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Pay What You Can Scheme - Albion Rovers


Stuart Dickson

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This Saturday Albion Rovers are trialling a Pay What You Can admission policy at Cliftonhill in their home league match against Montrose. As their official website says the intention is to give fans who are hard pressed for funds at this time of year the opportunity to attend the match anyway, while those who have more money pay extra to "bolster" club funds. They also go on to say that they hope the scheme will attract new fans into the ground and enticing back some lapsed fans.

My thoughts on it are that although any scheme devised to make football more affordable should be welcomed I don't particularly like this one. This is for two reasons.

1. On the most basic level surely the scheme is wrong. To put it into context I can clearly afford the £10 adult and £2 per 13 -16 year old with free admission for under 12 admission prices that they normally charge. After all on Tuesday night I paid £20 per adult and £5 per child for a match in Sunderland. The issue isn't affordability, it's that I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January even if it is in the same council region that I live in. Even if admission is free I don't think I'd muster much enthusiasm for going.

2. Surely by running a scheme like this without providing receipts there is a risk of fraud. After all what is there to stop the turnstyle operator taking the £10 that a more affluent fan might pay to bolster club funds, and putting it through as a £1 minimum fee admission pocketing the difference for himself. If you assume all the turnstyle operators are trustworthy then what about higher up within the club? Will they be honest in their accounting of the gate receipts when paying VAT or will they succumb to temptation and claim that most people entering the stadium took advantage of the minimum price? Even if they are honest and do everything right, don't they still leave the door open for Customs and Excise to want to scrutinise their accounting.

To my mind Albion Rovers have a fair pricing policy as it stands. If they aren't getting the numbers in that they want at those prices, then they are going to have to look, not at cost, but instead at how well the club is doing in terms of their reputation amongst locals. Do the people of Coatbridge feel any buy in at the club? Do they feel a benefit to having Albion Rovers in the town? What are Albion Rovers doing in the local community to raise their profile and foster goodwill?

Edited by Stuart Dickson
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This Saturday Albion Rovers are trialling a Pay What You Can admission policy at Cliftonhill in their home league match against Montrose. As their official website says the intention is to give fans who are hard pressed for funds at this time of year the opportunity to attend the match anyway, while those who have more money pay extra to "bolster" club funds. They also go on to say that they hope the scheme will attract new fans into the ground and enticing back some lapsed fans.

My thoughts on it are that although any scheme devised to make football more affordable should be welcomed I don't particularly like this one. This is for two reasons.

1. On the most basic level surely the scheme is wrong. To put it into context I can clearly afford the £10 adult and £2 per 13 -16 year old with free admission for under 12 admission prices that they normally charge. After all on Tuesday night I paid £20 per adult and £5 per child for a match in Sunderland. The issue isn't affordability, it's that I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January even if it is in the same council region that I live in. Even if admission is free I don't think I'd muster much enthusiasm for going.

2. Surely by running a scheme like this without providing receipts there is a risk of fraud. After all what is there to stop the turnstyle operator taking the £10 that a more affluent fan might pay to bolster club funds, and putting it through as a £1 minimum fee admission pocketing the difference for himself. If you assume all the turnstyle operators are trustworthy then what about higher up within the club? Will they be honest in their accounting of the gate receipts when paying VAT or will they succumb to temptation and claim that most people entering the stadium took advantage of the minimum price? Even if they are honest and do everything right, don't they still leave the door open for Customs and Excise to want to scrutinise their accounting.

To my mind Albion Rovers have a fair pricing policy as it stands. If they aren't getting the numbers in that they want at those prices, then they are going to have to look, not at cost, but instead at how well the club is doing in terms of their reputation amongst locals. Do the people of Coatbridge feel any buy in at the club? Do they feel a benefit to having Albion Rovers in the town? What are Albion Rovers doing in the local community to raise their profile and foster goodwill?

So, in your world, the scheme is wrong simply because you don't want to go?

What sort of life do you have when you keep coming on here (a website for fans of a club that you claim to dislike) and posting such long winded and self important nonsense?

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This Saturday Albion Rovers are trialling a Pay What You Can admission policy at Cliftonhill in their home league match against Montrose. As their official website says the intention is to give fans who are hard pressed for funds at this time of year the opportunity to attend the match anyway, while those who have more money pay extra to "bolster" club funds. They also go on to say that they hope the scheme will attract new fans into the ground and enticing back some lapsed fans.

My thoughts on it are that although any scheme devised to make football more affordable should be welcomed I don't particularly like this one. This is for two reasons.

1. On the most basic level surely the scheme is wrong. To put it into context I can clearly afford the £10 adult and £2 per 13 -16 year old with free admission for under 12 admission prices that they normally charge. After all on Tuesday night I paid £20 per adult and £5 per child for a match in Sunderland. The issue isn't affordability, it's that I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January even if it is in the same council region that I live in. Even if admission is free I don't think I'd muster much enthusiasm for going.

2. Surely by running a scheme like this without providing receipts there is a risk of fraud. After all what is there to stop the turnstyle operator taking the £10 that a more affluent fan might pay to bolster club funds, and putting it through as a £1 minimum fee admission pocketing the difference for himself. If you assume all the turnstyle operators are trustworthy then what about higher up within the club? Will they be honest in their accounting of the gate receipts when paying VAT or will they succumb to temptation and claim that most people entering the stadium took advantage of the minimum price? Even if they are honest and do everything right, don't they still leave the door open for Customs and Excise to want to scrutinise their accounting.

To my mind Albion Rovers have a fair pricing policy as it stands. If they aren't getting the numbers in that they want at those prices, then they are going to have to look, not at cost, but instead at how well the club is doing in terms of their reputation amongst locals. Do the people of Coatbridge feel any buy in at the club? Do they feel a benefit to having Albion Rovers in the town? What are Albion Rovers doing in the local community to raise their profile and foster goodwill?

I read it this morning in the paper and have to be honest I thought it was a great idea, while you might not struggle to pay to go a see Sunderland v Man U I'm sure there are many that would. I'll be honest I didn't consider all your points although I guess they are valid.

I cant speak for any one in Coatbridge on their views on the club but surely this scheme should foster goodwill in the community or are they all so bitter and twisted that they will only see the negative in what seems like a perfectly decent offer?

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" I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January"

I went to said ramshackle stadium not that long ago to see the Wee Rovers play Peterhead... as the alternative was paying £37 for two of us to get in see Saints in Inverness!

The seat I sat on was more than adequate.. and very similar to the seat I sit on at St Mirren park. It cost about £12 for the two of us... and the pies were not only cheap... but better than ours!

As you are usually a defender of grass roots football, I'm puzzled by your disparaging comments and criticism of a lower league club at least trying to show a bit of initiative.

What a strange and very long pointless rant. Did you feel better for it?

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" I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January"

I went to said ramshackle stadium not that long ago to see the Wee Rovers play Peterhead... as the alternative was paying £37 for two of us to get in see Saints in Inverness!

The seat I sat on was more than adequate.. and very similar to the seat I sit on at St Mirren park. It cost about £12 for the two of us... and the pies were not only cheap... but better than ours!

As you are usually a defender of grass roots football, I'm puzzled by your disparaging comments and criticism of a lower league club at least trying to show a bit of initiative.

What a strange and very long pointless rant. Did you feel better for it?

What's your point Brian? I've already said in my original post that Albion Rovers pricing strategy on a regular match day is more than fair. £10 per adult, free admission for Under 12's, £2 for over 12s is perfectly reasonable. What I'm questioning what the likely success of this silly gimmick is likely to be.

Consider an analogy - this is like a DFS sale. The big signs are up, there's loads of prices marked up on the board all discounting the product, but unless you are in the market for a sofa you aren't likely to go through the doors, never mind make a purchase. That's the problem clubs like Albion Rovers face. At that level of the game it's not the pricing that is off, it's their lack of connection with the local community that is the issue and until the club manage to get the people of Coatbridge to give a shite about them it's always going to be a problem for them.

As for the pies, well any resident in North Lanarkshire knows you can buy the same pies from JB Christie in Airdrie and they don't charge admission. I personally prefer the pies at the Village Bakery in Kilcadzow but I guess everyone has their own taste.

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" I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January"

I went to said ramshackle stadium not that long ago to see the Wee Rovers play Peterhead... as the alternative was paying £37 for two of us to get in see Saints in Inverness!

The seat I sat on was more than adequate.. and very similar to the seat I sit on at St Mirren park. It cost about £12 for the two of us... and the pies were not only cheap... but better than ours!

As you are usually a defender of grass roots football, I'm puzzled by your disparaging comments and criticism of a lower league club at least trying to show a bit of initiative.

What a strange and very long pointless rant. Did you feel better for it?

He probably does now that he has let it be known (once again), to all the members on a forum of a club he dislikes, that money is no object to him! Nothing to do with football.

Edited by sally02
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This Saturday Albion Rovers are trialling a Pay What You Can admission policy at Cliftonhill in their home league match against Montrose. As their official website says the intention is to give fans who are hard pressed for funds at this time of year the opportunity to attend the match anyway, while those who have more money pay extra to "bolster" club funds. They also go on to say that they hope the scheme will attract new fans into the ground and enticing back some lapsed fans.

My thoughts on it are that although any scheme devised to make football more affordable should be welcomed I don't particularly like this one. This is for two reasons.

1. On the most basic level surely the scheme is wrong. To put it into context I can clearly afford the £10 adult and £2 per 13 -16 year old with free admission for under 12 admission prices that they normally charge. After all on Tuesday night I paid £20 per adult and £5 per child for a match in Sunderland. The issue isn't affordability, it's that I feel absolutely no desire to go and watch Albion Rovers play Montrose at a run down ramshackle stadium in the middle of January even if it is in the same council region that I live in. Even if admission is free I don't think I'd muster much enthusiasm for going.

2. Surely by running a scheme like this without providing receipts there is a risk of fraud. After all what is there to stop the turnstyle operator taking the £10 that a more affluent fan might pay to bolster club funds, and putting it through as a £1 minimum fee admission pocketing the difference for himself. If you assume all the turnstyle operators are trustworthy then what about higher up within the club? Will they be honest in their accounting of the gate receipts when paying VAT or will they succumb to temptation and claim that most people entering the stadium took advantage of the minimum price? Even if they are honest and do everything right, don't they still leave the door open for Customs and Excise to want to scrutinise their accounting.

To my mind Albion Rovers have a fair pricing policy as it stands. If they aren't getting the numbers in that they want at those prices, then they are going to have to look, not at cost, but instead at how well the club is doing in terms of their reputation amongst locals. Do the people of Coatbridge feel any buy in at the club? Do they feel a benefit to having Albion Rovers in the town? What are Albion Rovers doing in the local community to raise their profile and foster goodwill?

It's irrelevant whether £10 is a lot to you or not.

What's relevant is whether Albion Rovers have a target group of people for whom £10 is the issue which is stopping them going to the games.

£10 is a lot of money to watch essentially a team of struggling part-timers in the third division.

In other words, it's not just the physical amount of money - it's the value you are getting for it.

Albion have the same battles as every other small club and I'm not about to ridicule them for trying something constructive like this.

A one-off like this probably won't work but they obviously feel it's worth trying.

No doubt if it fails you'll be on to gloat about how you predicted it and how, if they'd only listened to you they could be in the Champions League.

Edited by oaksoft
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Rovers probably have the same problem as us - buses leaving the town every week to go to Ibroke or Dorkheid. With Rasellickfootballclub being in Turkey this week it might work for them, it will be cheap enough for any Sellick fans who go, there is standing room available and any flares let off are hardly likely to cause any further damage to the stadium.

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It's irrelevant whether £10 is a lot to you or not.

What's relevant is whether Albion Rovers have a target group of people for whom £10 is the issue which is stopping them going to the games.

£10 is a lot of money to watch essentially a team of struggling part-timers in the third division.

In other words, it's not just the physical amount of money - it's the value you are getting for it.

Albion have the same battles as every other small club and I'm not about to ridicule them for trying something constructive like this.

A one-off like this probably won't work but they obviously feel it's worth trying.

No doubt if it fails you'll be on to gloat about how you predicted it and how, if they'd only listened to you they could be in the Champions League.

Come on Oaksoft. Albion Rovers don't have a missing army of fans who can't afford £10 for a home match in the weeks immediately after their team beat Motherwell in the cup and you know it. This is the wrong initiative at the wrong time - and it's got to be an administrative nightmare as well for all the reasons I outlined in my first post. Instead they need to do something that gets the people of Coatbridge to give a f**k because right now most of the population around there, and across the rest of North Lanarkshire certainly don't.

I prefer to look at what fifth tier EKFC are doing in South Lanarkshire - it's the kind of initiative that I've been banging on about but in reverse. They're a club that have had a juvenile set up for years - under different names initially - but for years anyway. They've got thousands of lads who are ex players who'll be taking at least a moderate interest in what's happening with their old club and they've got hundreds of current players, coaches and parents who will be looking at getting in the senior team as a step on their goal to professional football.

What EKFC realised is that they can be top of the pyramid in East Kilbride but that if you don't have many bricks to put in at the base of the pyramid it's not going to be very big. It's something that senior clubs in Scotland really need to learn.

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Regarding the pies,it's been voted the best pie in the country.

Doesn't what the wee teams surrounding Glasgow do now.

They are on a loser,the old scum have got such a grip on the game here due to the help from the media.

It takes a change in attitude - something I've been banging on about for ages.

Consider this, Wikipedia give Albion Rovers average gate this season as 387. Within 10 miles of their stadium there are quite a few juvenile football clubs who have more than 387 players on their books who pay them weekly subscriptions. Clubs like Cumbernauld Colts, Gartcairn Football Academy, and Wishaw Wycombe all are larger clubs these days - all with SFA Quality Marks - and on their own doorstep in Coatbridge Milan Football Club are going through the Quality Mark process whilst attracting large numbers of kids through their doors. Yet rather than work together with the likes of those clubs to share resources Albion Rovers, like so many other senior Scottish Football Clubs, are involved in a process where they try to grab all local funding for themselves. That strategy is fine if that's what you want to do, but if that's how you are going to behave then it's a bit rich to complain when the same people you've f**ked over decide they aren't going to give you their custom.

This pay what you can scheme is a gimmick and it's not going to work. Even if the gate increases this week for their match against Montrose their takings will go down and when it's all done how are they going to get someone who paid £1 this week to come back and pay ten times that for the next home match?

Oaksoft claims it's the PR that's important which is fair enough. They are certainly getting more coverage as a result of the scheme, but tell me - how many B&W Army forum members are chomping at the bit to get down to Coatbridge tomorrow? And do the numbers resemble anything like the number of locals they've pissed off with their poor PR in recent years?

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It takes a change in attitude - something I've been banging on about for ages.

Consider this, Wikipedia give Albion Rovers average gate this season as 387. Within 10 miles of their stadium there are quite a few juvenile football clubs who have more than 387 players on their books who pay them weekly subscriptions. Clubs like Cumbernauld Colts, Gartcairn Football Academy, and Wishaw Wycombe all are larger clubs these days - all with SFA Quality Marks - and on their own doorstep in Coatbridge Milan Football Club are going through the Quality Mark process whilst attracting large numbers of kids through their doors. Yet rather than work together with the likes of those clubs to share resources Albion Rovers, like so many other senior Scottish Football Clubs, are involved in a process where they try to grab all local funding for themselves. That strategy is fine if that's what you want to do, but if that's how you are going to behave then it's a bit rich to complain when the same people you've f**ked over decide they aren't going to give you their custom.

This pay what you can scheme is a gimmick and it's not going to work. Even if the gate increases this week for their match against Montrose their takings will go down and when it's all done how are they going to get someone who paid £1 this week to come back and pay ten times that for the next home match?

Oaksoft claims it's the PR that's important which is fair enough. They are certainly getting more coverage as a result of the scheme, but tell me - how many B&W Army forum members are chomping at the bit to get down to Coatbridge tomorrow? And do the numbers resemble anything like the number of locals they've pissed off with their poor PR in recent years?

Albion have been f**king people over by trying to grab all local funding? You'll have evidence of that then?

They've pissed people off? You'll have evidence of that as well.

Let me guess. I'm going on a limb here - did they refuse to work with you personally?

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Albion have been f**king people over by trying to grab all local funding? You'll have evidence of that then?

They've pissed people off? You'll have evidence of that as well.

Let me guess. I'm going on a limb here - did they refuse to work with you personally?

I've never worked with, or attempted to work with Albion Rovers in my life. :rolleyes:

I do know coaches and committee members from several of the juvenile clubs close to Albion Rovers and they've had the same kind of issues with Albion Rovers that clubs like ours have had with Motherwell or Hamilton Accies - and I'm sure the picture would be repeated if you talked to people running local clubs in ,Alloa, Brechin, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness or Greenock. There is a finite amount of resources available within football whether you want to talk about funding, football pitches, or training facilities and senior clubs do tend to take the attitude that they are top of the pyramid therefore they should get all the money - an attitude which looks ugly to what should be their target market.

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I've never worked with, or attempted to work with Albion Rovers in my life. rolleyes.gif

I do know coaches and committee members from several of the juvenile clubs close to Albion Rovers and they've had the same kind of issues with Albion Rovers that clubs like ours have had with Motherwell or Hamilton Accies - and I'm sure the picture would be repeated if you talked to people running local clubs in ,Alloa, Brechin, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness or Greenock. There is a finite amount of resources available within football whether you want to talk about funding, football pitches, or training facilities and senior clubs do tend to take the attitude that they are top of the pyramid therefore they should get all the money - an attitude which looks ugly to what should be their target market.

Happens in all levels of fitba especially the pro game.

The rich are getting richer Champions League prime example.

I thought that would appeal to your Tory values

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Happens in all levels of fitba especially the pro game.

The rich are getting richer Champions League prime example.

I thought that would appeal to your Tory values

Maybe it would do if it was a sound, efficient business structure. But that's the problem, it isn't. If a senior club grabs all the resources from grass roots football and then hordes it for itself it lands up cutting off it's supply chain whether that's in terms of coaches, players, or even just potential customers. Whereas if senior clubs were more willing to work together and share resources with other clubs in their community the result is better grass roots coaching, better quality players and better facilities all round.

Two competitors seeking to gain a financial advantage over each other is one thing, but what's going on in Scottish Football is a bit like a Dairy starving it's cows.

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Maybe it would do if it was a sound, efficient business structure. But that's the problem, it isn't. If a senior club grabs all the resources from grass roots football and then hordes it for itself it lands up cutting off it's supply chain whether that's in terms of coaches, players, or even just potential customers. Whereas if senior clubs were more willing to work together and share resources with other clubs in their community the result is better grass roots coaching, better quality players and better facilities all round.

Two competitors seeking to gain a financial advantage over each other is one thing, but what's going on in Scottish Football is a bit like a Dairy starving it's cows.

I'm sorry but the Tory way is to expect people to fight for themselves.

You can't change it because it's you who is being damaged by that selfish attitude this time.

Surely all the weaker teams just need a kick up the arse to get them motivated.

I know why don't we remove ALL of their funding.

That'll force them out of their dependency.

This IS the Tory way.

It's nasty vindictive shite.

Live with it or vote against it like the rest of us.

It's funny that you don't see the obvious tie between football and general society.

Same thing is happening with both but you only get annoyed at the one which affects you personally.

Edited by oaksoft
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