Have to be happy really

[Rimshot]

You don't know much about target marketing. You don't just dump stuff into the market, you work with what you know about your customer base. You always have the do - nothing option of course. Perhaps you have forgotten the ire of our illustrious Chairman when he discovered Carlton were working our fan base over.

[Elgrande]

They were people that wanted to watch Premiere League football rather than support a team. Marketing is fine, but half the fans (probably more) didn't buy there own tickets for the play-off finals and a lot of others were old time fans who came back for the big day. The old fans won't be tempted back to a Stadium without atmosphere, a Blues Rock aimed at plastics and run by kids or a fan base that seems to have lost their passion and imagination. Floating fans only want the "big" games or PL football, not run of the mill League 1 stuff in a library.

[Rimshot]

OK but it's not just about selling tickets to games,there' s hospitality, merchandise, membership and supporter marketing. What about the numerous exiles like me ? There's no attempt to engage us, rally our support, thank us for our loyalty and actually try to sell us things !
If I ever got anything from the club, I would respond, just like I do to the political party I support, the child sponsorship I have, the appeal from my local cricket club. The fact is that although I have supported the club for more than 50 years I can't think of a single occasion under Scally's regime that I feel the club appreciates the likes of us on this board. I shelled out £200 for a VIP package at Wembley against Shrewsbury and had to make three panic calls to the club just to get the bloody ticket. Even then they sent me to the wrong ticket office at Wembley !
I'm sorry but GFC is a crap club when it comes to recognising its supporters and engaging with them.

[Elgrande]

Now that I would agree with, although I have had a few e-mails from the marketing department. I don't think it was any different pre Scally apart from the fact there was a real Social Club. I think they did a bit in the early years, touring some of the pubs and clubs in Kent, signed Christmas cards etc, but I agree nothing in the last 10 years or so.

[DefinitionofX]

Our aim is surely to reach the promised land of the Premier League right? I can't see why lower league fans such as ourselves are slating the very product that could make our dreams come true. The marketing of the club is soddy & incompetent to say the least. How can you expect the joyriders to tag on if they haven't been encouraged to jump onboard?

The ground for non-gills fans, residents of Medway is very unappealing, undesirable. Football nowadays is considered an all day out event, so who (if you aren't a diehard etc) would want to attend a game here? Plus say we got promoted to the Premier League within two years would we really want Priestfield, Gillingham as a whole beamed around the World to millions, billions even?

Sadly we live in a culture where children support the team of whom the father started supporting via television. It's a generation problem, if Gillingham was on TV more we'd be inundated with plastics, you don't want that either though do you?

The club is treated like a playtoy, a badly run ragdoll boat, slugging away in the canals & lakes of a distant past.

[Garawa]

I think many would agree with a lot of that and I suppose Scally's PR of the new stadium is meant to address that. Seriously, I don't think we can cope with Championship football at present let alone Premier League and I wouldn't be upset if we never got there. The exception is those clubs who are doing it right. Whilst the Premier League as a product is destroying the game in this country and the national team as well, a few clubs are keeping within their means and I suppose if we could emulate those then that would be OK. At some point the bubble must burst on the big boys forcing their multi-millionaire players to either go abroad or take a massive drop in pay and perhaps then clubs outside their control might not be seen with such disdain!

[gillsfan1066]

Garawa, you don't care if we don't get into the Premier?? Premier Clubs next season are going to be getting what is it SEVENTY SIX MILLION POUNDS from television revenue alone, and who cares if a club owes 50 or a 100 million to the bank , sure as hell not the bank ?
What makes you think the bubble is going to burst, footie overseas gets bigger and bigger each year, and everyone loves English football, that bubble is not going to burst and just suppose it does in say 2025 , who cares, life will go on, the 18,000 people who support say Wigan will find something else to do on a Saturday afternoon, the world will keep spinning and the new Wigan FC United will, like the Phoenix rise from the ashes in the North East division 6 league ?
Championship football is the minimum we should be shooting for, we used to get halfway decent crowds when we were in that division before, as good as some clubs in that division are getting now ,trouble is we do not have an ambitious chairman, he is like the chairman we have had since I started supporting GFC in the early 60's, Dr. Grossman I think it was, no ambition, lets just keep a steady ship and stay in the 4th or 3rd division, not much can go wrong there.
Sorry man, not picking on you, but you seem to be saying you want GFC to remain a 1st or 2nd division club as long as we don't get into debt, lets not take any risks in case it all goes wrong, good fun going to see Gillingham play Port Vale year after year. Garawa that mate is why we get a 6000 gate, week in week out, we need a chairman that is going to take the club by the foot"balls", shake it up and make it into something special.
I for one thank Scally, he saved us at the last minute from going under and I will always be grateful for that, but now it is time for him to either p*** or get off the pot, we can not keep wandering in the wilderness of first and second division football for ever.
I admit have done a complete 180 from my views of a year or so ago , I thought building a new stadium was a mistake, but standing back and looking at what GFC has got at the present, I think we need a new stadium to ever go forward.
Go into debt, build a promotion caliber team and they will come, then build a new stadium somewhere off of say Capstan Road, or better still buy Gillingham Golf Course and let the golf club build a "proper course" off of Capstan Road, that kills two birds with one stone, GFC gets the land to build a nice new 20,000 expanding to 30,000 seat stadium and the golf club gets a new course and finally gets rid of that flat bit of windy grass they presently call a golf course.
Keep an eye on Rotherham, they will be a Premier League side before the bubble ever bursts, and where will GFC be when they get there, my guess we might be celebrating another year at good old Priestfield Stadium, playing Port Vale in the last game of the regular season for the 7th spot in the Second Division title race for a chance to get into the play offs, in front of a crowd of 6,835.

[Garawa]

Yep that's what I am saying!!! So many people hate the fact that the Premier League dictates everything; how much money smaller clubs get, when and if players can be released for that major inconvenience of playing for their national side all the while they give the clubs larger and larger pools of money as smaller clubs go bust! More supporters of smaller clubs despise this so it would be very hypocritical to hope we join them!

The bubble WILL burst. The owners of the biggest clubs have put in giant amounts of their own money that far exceed the needed percentage of revenue. When they decide that they have had enough (and they will), those clubs would never be able to avoid collapsing and clubs like Spurs that actually keep within their means would take over - I have no issue with those clubs and would be happy to join them but not at the expense of having our club destroyed for the next decade or 2 after a brief flirt with it (Portsmouth, Bradford, Coventry, Sheffield Utd, Oldham etc). If we get our income stream right then Championship is a possibility but not yet. We are miles from the types of players League 1 sides have now (Kevin Davis at Brentford, Kevin Doyle & Leigh Griffiths at Wolves, Jay Emmanuel Thomas at Bristol City, Clinton Morrison at Colchester, Kevin Lisbie at Leyton Orient to name just a few), even some League 2 sides are bringing some big names. We have a lot of work to catch up with our fellow L1 sides and you can make England squads out of current Championship clubs. It would be foolish to think we could possibly compete without either a massive injection of cash or a massive increase in gates. I don't see either happening so we should go the only route left; spend a few years slowly building with smaller gate increases which encourages bigger name players to WANT to come here and then get out of the division that way.

[DefinitionofX]

The club is poorly misjudged within it's own walls, we're very capable of attracting a larger gate. However for some reason our owner seems to think it's cool for his West Ham pals to post advertisements in the Kent area etc. Nice friends huh?

The problem is that Medway is now full of Londoners all wanting to prolong their affinity to a cockney side. I'm sick of them mocking my team and ground all because our lousy chairman only has eyes on plane tickets & not silverware.

[Garawa]

That is very true. But as Kent has only had one league club for so long I am surprised that more don't come outside of Medway, maybe parking is the hindrance when added to the cost of fuel and a matchday ticket? Perhaps it is more convenient to watch Charlton, Ebbsfleet, Dover and Maidstone among others but other than the former the gates there just about make 4 figures? That suggests that football isn't all that popular in Kent when compared with other counties (look at Lincolnshire for example). We should be able to draw people in regardless of external factors or what the club does internally.

[gillsfan1066]

Players want to come here, why? Can't be because of the size of our trophy cabinet, maybe we should give them a day trip to Gillingham, show them the Strand, The Park , trip down the High St so they can see our first class shopping facility , then finish up at The Dockyard for milk and cookies , yeah that's what the average 24 year old player wants.
Try ,..... SHOW ME THE MONEY. ......, SHOW ME THE MONEY..........SHOW ME THE MONEY............ Garawa ,we have been trying to do it "your way" for a 100 years, it does not work, welcome to the 21st century, it has not worked since Jimmy Greaves became the first 100 pound a week player in the 60's and the flood doors opened. Only way to do it now is either spend ,spend, spend,or take players on loan e.g. Watford.
I would give my " right squirrel food " for a few seasons in the Premier Division, and if after 5 or 6 years we drop like Portsmouth what's the problem there, we are likely to be playing Portsmouth next season anyway and their supporters have been to the top of the mountain, they have tasted the food of the Gods, they have played Manchester United at HOME, and they can sit in the bar for years to come and argue about how the Gills lost to Chelsea the year Chelsea did the domestic double and won the Champions Cup, and how we should have had a penalty and stayed up by beating Spurs...SON I WAS THERE, I WAS THERE , I WAS THERE WHEN WE BEAT MANCHESTER UNITED WITH A LAST SECOND GOAL, IT WAS FANTASTIC .
What the hell have Gills supporters ever had, an occasional visit from a Premier Club for a cup match ,a warm meat pie and a half warm cup of tea ,and you think we should bow down and grovel to thank the various owners for that ?
Forget coming from the London area, why would you want to come and see Gillingham play Carlisle when there are three or four Premiership games going on and two or three Championship games going on at the same time ?
Why aren't we attracting people from Whitstable, Cranbrook, Margate, Tonbrige and every town in Kent, east, south, south west where ever ?
Simple, unless you were born here or live here who wants to see First or Second Division football, there is a reason matches from these two divisions aren't on "Match of the Day", no one outside the immediate area cares.

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

The Club has mentioned for a few seasons about running coaches to places like Ashford,but it has not ever happened.Being honest unless you have an interest in the club your not going to come and watch us.As Gary has said the size of Kent,but the crowds for Football in Kent are low.When you look at Yorkshire there are so many Clubs and they all get decent crowds.Kent is not really a live Football County.We all know people that support big clubs,but have no intention of going to watch them.They just like owning the shirt and watching on Sky.When we play a big Club we all get asked for Tickets,but the same people never ask when it's Tranmere,or Brentford.Good Football and winning is what attracts people.It's a shame as I feel we have the potential to be a Club like Norwich City.They're the only League Club in Norfolk,and get Crowds of 29'000.They have fans spread accross Norfolk.

[Garawa]

What you say Gillsfan sounds distinctly like the issue football is facing that only the Premier League matters and why watch anything else! Players WILL come to established League 1 clubs as there will always be more players than clubs available and they will naturally seek the best prospects. Look at the players I mentioned a couple of posts ago, good players at Leyton Orient and Colchester - hardly Paris is it so what you say isn't true.

I would give my " right squirrel food " for a few seasons in the Premier Division, and if after 5 or 6 years we drop like Portsmouth what's the problem there

If you're intimating the club potentially going out of business for a brief flirt with the top flight that surely would be a massive problem for those who go every game and wouldn't contemplate supporting anything else! It's fine having a quickie with the 19 year old round the corner but, at the end of the day, what you really crave is the security and companionship of the one you grow old with

[gillsfan1066]

Garawa, I guess we are just on different pages, we will have to agree to disagree, lol.
Your happy supporting a Division One or Two side that in a 100 years has won two sort of worth while trophies, ( I don't count the Kent Cup as being worth while) have had a brief spell in the Championship and have spent the last ten years where they spent the first 90 years wallowing in the basement.
Are you really telling me that you would not have enjoyed the ride that Wigan have had since we beat them at Wembley , or have you been happy with the course GFC has taken during that time ?
Been looking round every corner all after noon, which dam corner is this chickie behind, just asking out of interest that's all, doing a survey ,lol.

[Garawa]

Lol. Of course I would like to have been Wigan and we certainly had the potential, we even had bigger away followings at times three divisions lower! I suppose it is a hefty whack of realism that is making me think the way I do. There are so many clubs more able than us higher in the pecking order and a couple behind us as well! Until the fans prove that this club can go places we are destined to spend our time where we are and, compared with the League 2 dross, I am kind of happy with that. Best not to get too ambitious as it only leads to dissappointment!