodgy refereeing.

Your ticket to the match in Germany also includes the price of regional transport to the ground. I’m a Schalke fan. Outside the main station in Gelsenkirchen it’s already buzzing early morning on matchdays as the fans start to arrive by train. You get to the ground by street train. They are always packed with fans, singing and chanting all the way. There’s a special station right next to the ground.

Outside the ground there are beer and food stands and a kind of football fun park for kids. They can win prizes on things like speed shooting etc. There’s a stage with a DJ playing football type music. They have quizzes where you can win prizes. The mascot is always there. Sometimes a player who’s injured/suspended pops up and gives an interview, signs autographs etc. There are already thousands walking around three hours before the game.

The ground opens at 13:00, kick off 15:30. The standing areas soon fill up and the atmosphere builds up from about 14:00 onwards. You can take your beer to your seat/standing place.

There are loads of well manned beer/food places. You don’t pay cash, you have to load a kind of checkcard with money. This is brilliant at half time. It’s amazing how quick a queue can disappear. Order, stick card in, press button, pick up beer, walk away.

There’s a gadgie with a megaphone on a pedestal that keeps the fans singing all game. After the match the players always come over to the fans. If there’s been particularly good game one of them might come into the crowd and lead the singing from the pedestal. Here’s a video of Raul after we reached the CL semis by knocking out the holders Inter Milan. If you don’t wanna watch the lot just go to 2:40 to see Raul doing the german equivalent of eioing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU4e6PpcaCY

The ground is still half full half an hour after the game. They show the match highlights on the big video screens, show the other results, table etc. Down in the concourses the eating/drinking/singing goes on for well over an hour. You can watch the highlights of the other games on the tellies.

The there are loads of extra street cars to take you back to the main station. Win, lose or draw we always have a great day out.

Shall I really compare that to Boro/English football?

No public transport to the ground. No car parks near the ground. Any pre-match entertainment? Ground empty until just before kick off coz you can’t take your beer to your seat. Is that against the law in England? I didn’t know on my first visit to the riverside and I was “attacked “ by a “gang” of stewards for accidentally crossing the yellow line with a beer in hand. No standing. Players disappear straight after final whistle, ground empties in minutes.

I took my German son-in-law to see Boro-Manu a few years ago. His main impression was that it was unbelievable how quickly the place emptied after full time. I went for a half-time beer at the Juninho friendly last year. Twenty thousand crowd. One bar open, one person serving, hundreds of people in the queue…

There are so many little things that would improve the overall experience, especially for kids. And they are the future of the club.

**AV writes: I think I'll have to come over and take in a match with you. Research.

Just back from a weekend away at Ripon. Missed the 100, I'd think. But 200,000 - now that's a BIGGIE!!

**AV writes: Look at his face! Just look at his face!

Any news yet on which will be the 200,000th post, AV?

**AV writes: The blog has been spread across three different systems over the years so I'll have to add up the numbers but the first one was around the 50k mark, the second about 90k give or take and this one is at 47,777... I'll let you know.

Lets face it had the ticket allocation been in line with the Football League recommendations it would have been more surprising.

The issue for me is if a club is unable to safely steward a game which is no more contentious than one with the Barcodes then there should be questions asked about the competence of the individuals concerned and their individual and collective merits in the role and any other motives instigating their decision making process.

Their treatment of MFC supporters previously and in this decision to limit availability is bordering on human rights issues under European Law surely?

Silly me, Football supporters and human rights in the same sentence!

Boys obsessed with numbers? No we're not - I'll bet you a million pounds.

One elephant, two elephants, three elephants. I think it needs 10 elephants at F2.

10,000 miles to Caracas.

It's all down to Bill Forsyth and "Gregory's Girl". Before that, numbers meant nothing to us. !00? Who cares? 200,00? All the same....

I forgot to look at the headlines and missed Juke being out. Is that the same injury that kept him out at the start of the season? I hope not because you would fear it would come back again.

Part of the problem of starting the season not fully fit, always seems to be stop start after that. That of course is why so many loan players seem to struggle.

It begs the question how many black cats Mogga has run over since August. Just have to keep juggling.

As you say AV, an eight foot high steel fence does seem a bit over the top but if it guarantees the safety of fans then so be it.

I was a regular attendee, both home and away in the 70's and 80's and there were times when I would have been glad of such a barrier.

Unfortunately there are still grounds up and down the country where I would think twice about advertising my allegiance, Sunderland being one of them. Sad to say, but amongst opposition fans, The Riverside is also one.

Unless we're using a strange numbering system, then when I look at Dormo's face I only see before it an ice-cream with a flake.

108 Terry Murphy
107 Ian Gill
106 Ian Gill
105 Forever Dormo
104 Nigel Reeve
103 Redcar Red
102 Erimus11
101 Andy R
100 Andy R
99 Forever Dormo

**AV writes: I've looked back on the slo-mo and its still not conclusive. I had 98 on the counter and just counted out two. One for the dubious posts panel I think.

A few points on the numbers of posts:

1. FD never claimed the 100th post on this thread. It was bestowed upon him by AV reminding us of that timeless Barry Davies quotation: "Look at his face, just look at his face!" (and we all know what that meant - the Official Adjudicator at 4.01pm seemed to be in no doubt).

FD did have a quick glance towards the Assistant Referee, but there was no flag. The game resumed with a kick-off at the centre spot, with Andy R, Erimus11, Nigel Reeve, FD again, Ian Gill and Terry Murphy all having shots on goal before the matter was raised belatedly. Sorry mate, look in tomorrow's newspaper for the result (as they say).

2. Arguing with the ref is, of course, a bookable offence. The ref is always right.

3. I'd love to disclaim the accolade but, with my disciplinary record, I'm not sure I could afford another yellow.

4. The double click referred to by AV in his response to the 4.01pm post by the Official Adjudicator, and the failure to identify with certainty that the original decision was wrong, despite slo-mo repeats, shows how technology, whilst attractive as a proposition, may never be able to resolve all disputed decisions. (If it were, let's disallow that Wembley World Cup Final goal in 1966 and, to bring things closer to Boro hearts let's play an extra 30 minutes at Cardiff against Bolton for the double-kicked penalty, or the phantom Chesterfield goal at Old Trafford. No - better leave sleeping dogs lie!).

5. An ice cream with a flake? If we'd had a summer that would have been a great idea. And would have lasted longer than those Trabants that were dished out willy-nilly when 100-post threads were commonplace on here. The world supply of two-stroke was diverted to Teesside for nearly a year.

6. I would refer the Honourable Gentleman, and any others showing a particular interest in numeracy and similar concerns, to the post at 12.25am. I'd bet £1,000,000 that I'm not bothered about numbers. Wouldn't mind a look around Caracas though.

**AV writes: It reminds me of the Boro goal at Preston when Ledesma's corner hit the far post and bounced down and in then in a cartoon scramble the ball was clawed out, fizzed about then first stabbed in by Bailey then toe-poked by Andy Halliday when it was already a foot over the line.

All three peeled away claiming it and trying to gather the numerical support of team-mates to forge some kind of consensus. The BBC, Sky and the Echo gave the goal to Halliday, the Preston paper to Bailey and the Gazette and Boro website to Ledesma. Asked to clarify it afterwards Mogga said: "I'll let them fight about it on the coach on the way home. All that it matters is that it went in and it counted."

Good to see Sir Henry back, after a lengthy sojourn at Downton Abbey.

I have often thought there should be a season ticket available for the professional tipplers at their local pub.

You know how it is - a wet Wednesday in February, dark outside and only a few hardy souls have braved the weather to get to the pub. Those intrepid drinkers help to keep the pub ticking over in difficult economic times.

Yet when Christmas comes, and the next week or two to cover New Year, a crowd of people evidently come out of the woodwork and make their way to the pub. "A pint of your best foaming ale, Landlord, and a gin and tonic for my friend!" is the order given in a faux-bonhomie style - ignoring the fact that the real ale should not be served "foaming".

The regular drinker cannot get anywhere near the bar to get service because, at that particular time of the year, the bar is eight-deep with a crowd of braying idiots who all seem surprised that the price of a round of drinks is more than a fiver and "...no, the previous landlord stopped doing food over the Christmas period nine years ago".

A good landlord sees out of the corner of his eye his regulars arriving. An imperceptible nod, a wink, some acknowledgement. Nothing needs to be said. After serving the present customer and maybe one or two more standing at the bar for the sake of decency and good relations, depending on circumstances, the regular's pint makes an appearance and, as the landlord's arm reaches through the crowd to meet the grasping hand of the regular, the valuable cargo is transferred.

The landlord then gets back to finding whether that bottle of Dubonnet opened last Christmas has survived the year because, surprise, surprise, someone has asked for that drink THIS year.

Payment might be for two pints next time, when the rush has abated but at least the initial thirst has by then had its sharpness removed, and everyone is happy. The publican sells some liquid refreshment to people he won't see for another year (which keeps the till busy) and the regular at least gets his drink without a 40 minute wait - although it might take that long to get anywhere near the lavatory because the queue snakes almost into the street outside.

Pubs need their regulars because, without them, they wouldn't survive the otherwise bleak expanse of November, or late January and February. There would be no pub left for the irregulars to visit on their rare holiday-time excursions to licensed premises.

So, sometimes, the thought had occurred that maybe there should be a pub season ticket. The space at the bar, the "best seats", could be reserved for the regulars without whom, as they say, all of this would be impossible.

Newcomers would be welcome but, hey, sit over in the south-west or north-west corners - and don't spend half an hour trying to count out the silver to see if you can pay for the drinks in coins; or getting people to stand up as you move into the middle of the row of seats before discovering this is row 27 not row 17, or that they have come into the wrong block - just hand over a note and let the next thirsty customer get his drink, too.

If you don't use it, you risk losing it. Keep the customer satisfied as Simon & Garfunkel used to sing. Look after your regulars whilst offering something to the chaps who only turn up at high days and holidays. The pub needs them both but the good publican finds a way of tactfully greeting his very occasional visitor whilst not annoying the regulars.

Is there any reason why the same shouldn't be possible with football clubs?

Dear The Official Adjudicator,

Many thanks for your investigation into Postgate.

I would like to point out that at no point did I wheel away with one arm aloft in celebration. In the spirit of togetherness (bloggerhood?") I accepted the original decision to award the wonderfully verbose and always entertaining FD and as such I feel it would be wrong to accept this accolade.

I would therefore like to offer the trabant back to FD. Or perhaps we could raise it together in the way that is now customary among Premier League title winning captains and managers/talisman?

Also, I became a father yesterday so I really couldn't care less!!

Best wishes,

Andy R

**AV writes: Congratulations. Maybe you should bring our youngest new blogger up the steps - in replica kit with the name "Daddy" across the back naturally - as you collect the prestigious gong.

Well it seems Andy R was already celebrating regardless of the outcome of the Postgate ruling - and may I add my congratulations.

However, it's just as well he's recently become a dad as I'm not sure what the long-term effects on potential fatherhood would be of attempting to lift a Trabant with Dormo - though it's something I'd definitely pay money to watch!

**AV writes: I'm just glad it has all be sorted out amicably between yourselves without resorting to bitching, huffing, flouncing, threats of litigation or unsavoury finger-pointing and calling into question the competence of the powers that be.

Congratulations, Andy R. A new birth is somewhat more important that the number of posts on a Blog. I'd like to hand you the bottle of bubbly as AV suggests. But it's empty now! Anyone collecting empty bottles?

Sobering up from the pub season ticket idea still hasnt sobered me up as much as the above account of how much better the Germans are at football than us....in many respects!

I remember us being told we have the club we deserve, I also recall a senior member of the motor industry saying we have the motor trade we deserve and a pub landlord saying the same thing about the live music scene, I also would say we have the government we deserve, cos if we cant be bothered then why should they!

So do we get bothered? Or do we just allow typical Boro/garage/quiet pub/politicians to be our legacy?

C'mon we cant all be in the next Olympics, so we need to start asking questions, if that means some football clubs/dealerships/pubs/politicians go out of business because they werent fit for purpose then thats maybe the price you pay for charging for rubbish.... people vote with their feet.

If the whole matchday experience was good value, a good time, then it would be hard to ignore wouldnt it? Let's face it, the boom years werent all that good, we did lose three finals and got relelgated, the Cup win and Europe were the blown vinyl over the cracks.....maybe we arent that far away from making going to the Boro the first choice?

I don't care one iota about the price if I get, even remotely, value for money, but the current efforts are pathetic, and that's being nice.

The minus goal difference doesn't seem to bother anyone, yet it killed us last season and will again. The performances will bring people back, if the players show a true wish to play at home. It has been soul-destroying for ages now, at the Riverside, and that straw has broken the camel's back now.

"**AV writes: I think I'll have to come over and take in a match with you. Research."

All expenses paid by the Gazette!? That would be a nice lark if you could wangle it.

If Boro aren't in the play offs then their last match is May 4th. Schalke's last home game is against Stuttgart and will definitely be at 15:30 on May 11th. In the Bundesliga all games on the last two match days start simultaneously. You can bring some of the Blog contributors with you and call it The Untypical Boro End Of Season Football Jollies!

At nearly every home game there's usually different gangs of lads from somewhere in the UK there. They usually base themselves in Düsseldorf. Loads of cheap flights there. Great night out on a weekend in the old town. Only half an hour to Gelsenkirchen on the train.

The last pub we usually go in before the game is the official local of the Schalke Fan Club UK. It's within view of the stadium. That's where the UK lads go to pick up their tickets and we have a chat. Last time there was some from Gillingham. The time before they were from near Manchester.

It's become quite fashionable for English football fans to have a weekend in Germany and take in a Bundesliga game. From Düsseldorf you're quickly in Leverkusen, Cologne, Moenchengladbach, Gelenkirchen, Dortmund and(obviously) Düsseldorf.

I think it's the standing on the terraces that they enjoy most.

One thing I forgot to add about the Schalke game is the official Match Programme. It's glossy paper, DIN A4, about 130 sides and it costs.....nothing! They give em away for free!

**AV writes: The lads on the desk have been talking about it for years but obviously we have problems with fixture clashes and we can't all take a weekend at once.

I watched the events in Warsaw last night with a mixture of disbelief, amusement and a hint of discomfort over one or two less glorious incidents with our infamous tent.

A stadium with a roof that's is as open as the heavens above beggars belief. You can understand that once the heavens open and wind gets up shutting the roof is not possible, just.

I wonder if the Polish team wanted a bit of traditional conditions for the match.

The term chaos sprang to mind then I thought about the match after Sheff Wed many years ago when the tent was left off the Riverside during a period of frosts causing a postponement.

Or the infamous match against Toon when the tent protected the pitch but all the snow blew off it up the terraces and down the concourses only to freeze and make the ground unsafe despite the external thaw.

That was amusing but the scenes at Serbia were depressing. At least we can rely on UEFA to act.

Congratulations, Andy R. I kitted my daughter out similarly in red and white from birth. Her first coherent sentence was "Up the Bubba."

Many congrats Andy R!

Just seen the news about Big Mick going back on 'emergency' loan to Bristol City. In the EG, that appears alongside Mogga talking about having to eke out and rotate his injury ravaged squad over the next half dozen games that come in the next three weeks - and with Woody just fit again.

Who's got the 'emergency'? Or is it that - given the wages - the emergency for Boro is making a saving and not having inadequate cover for the central defence?

Anyone taking odds on in centre-back injuries on Saturday or at Rockliffe?

**AV writes: I think part of the thinking is to get him bedded in at Bristol to smooth the way to a full transfer in January. He's out of contract in the summer and if they can save his wages that will help fund some fine-tuning in the next window.

What a photo opportunity! As Andy R, myself, FD, Len Masterman, Werdermouth, and assorted posters line up and do the "Bebeto" baby rocking celebration!

(it takes a man to make a girl)

Some meat to the bones on the price of season tickets. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19984968
We are quite high up in the Championship for highest and lowest Season Ticket prices.
Will the "feedback" reference these facts one wonders....

Read the report on pricing and not surprisingly we are just above mid table. Our crowds are just above mid table. Lo and behold we are just above mid table.

I guess our wage bill is up there as well if not higher.

Back to business tomorrow.

I would like to propose an alternative musical accompliment to our Boro footballing warriors, as they take to the pitch at the Riverside.

'Monies too Tight to Mention' by Simply Red.

Given the news that one of our erstwhile defenders is off to defend for someone else, as it will lessen the load on our overburdened purse, I think it's quite appropriate.

In addition, I would like to suggest the inclusion of an in-house poet (paid for by Northern Arts) who would pen a ditty or two as added inspiration. I would like to suggest, as to get the ball rolling to speak, a rap/hip hop reworking of that old favorite - 'Old Mother Hubbard ...'

UTB

Spartak and Smogs: Stream of consciousness posts? Or has drink beeen taken? Just asking.

Now this is the way to boost our gates. we can't get a Juninho so go for Stewie on loan. Pay him £5 a seat filled and this would add 5,000 to the gate, grossing £100,000. Give him £30,000 and bingo, £70,000 profit and a big gap in the east stand filled. Please read this Gibbo and Mogga. There is also the possibility, we might do quite well with him steaming down the right wing.

Superb article ,AV speaking total sense but a waste of his talent.
MFC management take a brave positive step,never !!

Charlton do matches where all seats are a fiver. I was at the Charlton v Barnsley game at the weekend. Four of us went and we felt obliged to buy beer and food in the ground further adding to the coffers of the club.

Surely this kind of scheme should be piloted at the Riverside. To appease season ticket holders let them have extra free tickets to these games, or a discount on next years season ticket , or a voucher for the club shop say ( christmas is almost upon us ) or a combination of all of these and make the ground "free seating" so groups can sit together, rather than scatter them around season ticket holders!

A couple of problems with cheap tickets,

1. it doesn't guarantee a good game. The Charlton game was truely dreadful. Nearly fell asleep in the first half!

2. Cheap tickets also don't guarantee an atmosphere either. over 26000 at Charlton and even the Barnsley fans started singing "we want to go home" as well as "Shall we sing a song for you", all the old favourites!

Some great points from AV, but I'm not over the moon with his finger pointing at the season ticket holders holding the club to ransom.

Not our fault we love the Boro, somehow find the money every season no matter what league we're in, how garbage we're doing and pay it off as soon as the early bird price comes along.

Does he tar my son with the same brush as I take advantage of the £95 season ticket I pay for him, saving myself a fortune? Working out at £4.13 a game.

I'm all for seeing the stadium full but let's not point the finger at us ST holders eh?

**AV writes: I'm not blaming season ticket holders, far from it, I stress that the club need to protect that base. More so now than ever when the need the cash up front at the start of the season in order to plan the budget.

I do think however that during the sell-out years the club painted themselves into a corner by gearing everything about their strategy towards the ST base (and sometimes backing down to a vocal minority who complained at any sign of concessions for casual fans). That needs to change.

They need to be more flexible and creative and they urgently need to increase both the gate and the revenue raised through it. I can't see how any season ticket holder - people more committed to the health and stability of the club than anyone - could possibly object to that.

"Tickets: Time To Bite The Bullet?"

This is a classic thread Vic. On so many levels. It just captures perfectly what your blog is all about. Definitely prize worthy.

Have a happy new year and keep up the good work!