|
Post by bomber on Oct 9, 2017 19:30:40 GMT
Best carvery in the conference south And a bar area which most championship clubs would be proud of. State of the pitch and the team just a minor inconvenience really Having these things is a GOOD thing. Back in the 1990's when I started following EFC, we had a pretty poor ground. Facilities for getting a drink or food was poor, the clubhouse wasn't great, and we often used to go other grounds and wow over their facilities. So poor facilities and for a lot of that time a crap team and gates of 60. Its not better facilities that make a team bad. The facilities mean that if and when SD leaves we will be able to self fund ourselves in the national league if that is where we should be. This constant slagging off of the facilities SD has provided is plain ridiculous. As a direct result of these facilities I have got several people to games who would not otherwise have gone, they have spent money they would not otherwise have spent and some of these people are on the way to becoming supporters. Now granted the team at the moment is not very good, but whatever you may think, and in some cases I think you actively want, we are NOT going to be relegated so you'll just have to put up with a fabulous ground, providing national league football for the foreseeable future. And if the facilities we now provide upset you so much, why not go and follow BAT, Downton, Romsey or any number of Wessex league/ Hampshire league teams instead. The things people complain about on this forum get more and more stupid by the day. What's wrong with you! I have to say that NOBODY has slagged off the facilities, not to my knowledge anyway. The only points I have seen raised is that the gleaming new facilities seem to have been a priority over actually ensuring games are getting played, and supporters who want to stand in the shed stay dry!
|
|
|
Post by willk on Oct 9, 2017 19:34:13 GMT
Exactly, I think the bar is great and it adds to some people’s matchday experience. I think any set of fans would take the rise a bit if the situation of vip facilities but crap team was happening elsewhere
|
|
|
Post by tenacres on Oct 9, 2017 20:05:57 GMT
hantslondoner, specifically regarding those 2 points:
1) Can the fans be confident that it will go ahead? Is the club going to tell us?
that is my point really. Anything the club says along the lines of "the game is going ahead" will understandably be met with cynicism. We can talk about it till we are blue in the face but the point is we will only have certainty when we are all in the ground at 3pm on Saturday and actually watching the game.
2) ... I think the statement following the news that the Chester game was postponed was a very difficult one to word... Why? Just curious.
Well a game in late September was called off (following pretty normal weather) due to the pitch. Its not the easiest thing to explain away is it?! What would you have said?
Doubtless the club felt hard done by on various counts - was the match ref a bit over fussy? Were we let down by a contractor doing remedial works on the pitch? Were we disappointed with aspects of the pitch being laid in July? Probably none of us know the full story since the pitch was laid just over 3 months ago, and we don't need to. It was tricky to word as anything said in mitigation would have been considered excuses.
We got the news out that the game was off as soon as possible which was the first priority - as soon as that broke several hundred people will make their minds up straight away on the reason(s) why and any facts/information the club supply are likely to be largely ignored anyway.
I agree with your general point that the communication from the club re this wasn't as good as it could have been though. Hopefully our new appointments today will help this situation in the future.
We can't change the past, but we can hopefully learn from it and improve next time...
|
|
|
Post by hantslondoner on Oct 9, 2017 21:31:35 GMT
Thanks for your replies, tenacres. I would like to comment on them again a little:
1) I think that the club could tell us now what steps they are taking to fix the pitch problem, and what progress they are making. Tomorrow is the deadline for me buy a ticket for my usual place in the stand - I am still none the wiser as to whether I should. I know that there are repairs being made to the pitch, I know that the weather forecast is fairly good, I know that it is a bit late to reverse the fixture - but is it right that I, a customer, should be guessing at this stage? 2) I think that the club explained what they had done to try and avoid the postponement pretty well, by stating the facts as they were, without embellishment (and I also got the impression they felt hard done by). But their last sentence, that they would say nothing more on the matter, as if it were done and dusted, sounded quite unsympathetic and unhelpful to me. A few more words to recognise Chester's predicament, for example, might have helped. As I said last week, I remember how sympathetic the club was towards Lincoln fans after the hotel fire postponement (not our fault either), and I think we gained a lot of respect in the NL for that. Quite different this time.
For me, it's pretty basic business behaviour - if you let down your customers, if you want to keep them, you acknowledge the problem, show sympathy, and, most importantly, be very clear how you will take steps to avoid the same problem reoccurring in the future. You may want to be careful about the first two steps if there is the risk of redress, I suppose, but I can't see that happening here? And don't forget it was Eastleigh fans (with quite a few guests of season ticket holders - future customers?) as well as Chester fans who were inconvenienced here. As several people have said in the past week, I can't imagine them being too impressed. Some of our rival clubs and the some of the press are of course just looking for an opportunity to get at a club who was risen in the ranks with a rich backer (despite his efforts to help us to become self-sufficient) so the fewer opportunities we give them the better.
|
|
|
Post by willk on Oct 10, 2017 6:07:37 GMT
What any fan wants more then anything is entertaining football with players who show flair, creativity, skill, passion and commitment. I can get a decent pint, pie, shirt, prawn sandwich or a carvery anywhere. The clubs biggest brand is its team -most championship clubs have great grounds and facilities eg Leeds, Derby, Birmingham, villa, Norwich, forest, sheff weds, Sunderland Middlesbrough -all 30,000 plus grounds with clubs going nowhere. Ultimately, it means nothing if the footballs boring, negative and uninspiring which ours is.
|
|
|
Post by tenacres on Oct 10, 2017 19:41:27 GMT
perhaps the club were reading your post hantslonder and decided to act :0) fwiw I agree with what you say.
Fingers crossed the club don't have to put out another statement later this week about the game being off and the whys and wherefores behind it. That would again be a very tricky one compose and (obviously) would get us a whole heap more negative publicity.
hope all this doesn't have a negative effect on the team, big game to focus on and we need to be bang up for it
|
|