Boss shocked at empty seats

By Gordon Sharrock

 

Sam Allardyce believes empty seats at the Reebok could harm Bolton's hopes of success

SAM Allardyce has fuelled the debate over declining Reebok attendances with a passionate appeal to the stayaways.

 

The Wanderers boss had hoped the appearance of new ??8 million record signing Nicolas Anelka would boost the attendance at Saturday's home game against Watford.

 

But the French striker made his debut in front of a crowd of just 21,140 -7,000 less than the stadium capacity and more than 4,000 down on last season's average -prompting a mystified Allardyce to warn that the dramatic drop in crowds could seriously damage the team's chances of success.

 

"If I am to spend big money on more players like Nicolas Anelka, then I would hope it would start filling the stadium rather than leaving it with 4,000 or 5,000 seats empty," he said.

 

The long-term fear is that a significant drop in gate income could prevent Wanderers making more big money signings, but Allardyce's immediate concern is that the sight of empty seats at the Reebok could have a detrimental affect on performances.

 

The Watford gate was Wanderers' lowest for a Premiership game since the Charlton game of December 2001 drew a crowd of 20,834.

 

And although he did not blame Saturday's low crowd for his team's woefully below-par performance - Wanderers were booed at times by their own fans and needed a last-gasp Gary Speed penalty to beat newly-promoted Watford - the manager is worried that a trend is developing that could wreck his hopes of maintaining a position among the leading lights of the Premiership.

 

"It's not about just turning up for the big games and filling the stadium any more," Allardyce said. "It's about turning up for Bolton Wanderers to get us where we want to be - and that's not just surviving in the Premiership, it's about being in the top half and trying to go for Europe.

 

"Without screaming fans, players don't get themselves as motivated or as high as they can do. That's why people who play professional football love playing in front of full houses."

 

And he drew on his own personal experiences as a player. A cult hero in the Bolton teams of the Seventies, when he played in front of packed and passionate crowds, he also played in front of sparse attendances as he ended his playing career in the lower divisions.

 

Allardyce said: "In my time I went to the Chesters and the Hartlepools as I went down the leagues and actually said to myself Why am I bothering?' because there's just 1,200 or 1,500 there and there was simply no motivation for me to play football whatsoever.

 

"But, when I used to run down the tunnel at Burnden Park and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, I knew I was going to run and run and run until I couldn't run any more."

 

Asked if Wanderers fans had become blas after five seasons of Premiership football, Allardyce suggested: "You might have to do a poll and ask them."

 

In fact, the crowd debate, which Allardyce sparked himself after only 22,899 turned up to see Wanderers beat Spurs at the Reebok on the first day of the season, sparked a surge of letters, faxes, emails and phone calls to this newspaper and its website. Supporters have given a range of reasons why they have stayed away, including ticket prices, over-exposure in TV, changes to kick off times, the quality of the football, the previous lack of investment in players and even doubts over the manager's own future.

 

Despite some murmurings of discontent on Saturday, Allardyce again praised those who continue to support the team at the turnstiles.

 

"Our fans are always willing to will the players on and try to get them up and going when they are not playing quite so well," he said. "But we are left with not enough of them unfortunately.

 

"We haven't got to forget that just being in the Premiership is not enough. Being at the top half or being in Europe is the ultimate goal.

 

Erm, may I suggest we start to play decent football as a starting point??

no

Allardyce said: "In my time I went to the Chesters and the Hartlepools as I went down the leagues and actually said to myself Why am I bothering?' because there's just 1,200 or 1,500 there and there was simply no motivation for me to play football whatsoever.

 

Arrogant c??nt. Good Manager, but a f??cking out of touch t??sser.

Allardyce said: "In my time I went to the Chesters and the Hartlepools as I went down the leagues and actually said to myself Why am I bothering?' because there's just 1,200 or 1,500 there and there was simply no motivation for me to play football whatsoever

 

You fat bstard Allardyce!!!

 

You were a professional footballer being paid to do a job, you should do it to the best of your ability whether you???re playing front of 100,000 or 37. No wonder we were in the lower leagues for so long with plebs like you in the team!!

 

For the record you piece of Dudley scum, the reason for the empty spaces is your pathetic brand of football.

Shouldn't matter how many turn up.

When you are paid that amount of money - they should try their backsides off.

We have to go to work whether or not and perform, otherwise we would be sacked.

Get into the real world potato head !!

Thing is though, he wants screaming fans to spur the team along.

 

However to scream loud one needs to stand up to reach peak volume, but as soon as you stand up the stewards either eject you or drag you down or when you shout some f??cktard tells you to be quiet.

 

All around me in the south stand were f??cktards, 2 young girls behind me giggling, two gay looking fellas on my left were too busy admiring the stadium and a woman with kids in front of me who looked at me in disgust when I screamed whether the ref was f??ckin blind.

a woman with kids in front of me who looked at me in disgust when I screamed whether the ref was f??ckin blind.

 

She was looking at you in disgust because you were covered in shite.

She was looking at you in disgust because you were covered in shite.

 

 

::::::::::::::

 

 

or maybe she got splattered too

Final straw for me, I eventually managed to get into the Watford game despite the best efforts of the ticket office to discourage me.

 

You can stick the Boro game up your arse Sam.

 

First home game I'll be missing without good reason since Swansea in Division 4.

 

Lastly, the reason Sam was playing infront of 1200 people was because he wasn't a particularly great player and didn't make enough money to retire on. Much like his peers from the Bolton team of the late 70's, with the exception of Reidy.

Unbelievable,

 

after that wretched performance we have got some sub 20,000 crowds coming up.

 

This should be the best time ever for being a Bolton fan, instead I feel embarassed and ashamed

that we are playing the worst football in the Premier League, that we have a manager who is

constantly on TV, on the radio or in the press either boasting or moaning, that we have players with such poor technical ability (the English ones) who actually believe they could be playing for England.

 

Thank goodness we have Gardner coming back and Campo still playing for us, he might not be much of an athlete but he is a footballer.

I wish that fat c??nt would shut his f??cking mouth sometimes.

 

Shit ground

Awful location

No decent boozers

Over-priced

 

He should bear those points in f??cking mind next time.

On the off chance someone from the club reads this:

 

You can never appreciate just how difficult it is to obtain a ticket, what should be such a simple process:

 

The ticket office is miles out of town and only has one window open at peak times during the week i.e. lunch time.

 

The telephone is out of equation as you've impossed an 0871 that costs us to call. I cannot call this from work and am not calling it from a mobile. In addition to this, you add a ??1.50 booking fee onto every order. This HAS reduced ticket sales, like it or not. BWFC refuses to accept criticism of this system and therefore is 100% culpable.

 

The online ticketing system is reasonable, however doesn't offer sufficient gradularity when ordering tickets. The seats it offered me were virtually in the North Stand and this was unacceptable for this particular game.

 

For a low key game like Watford at home, there is no excuse for having no pay turnstiles on. To have people walking away from the ground and then having the audacity to complain about attendances scandalous. It's embarrassing for Sam Allardyce when he is commenting without being in possession of all, indeed any, of the facts and embarrassing for an alleged journalist who reporting his comments rote fashion.

"And he drew on his own personal experiences as a player. A cult hero in the Bolton teams of the Seventies, when he played in front of packed and passionate crowds"

 

Total number of top flight games played by Sam in front of Burnden crowds bigger than Saturday's?

Eight.

Exactly. Even as a young lad, I can remember that crowds fluctuated wildly in those days.

 

Ben in factually inaccurate story shocker!

And I really do wonder what he thinks he is trying to achieve by saying what he says. We've said it before, but it bears repeating, you would not get the board of M&S responding to poor sales by slagging off the stay-away knicker buyers. And before someone says "well it shows how passionate he is that he sometimes says what he thinks" just bear in mind that if he was being paid fcuk knows what to spout drivel on "A Question Of Sport" he'd be more than happy to curb his tongue.

We are what we are and have always been - a club with a limited fan base.

I also think a lot of people went above and beyond with their spending on the wanderers last year. The extra Uefa games hit the pocket pretty hard and I think many have looked to hold off a bit this year.

 

I also think we're still paying the price for the dark days. It'll still be another few years yet before we start to reap the rewards in terms of increased gates from the kids that have come through watching during our premiership years.

 

And what annoys me most is Allardyce wanting a full house. Its a atmosphere he should be demanding. That isn't created by getting an extra 3,000 fickle arm chair lovers in.

And what annoys me most is Allardyce wanting a full house. Its a atmosphere he should be demanding.

Eg - feckin - zackally. See the recent posts eg about Wolves playoff game being the greatest atmosphere ever despite being <17k Bolton fans.

I almost didn't renew my season ticket, the reason being..............I'm just not entertained anymore. I agree with our critics we play awful football, front to back looking for flick ons. Set pieces and generally lumping the ball into the box seem common place at the Reebok these days.

 

The price of tickets isn't a problem as personally I think that ??450 is cheap, definitely compared to other 'top half' clubs! I do feel sorry for the average family as the match day experience can get very costly indeed.

 

Just because we scored a 94th minute penalty to win a game doesn't send me away with great joy, I've come away quite bored as 93 minutes of the match were spent wishing I was watching Arsenal or Man U.

 

Between the start of the season and Christmas we are appearing on Sky 7 times, 5 of these are home fixtures. So 5 out of the first 11 home games are live on TV, why buy a season ticket? At least when you're at home you can turn the absolute diarrhea we know as 'Premiership football' off!

 

In my opinion then, we've got low season ticket sales and crowds because we're not entertaining anymore and because nearly half our games are televised anyhow? Has the bubble finally burst for Bolton? Only time will tell...............!!

Carlos one point

 

The ticket office is miles out of town and only has one window open at peak times during the week i.e. lunch time.

 

you can buy them from the market place!

 

a fact not well enough advertised!

I gave up my season ticket for some of the reasons mentioned in DCI's post above. Maybe professional football in regular doses is a bit like dining everyday on junk food, it became a tad boring. I think the quality in the Premier now is very overhyped with only the occasional game stirring the blood. The boring win and the last min penalty no longer lights my fire as it would have once done.

 

For me personally the matchday experience sort of died when we moved to the Reebok, my circle of mates stopped going and the guys who I knew from the Churchills or from my position in the manny rd north also stopped or went to different pubs or parts of the Reebok.

 

So I started taking the wife and kids on a family ticket. I stuck with it another 6 years when the late Todd and early to mid Allardyce years kept the promotion/ relegation excitement going, but me and my family started staying home on the rainy miserable winter days in 2003 wasting our tickets. The hassle of getting to and from the Reebok was just too much.

 

Would I return regularly? Well I went on Saturday but I don't know when I will again. Perhaps it will be the traditional Xmas game.

 

For what its worth I reckon Bolton kissed goodbye to 3000 - 4000 additional punters when we moved to the Reebok, in hindsight we could have built the thing at Burnden. However Bolton are not the only team suffering, both Blackburns and Burnleys crowds have fallen by the same % in recent years.

while a lot of points are valid in this thread, i will play devils advocate and say, you will all be back when the famous man united visit, sad but true.

while a lot of points are valid in this thread, i will play devils advocate and say, you will all be back when the famous man united visit, sad but true.

 

I would normally say the crowds will be back before then for the Liverpool game but as it's a shit kick off time and on tele I doubt it.

while a lot of points are valid in this thread, i will play devils advocate and say, you will all be back when the famous man united visit, sad but true.

 

correct, thats the most annoying thing to me...

 

people say they will pick and choose games, remind me again which team youre supporting?

correct, thats the most annoying thing to me...

 

people say they will pick and choose games, remind me again which team youre supporting?

 

"Fans" will always come out for the big games - it's been the same since football was invented and will always be the same. I do it, we all do it. I can't make 'boro on Saturday because my flight lands at Heathrow too late to get to Bolton but when I saw it was only 'boro I thought, ah who cares at least it wasn't one of the big teams.

while a lot of points are valid in this thread, i will play devils advocate and say, you will all be back when the famous man united visit, sad but true.

 

Might go to Man U away, Citeh deffo as I aint been there yet.

 

But aint that really the crux of the problem? the expectation and anticipation of visits of Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal etc which wets the appetite needs somehow to be there for the rest of the games to entice people out. How do you do that? I sure dont have the answer.

 

I'm afraid relying on blind loyality, premier league status, duty etc as if it were some sort of precious private club that gave out badges aint gonna do it no matter how much it pisses you off.