Nigel Howe says...

[Woodcote Royal]

And round we go again........

It's precisely because we have the ABC1's in such volumes round here that we have the problems. ABC1's don't come to football they go to Rugger or row little boats or play golf. There's stil a perception of football as working class and full of hooligans. Tired old cliches but still prevalant, as is the man on the terrace berating the prawn sandwich brigade.

What planet have you been on for the last season and a half and, do you sit in the East stand by any chance

Without the ABC1's Premiership clubs would not be able to charge the highly inflated ticket prices that they do.

Which stand sold out first when we ran out of half season tickets in our promotion year....................the Upper West

Why have the club been converting offices into extra corporate hospitality area's costing upwards of £2000 a seat per season?

Simply, your ABC1's can't get enough of Prem footy and our catchment area has them coming out of it's ears......................wake up and smell the coffee.

[RoyalBlue]

I think I'm probably classified as an ABC1 but please don't tell anyone as, having stood on the terraces at Elm Park, I would much rather be regarded as a normal traditional fan!

OMG - just done further research and my reputation is tarnished still further - I think I might even creep in as an A!

[Dirk Gently]

The paradox is that it's starting to happen now that it's only ABC1s who are able to afford Premier League football - but it's not the ABC1s in the crowd that make it such an attractive spectacle for TV, which is where the money comes from.

[RoyalBlue]

The paradox is that it's starting to happen now that it's only ABC1s who are able to afford Premier League football - but it's not the ABC1s in the crowd that make it such an attractive spectacle for TV, which is where the money comes from.

I'm from the Alanis Morissette school of English but isn't that extremely ironic!

So true - the working classes are themselves largely responsible for the demise of football as a working class (live) spectator sport!

That should see a few sociology students through their degree projects!

[PREMIERSHIP_ROYAL]

can you imagine the league cup games against league 1/2 teams its embaresingly empty already and thats with half the stadium filled. wait till theres 28000 empty seats

[Dirk Gently]

can you imagine the league cup games against league 1/2 teams its embaresingly empty already and thats with half the stadium filled. wait till theres 28000 empty seats

So there can be no change to the pricing structure, then? Charge a fiver to everyone and the place will be full - and rocking.

[Stranded]

can you imagine the league cup games against league 1/2 teams its embaresingly empty already and thats with half the stadium filled. wait till theres 28000 empty seats

In any planning you look at what you can sell, not the few games that won't be popular. But as DG says, all tickets for £10 or less and you get a sell out.

[Dirk Gently]

... and you're also introducing watching live football to thousands more people - who will probably eat and drink at the stadium, visit the megastore and whose kids will support Reading from then on, instead of a London or North-East club.

[PREMIERSHIP_ROYAL]

can you imagine the league cup games against league 1/2 teams its embaresingly empty already and thats with half the stadium filled. wait till theres 28000 empty seats

So there can be no change to the pricing structure, then? Charge a fiver to everyone and the place will be full - and rocking.

sarcasum?
even for a fiver would more than maybe 15000 turn up for reading v doncaster or some other low league team?

or 25000 for a premiership game against the smaller clubs such as the fulhams, wigans, or recently promoted teams

[Dirk Gently]

can you imagine the league cup games against league 1/2 teams its embaresingly empty already and thats with half the stadium filled. wait till theres 28000 empty seats

So there can be no change to the pricing structure, then? Charge a fiver to everyone and the place will be full - and rocking.

sarcasum?
even for a fiver would more than maybe 15000 turn up for reading v doncaster or some other low league team?

If it's marketed right, I see no reason why not. Figures from elsewhere suggest they will - but the point is that even if they done, every single person who turns up is pure profit. So even if it only attracts an extra 10,000 each paying a fiver, that's enough to keep a family of Sidwells going for a week.

[Coppelled Streets]

Nigel....football is played on the pitch mate, and as long as half our team belongs in the Championship we will never rival those clubs you mention, sorry to burst the bubble of big club bullshit.

Go and support Torquay you killjoy.

Great comeback

Reading - talking big since 2001. Just please stop.

FFS, when will people be happy? We're in the Premiership and have a team of midtable quality.

That clearly isn't enough, sadly.

The club may talk big, but that often helps attract players when clubs show AMBITION.

And you can't seriously moan about our saying we can be this, we can be that, not when we have been steadily, and steadily is key here, improving since 2001.

YOU BITCH!

[Kitsonista]

And round we go again........

It's precisely because we have the ABC1's in such volumes round here that we have the problems. ABC1's don't come to football they go to Rugger or row little boats or play golf. There's stil a perception of football as working class and full of hooligans. Tired old cliches but still prevalant, as is the man on the terrace berating the prawn sandwich brigade.

What planet have you been on for the last season and a half and, do you sit in the East stand by any chance

Without the ABC1's Premiership clubs would not be able to charge the highly inflated ticket prices that they do.

Which stand sold out first when we ran out of half season tickets in our promotion year....................the Upper West

Why have the club been converting offices into extra corporate hospitality area's costing upwards of £2000 a seat per season?

Simply, your ABC1's can't get enough of Prem footy and our catchment area has them coming out of it's ears......................wake up and smell the coffee.

I think any answer to your inelagant rant has been ably supplied by my learned coleagues above.

[Tinrib]

And round we go again........

It's precisely because we have the ABC1's in such volumes round here that we have the problems. ABC1's don't come to football they go to Rugger or row little boats or play golf. There's stil a perception of football as working class and full of hooligans. Tired old cliches but still prevalant, as is the man on the terrace berating the prawn sandwich brigade.

What planet have you been on for the last season and a half and, do you sit in the East stand by any chance

Without the ABC1's Premiership clubs would not be able to charge the highly inflated ticket prices that they do.

Which stand sold out first when we ran out of half season tickets in our promotion year....................the Upper West

Why have the club been converting offices into extra corporate hospitality area's costing upwards of £2000 a seat per season?

Simply, your ABC1's can't get enough of Prem footy and our catchment area has them coming out of it's ears......................wake up and smell the coffee.

I think any answer to your inelagant rant has been ably supplied by my learned coleagues above.

Inelagant?

coleagues?

Shit spelling. Poor argument.

LOL

[Woodcote Royal]

And round we go again........

It's precisely because we have the ABC1's in such volumes round here that we have the problems. ABC1's don't come to football they go to Rugger or row little boats or play golf. There's stil a perception of football as working class and full of hooligans. Tired old cliches but still prevalant, as is the man on the terrace berating the prawn sandwich brigade.

What planet have you been on for the last season and a half and, do you sit in the East stand by any chance

Without the ABC1's Premiership clubs would not be able to charge the highly inflated ticket prices that they do.

Which stand sold out first when we ran out of half season tickets in our promotion year....................the Upper West

Why have the club been converting offices into extra corporate hospitality area's costing upwards of £2000 a seat per season?

Simply, your ABC1's can't get enough of Prem footy and our catchment area has them coming out of it's ears......................wake up and smell the coffee.

I think any answer to your inelagant rant has been ably supplied by my learned coleagues above.

Looks like most are broadly in agreement with me.............................not difficult given your naive view of this clubs catchment area and ABC1's "rowing little boats"

[John Madejski's Wallet]

wtf is an ABC1???

[weybridgewanderer]

wtf is an ABC1???

Social Grade definition / Social Class definition:

Social Grade: A Approximately 3% of the total population.

These are professional people, very senior managers in business or commerce or top-level civil servants. Retired people, previously social grade A, and their widows.

Social Grade: B Approximately 20% of the total population

Middle management executives in large organisations, with appropriate qualifications. Principle officers in local government and civil service. Top management or owners of small business concerns, educational and service establishments. Retired people, previously social grade B, and their widows.


Social Grade: C1 Approximately 28% of the total population.
Junior management, owners of small establishments, and all others in non-manual positions. Jobs in this group have very varied responsibilities and educational requirements.

Retired people, previously social grade C1, and their widows.

Social Grade: C2 Approximately 21% of the total population.
All skilled manual workers, and those manual workers with responsibility for other people.

Retired people, previously social grade C2, with pensions from their job.

Widows, if receiving pensions from their late husband's job.

Social Grade: D Approximately 18% of the total population.
All semi-skilled and un-skilled manual workers, apprentices and trainees to skilled workers.

Retired people, previously grade D, with pensions from their job.

Widows, if receiving a pension from their late husband's job.


Social Grade: E Approximately 10% of the total population.
All those entirely dependant on the state long-term, through sickness, unemployment, old age or other reasons. Those unemployed for a period exceeding six months. Casual workers and those without a regular income. Only households without a Chief Income Earner will be coded in this group.

[Gus the teenage cow]

nigel howe can go and ride himself

[Upper West?!?]

Great value added there Gus.

The club is in the best shape it has ever been, and Howe has to be given some credit for that.

The biggest change in the years since moving to the Mad is the increase in kids going to matches and seeing kids wearing Reading strip throughout the region. They're the future of the club, and the future looks better than it ever has.

Given the quality at Derby, Birmingham, Wigan & Sunderland, it seems very unlikely Reading will go down this season. That means at least three seasons in the Premier League with the financial implications that brings. It does seem like dreamland compared to where the club was just a few seasons ago.

[Dai Brainbocs]

The snag as I see it is that growing the club through relentless marketing in its catchment area is a bit like turning on the taps and easing the plug out at the same time.

For everyone likely to be attracted by the Americanisation of the matchday experience, someone else will be turned off. It looks like we have already approached the limit for how much people are prepared to pay to watch a game.

Ironically, the fact that pretty much all the other football within an hour's drive of Reading is now played at a much lower level might actually be a handicap rather than a benefit, as people will increasingly decide they would prefer to feel like valued supporters at much smaller clubs, rather than obedient consumers for the tycoons running the top flight.

[brendywendy]

The snag as I see it is that growing the club through relentless marketing in its catchment area is a bit like turning on the taps and easing the plug out at the same time.

For everyone likely to be attracted by the Americanisation of the matchday experience, someone else will be turned off. It looks like we have already approached the limit for how much people are prepared to pay to watch a game.

Ironically, the fact that pretty much all the other football within an hour's drive of Reading is now played at a much lower level might actually be a handicap rather than a benefit, as people will increasingly decide they would prefer to feel like valued supporters at much smaller clubs, rather than obedient consumers for the tycoons running the top flight.

meh!

i dont think any of the kids wearing the hoops in the local area will be worrying overly about the americanisation of the premiere league "product"
i think you over state the problem, i dont think the numbers leaving to support lower league teams anyway near matches the new fans
and if it does you have to wonder about what kind of fans they actually are to be down in the mouth about our best period in footballing, financial, attendance (or whatever category you wish to choose) terms, ever