Reply With QuoteAre you thinking of congestion? Surely that's not really an issue in a world without cash. If you can buy coffee without even taking your wallet out even Cardiff City could organize something.Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
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Crystal Palace are about as close as it gets in this country to the German fan culture , with their ‘ultra’ section behind the goal (Holmsdale end??)
They seem to have nailed the home atmosphere… I think I would be looking to try and replicate what they have… ringfence area behind the goal… the club could actively ‘recruit’ supporters into it initially (and if it took off people would naturally gravitate towards it).
Not for everyone, probably more so for the youngsters… but it’s the atmosphere and experience we need to be working on.
I’d also be working with primary /high schools in south east wales… free tickets, discounted bundles etc. The hundreds of clubs that play Saturday mornings… these kids love footy already, it’s just a case of trying to draw them in.
Are you thinking of congestion? Surely that's not really an issue in a world without cash. If you can buy coffee without even taking your wallet out even Cardiff City could organize something.
A few ideas;
Tying into a uni student point above, what “night” is student night in Cardiff now? We could partner with bars/clubs in the city, buy a match ticket and get free entry/reduced prices in the bars/clubs etc or vice-versa.
Do a spontaneous all remaining tickets £2 on 1/2 random games in the season, announce 2-3 days before the match. Targeting games that are early season when the weather is good or end of year when people have more time off/HY season tickets. It would create more of a rush for tickets and the experience is always much better when there is a high capacity ground, even if the game isn’t great.
Other than that give tickets to schools, charities etc. If the seats are empty then there is no income, there are enough of the above doing it tough, even if 2% stick around then they’ll earn it back.
Wonder of wonders, I actually saw a train on the Treherbert line yesterday and there were a few signs that all of the building work throughout 2023 may be coming to an end. The trouble is though that, even when the trains start running again, the service offered is wholly inadequate. For a start, there is no service at all on a Sunday and we're talking about something like 15 to 25 per cent of a home league programme there these days. For Saturday games. the one or two carriage trains you get more often than not are not fit for purpose - in a few weeks time, we'll be getting Christmas shoppers wanting to go to Cardiff and those trains aren't big enough for them, never mind the football fans who want to use them as well.
Back in 2021, I can remember catching a train to a game about three weeks before Christmas at a time when Covid was on the rise again and people were packed in like sardines into the two carriage train with no one being allowed onto it at stops like Llandaff and Cathays because the train was so full - it was a horrendous journey and, of course, you then had to change at Queen Street or Cardiff Central to get a train to Ninian Park. It's ironic that at a time when many grounds built these days have a new station opened alongside them to improve access, Cardiff already has a station no more than five minutes walk from their ground and yet there is no direct service there for passengers living outside of Cardiff on match days and, apart from when we were in the Premier League second time around (proof that it can be done), there never has been in the recent past in my experience.
I'll admit I never used to give the problems those living outside of Cardiff faced when I lived there, but it's a fact that it is so much easier for me to drive to a Swansea home game from the top of the Rhondda valley than it is a Cardiff one - there is a far better quality road to Neath and then on to Swansea than there is to Cardiff and then when you finally reach the capital, you have a situation which can resemble gridlock, especially as Christmas approaches, followed by a at least a twenty minute walk to the ground (I remember parking in the athletics stadium car park once for a game and it was an hour before the roads cleared - my journey home, which would have taken about twenty minutes normally, took an hour and a half).
I feel guilty moaning about travel problems to games when I live just twenty miles away and others come from hundreds of miles away to watch every home game, but, even for those living in Cardiff, access to the ground on match days can be a problem - I'm not expecting a return to the days of the seventies when I used to be able to drive to Sloper Road, park in one of the car parks of the factiories and car showrooms across the road from Ninian Park at about ten to three and still be in place on the Bob Bank to watch kick off in times when we used to average about 10.000 per game, but there has to be ways of improving transport to and from games surely?
Yet Lee Waters thinks we have a marvellous transport system that doesn't require any more roads to be built
I can tolerate the need for some ID/membership but it simply shouldn’t cost that much.
As an exile, I’d attend a handful to a dozen away games a season but since Covid I’ve not been to one. Unnecessary costs like this definitely a factor. My general football watching has also plummeted since to be fair but there’s something now about what feels like additional planning and faff with what seems an unnecessary cost attached that just puts me off.
I have a few friends that support lower league clubs and we’ll go to London away games in a group a few times a season. Minimal fuss involved: travel to the ground, turn up at the away end, pay your money, go through the turnstile. I appreciate the context is different for the city or a championship club perhaps, but the more the whole process moves away from this now the less I’m interested.
We have a 5 pager on poor public transport to the ground and you think another road is the answer?
A few things Corks!
Price of Children's kits! I took my 7 year old child to get the full kit with his name on the back £93 !!!! £93 f**king quid?? what????? Kids kit (under 15) should be no-more than £20 , we need to encourage kids to wear their home town colours!!! I certainly won't be buying it again! sad really!
Prices too! I would go more if the kids were a lot cheaper !!! everyone's feeling the pinch, at the moment, putting food on the table and paying bills are more important that football.
I feel the club is no longer our club or there for us. the club shop is hardly open, nothing attracts you to the ground.
Prices inside are madness!!
Bring back the grange end next to the away fans! - will never happen... but it's all pretty rubbish now. going down is just a force of habit these days, go there, sit and watch football and go home, it's not a day out anymore.
They do give tickets away to schools quite frequently but I’m not sure how many….my kids school have had some (20) but only once a season. They should give away far more, fill the reds seats with kids who are the future, make this a designated family stand. Kids can’t see anything when the play is towards the canton so will get a far better view. Best of all no longer stuck next to the away fans who can then be shunted along into the grange end towards the grandstand. Allowing standing and singing in the Ninian then would make a far better atmosphere but it’s debatable whether the club actually want this? My jack mate tells me if it wasn’t for the allowed singers next to the away fans at the Liberty there would be no atmosphere at all, aliken to the CCS now.
It always amazes me the club tend to target the valleys for new support when we have a city of almost half a million people (if you throw in Barry and penarth) and how many go? 2%? Must be the worst support per pop anywhere in the uk and mainly due to tickets being way to expensive last minute and the fact most don’t even know we are playing……do we even have any fans from the suburbs close to the stadium bar Canton? Grangetown, riverside, butetown? Very poor area’s?
Almost 50,000 students in and around the city too…..
One thing that's always baffled me, Arsenal Man city on the weekend, fans were separated by ONE! single glass barrier, you could probably lean over and touch the away fans! All other teams in the prem too~!!! With us, we have sections after sections closed off. it's looks pathetic and loses all match atmosphere!!! Love it or like it, fans like a bit of banter!! it's apart of football!
Just to stress the point, I asked my 10 year old this morning if he fancied coming with me to the Bristol game on the 28th and he replied, "not really, the trains were a nightmare". That's the future fans we're trying to attract!
[QUOTE=Dave Blue;5460602]We have a 5 pager on poor public transport to the ground and you think another road is the answer?[/QUO
the man lives in a dream world where it comes to public transport.
The M4 relief road would help though. Nothing grates people more than it taking the same amount of time to get from London to caerleon than it does from caerleon to Cardiff.
More people may attend if the roads were better
The disappointing thing is that this thread has been done countless times and many of the excellent suggestions on here have been raised many times before.
I acknowledge that some things such as better transport connections and switching the family and Canton are expensive and logistically difficult, but simple things like seating under the concourse, more decor, free tickets for schools, etc should be something the club can sort out in a few days.
Even something as simple as getting Hey Jude back on the tannoy took years of asking. Why on earth the club thought playing Fatboy Slim and Motörhead would get the fans singing is beyond me.
Getting to and from the ground is clearly an issue for some of us. Maybe we need a couple of park and ride bus services. The Cardiff East P&R site used to run buses to Queen Street but only seems to go to the hospital now. A shuttle to the ground from there could be good for the East of the city/Newport/those of us living in England.
We should never have expanded the stadium, 28k would be fine now and would've been fine in the Premier League
Absolutely
Our fans sometimes talk us up it's daft
Build a new stadium and the fans will come !
28 k would have been perfect
When Coventry got their new ground I would look at the stands from the way end when we were up there and it looked terrible , totally desolate
Ours looks just as bad these days
Just shows how disconnected the club is, not just from the city in it’s in, but it’s own fan base. You don’t have to switch the ends either, just move the families up to the red and let singing/standing happen in the Ninian…as for transport don’t worry about about it, the Metro is coming, whatever that means….the WAG will have it nicely sorted.
We had crowds of over 30k for almost all of our home games the last time we were in the Premier League. About half of them were over 32k, which is pretty much a sell-out for the CCS.
We have been in the top flight for 2 seasons since its formation in 1993
If we were a club with a history of big support a 33 k capacity stadium would have made sense
It's a white elephant as it is
28 k would have been fine and generated a good atmosphere with 20 k crowds in it
We averaged over 31,000 in the Premier League
Is having 3000 extra in during the PL season worth having an extra 4,000 seats empty for every season outside of the PL? Not for me !
Yes, far better for the club to turn away 3,000 fans a week during a season when they can charge the most.
Yes.
Once or twice in a blue moon we get there ff sake
Well you must be so happy to sit in a half empty stadium every weekend knowing that IF we are good enough to get promoted .......twice in the 30 years of the Premier leagues existence ......it will all be worth it because we can sell a few tickets to fans that will vanish if we get relegated
You are a typical dreamland Cardiff City fan
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