Football fans are creatures of habit and this contributed to our lowest FA Cup crowd since we arrived at St Mary's
Much has been said over the last few months about season tickets and pricing, but although price is a big factor in when one decides to attend a football match or not in the main it is one of several factors, each in their own right contributing to what the final attendance might be.
Those who seek to apologise for Nicola Cortese at every opportunity will be finding it hard to justify the ticket arrangements for the visit of Shrewsbury Town, Nicola is a ver driven and focussed businessman they will chirp, but that being the case every succesful businessman is driven by results and on Saturday the numbers through the turnstioles were an abject disaster.
The big question I would be asking if I was running the club is why we have just had our lowest ever FA Cup tie gate at St Mary's ? whi is it over five and a half thousand less than our previous low, why is it eight and a half thousand less than the first FA Cup home tie last season (incidentally against non league opposition)but perhaps more importantly why is it ten thousand less than attended the game on Tuesday night, where have all those fans gone ?
The pricing of tickets is not the complete answer, £15 for an adult and £5 for a child was a good price to bring in the families, last years game against Luton saw a big walk up on a freezing cold day, yet on Saturday before the game at least it was perfect weather yet the walk up was zilch.
In my opinion it was the closing of half the ground that contributed most to the poor attendance, it said something to the supporters about the game and almost sublimely put the thought into many peoples heads that this was a game of little importance, secondly football supporters are creatures of habits, they like to go and sit in the same seats each week, due to the nature of my work, im not a season ticket holder, however I do know where all my friends sit and when I go to the game i buy a ticket near them, for Saturday it took military precision to attend the game if you wanted to go with you mates,with either one person needing to go down and get all the tickets or face being sat apart if you couldnt get a seat nearby a friend. Of course you could walk up and pay on the day and if I remember rightly against Luton there was a big walk up and queues and this has ben a feature of other cup ties and this maybe was in peoples minds so they just decided to give it a miss.
Whatever the reasons though the facts are that a major chunk of Saints fans didnt turn up for a game and the Club has to look at why they didnt, for some of those I spoke to Nicola's statement about Shrewsbury trying to line their pockets stuck in their throats, after all werent Saints trying to do just that by closing the Kingsland & Chapel stands, surely the cost of opening those stands is not a lot more than having them closed, yes you will need a few more stewards, but not that many more as steward numbers are done on the basis of number of supporters per steward needed, so less people in the Itchen means less stewards in that area and so they could be transferred to the other two stands, in short the cost of opening the Kingsland could almost be measured in hundreds not thousands, in my opinion this was a huge mark of disrespect to Saints supporters as after all the Kingsland is the most densly populated area of the ground, by cllosing it you were alienating more than if the Itchen had been closed.
But there was a little more, the atmosphere was flat, in the past year or so the Northam has been augurmented by the Kingsland corner and the atmosphere at the ground has been stoked up a notch, on Saturday there was none of that and to be blunt it was as flat as a pancake, perhaps the worse ever at SMS.
In conclusion as I said those who trumpet Nicola Cortese as a businessman should realise that he has top be judged on results and not wise words and on Saturday the ticketing policy resulted in a very very low attendance and that is not a succesful result.