Last updated at 10:33, Monday, 18 January 2010

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WELL, that’s another game that bits the dust.

No game at home now since Boxing Day and the next planned one is February 6.

Okay, we can’t do anything about the weather, but this will be having a massive impact on football clubs around the country.

Yes, we are okay as our finances are strong, but others will be struggling at the moment with the potential of minimum income and all the outgoings still requiring payment.

People say ‘but it’s okay, the matches are still there’. Yes, they are, but we may get the potential of three home games in a row now, and that will affect our gate. It’s a lot to expect people to pay out in one week.

It will also mean Saturday games being moved to midweek. The problem is our stats show that our gates are better on a Saturday rather than midweek, when they are affected by the Champions League on the TV.

As you know, we’ve set a challenge of getting an average attendance of 2,010 for the last 10 home games of the season. We feel that after the Sunderland game we want to do as much as we can to get people to come to Holker Street.

This is us pleading poverty, as one person told me this week. It’s not us pulling at the heart strings for survival, it’s about us marketing our product and pushing the club to where it needs to be if we want this level – and the next level – of football. During this period we will be looking at the ticket options and also theme games, where we will try and entice new people to come to Holker Street.

There was a letter in the Evening Mail last Saturday highlighting a number of reasons why people are not coming back to Holker Street. They are all valid points, which the board of directors are working on to improve.

Ticket prices – we are still in the bottom 20 per cent of the team ticket pricing in this league. We also have some of the lowest concession and kids tickets available at this level of football, and we also do family tickets and tandem tickets with added benefits. Unfortunately, this level of football dictates that we need to price competitively to compete, and we will continue to do this.

Football – yes, we’ve had a couple of poor days this season and we are not winning enough at home, but just two defeats in our last 20 games is a fantastic record. We are moving in the right direction, and hopefully, over the next few days, we will have some announcements about us again adding more quality to the squad. We are competing with 24/7 football on TV these days, which I think influences what people want and expect to see at our games. Match Of The Day show 15-20 minutes of all the good bits of a football match, they don’t show the other 70 minutes of boring, mundane football which these games have too.

The ground – yes, we also know it’s not good enough, and, yes, it needs a lot of work to make it better. But what I would say is that the ground has had a lot of money spent on it in the last five years to improve the facilities and improve the income side of the club.

Yes, the floodlights and a roof on the Holker Street end are required. Meetings are on-going to complete the feasibility study that will point us in the direction we need to go to make sure our investments are sound for the long-term future of the club.

In the meantime, we will continue to invest in the areas that will help improve the ground.

Next Monday work will start on the Popular Side car park, to flatten it and make a large space available for fans to park.

We are aware that parking is more of an issue since Asda have restricted matchday parking. So, there will be a good-sized car park ready in place before the next home game.

Also, we have now got the prices in to improve the toilets behind the Popular Side stand. We are looking at what options are available. There are, however, no water, drains or electric currently over there, and we need to decide what the best option is for us.

So, yes, while I agree with what was put in the letter, we are working very hard to improve the whole Barrow AFC package.

As I always say, if you’re not clear or happy with what we are doing, please just come and ask any one of us and we will be more than happy to take you through it all.

There are no overnight fixes to Barrow AFC, and the most positive thing is that we are discussing things like the above and not more threatening issues that other football clubs are discussing – that, for me, really is a positive.

We are improving and we are developing and it’s great that everyone wants to comment. Long may it continue, because without that we haven’t got a football club.

We are building for the long term, so don’t get frustrated, get behind us and keep asking the questions. It’s your questions that make sure we are doing the right things.

See you soon.

TONY KEEN

AFC DIRECTOR

First published at 10:30, Saturday, 16 January 2010
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk