Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:13 pm  

The minor issue is that people need to a) know the club exists and b) care enough to investigate what if offers. Not enough people fall into those two categories now

Butmypoint is those past fans already know the club exists apparently there were 8000 of em at some point.
As for the past so What! Its gone its dome pointless harping on about it, the future is what can be affected, hence my comment

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:44 pm  

northernbloke wrote:

As for the past so What! Its gone its dome pointless harping on about it, the future is what can be affected, hence my comment

I would suggest the club would be in a better to position to affect the future if they understood the failings of the past.

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:13 pm  

[quote="northernbloke"

Butmypoint is those past fans already know the club exists apparently there were 8000 of em at some point.
As for the past so What! Its gone its dome pointless harping on about it, the future is what can be affected, hence my comment[/quote]

The majority of those 8,000 or so have made a conscious decision to cease attending. Most no longer have an interest in the club. My point was with the lack of marketing we usually see you need people who both know you exist and care enough to research the offering. Most of the 8,000 or so don't meet both criteria.

Most of those 8,000 or so are long gone and won't come back. I used to come in a group of up to 16. I'm the only one left and there's zero chance of the others returning regularly. A couple have died or moved away, the rest have simply moved on in their lives. A couple of those gone did a fair few away games too.

If the only plan is to rely on old fans coming back without much input from the club, it will be a fiasco.

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:50 pm  

All that matters now is The Future! the past gone! Let's jus5 wait and see what marketing plans are being looked at? It's not yet decided when we move yet!

The council procedure lasted much longer than I ever expected, it it even worth moving this season! The players are working with a Wimbledon FC charity, it's pointless starting a marketing yet! Whatever is in the budget needs to be used wisely!

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:03 pm  

jaybs wrote:

All that matters now is The Future! the past gone! Let's jus5 wait and see what marketing plans are being looked at? It's not yet decided when we move yet!

The council procedure lasted much longer than I ever expected, it it even worth moving this season! The players are working with a Wimbledon FC charity, it's pointless starting a marketing yet! Whatever is in the budget needs to be used wisely!

As I mentioned previously, AFC want their fans in first. Their 1st league game is 14th August which would leave us 3 league games left i think. 1 of those is Fev. Do you really want a 50 to 70 point pasting to start our new tenure? Has to be next season whether full or part time. We need to start with a winning team & that means big bucks being spent. As Orangeman pointed out, Hughes probably won't fund it.

I did say when it was clear that Merton Council have 2 speeds, stop & reverse so you shouldn't be surprised by the time it's taken.

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 9:15 pm  

northernbloke wrote:

As for the past so What! Its gone its dome pointless harping on about it, the future is what can be affected, hence my comment

As I say. Apologists gotta do what they do.

If, as you suggest, we stop harping on about it, at what stage does the penny drop with those in charge that they're repeating the same mistakes that we've made over and over again?

Wimbledon have fewer fans than Brentford had when we moved in there. We had office space at Griffin Park and used their infrastructure there and Chris Warren got posters and leaflets made using the Brentford FC discounts with their suppliers. Brentford fans were invited to come to games, but at the end of the day, we were paying tenants who made money from ticket sales, merch sales from 40-20 in a port-a-cabin and through selling buckets of VB.

We left Griffin Park after 4 seasons including 2 Play-off appearances with 700 more average fans than our last season at Charlton. That's about 20% up......so, if we look at 850 as our average for our last full champ season at Ealing, then we're heading for a best case scenario of another 200 or so fans......but bear in mind, we had Wigan, Saints, Leeds and Bradford coming down in coachloads.....not Swinton and an extra hour going around the M25!

Why is this move even happening? We certainly haven't planned to make a push for SL this year, with an absolute lack of any decent signings being made. There are murmurs (This is RL after all) that SL may well return to Franchising, but only a blind fool would hand David Hughes another licence after what he did with the last one. Or, do people still think SKY will up their cash if London are involved? We certainly haven't signed players for 2022, so unless the NRL have bought us and are shipping an entire squad over, it looks like we're simply moving because someone at the club has told Hughes that the current ground is the reason that they can't attract fans and half decent sponsors.....reminds me of the cricketing supremo.

The smart money will be on us being Part time inside 3 years and back at Rosslyn Park maybe playing a couple of games at ealing and certainly being in the same division as Skolars.....you know, the team we used to play every year in the city before someone mucked up that relationship too.

To be crystal clear here. Wimbledon fans have little interest in anything to do with Rugby League as a sport or even as something to do when their footie team isn't about.....what they do care about is the £200,000 that David Hughes will give them so they can service their debt. Of course they'll make the right noises about "partnership" but we are nothing more than tenants here as we've been everywhere. Hughes wanted a "Barcelona" type club at Charlton, with multiple sports played under the one banner......it was a stupid pipe dream in 1996/7 and it's as daft and improbable now as it was then.

So nope. I'll continue to harp on about the clubs continued failure to understand that more fans = more revenue= more interest=more sponsors = less reliance on handouts. London Broncos fans rarely turned up expecting us to win, but we enjoyed the experience. 3,000 of them have walked away and yet the club will blame everything and everyone other than look at themselves and the owner and accept that the problem isn't a hard one to solve....well, it wasn't a decade or so ago, but a failed move to Wimbledon will make it impossible.

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:35 pm  

So orangeman.
What do you suggest

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Mon Jul 19, 2021 11:15 pm  

northernbloke wrote:

So orangeman.
What do you suggest

There was an opus posted on here back in 2009. It outlined a number of ways to promote the club for either minimal or no outlay. What was required was a desire, a will and a group of volunteers to make it work. The premise at the time was that we had about 3,750 as an average and it was a way to get the club nearer 5,000 fans, which at the time would have delivered about £1,000,000 in gate receipts.
Alas.....it would almost be cheaper to bin the Broncos and start from scratch again as any goodwill is gone, there's 500 fans left at best and if the club decide that Wimbledon is their desired destination, I see no point in spending a farthing on marketing and promotion until next January/February, when the Covid situation may be a bit clearer and the club have an idea of interest from Dons fans.

That said. If it were me?

I'd stay at Ealing until we've a squad that looks like it might challenge and if needed, take one or two games to a bigger stadium like the stoop.
I'd put together a 10 year plan, with chances to amend and update it at 1 year, 4 years and again at 7 years. I'd re-engage with the lapsed fans.....maybe in the form of a letter from David Hughes outlining the plan for the club.
I'd streamline and outsource every aspect of the back office, with maybe a General Manager and 2 other full time employees. I'd allocate a set figure for marketing and interview local agencies with a major part of any fees paid for acquisition....
...I'd have the Academy & First Team Squads training together, using the Gymnasium that Dave built back when he said it was perfect for the Broncos and I'd use any of the savings we make from not having seperate training facilities etc to market ourselves.
I'd run Beer Fesivals at 3 games during the summer.....a la Toronto. I'd have bands on, activities for the kids and bring back Buck'n'Dusty......in short, I'd act like a club and not a team.

But it won't happen. Hughes has bought into someone telling him what he wants to hear and the club will be part time in a matter of a few years....

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:24 am  

Over the years from Gutter to Orange, the mantra has remained the same despite a fair amount of abuse from some of us, including me i suspect.

But it is hard not to agree any more. The only thing I would really love to know, but suspect never will is WHY Hughes has done (or not done) what he has to get us to this position despite spending millions.

Re: Wimbledon planning application : Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:31 am  

I have too many good memories, from The Fulham days, bad ones are outweighed by good! If David Hughes had never come along, we may not have even had a club for years now, I would not like to imagine how much he has put in of his own personal finance? In my case, I am more bitter about my home town club, run by an owner, who is it all about himself! the new ground was not his money, it was a friend in Hong Kong, with a very high interest fee! he even has hos own office at the ground, Saturday after the cup presentation, when it should have been all about the players, there he was running out on to the pitch. We all look at matters differently! Thank Goodness lol