Denbighammer wrote:
Our promotional policy is obviously essential as we struggle to fill our ground and its good that we are trying to run the club as a modern business I'm not disputing that in any way.
However, with statements like that the board are trying to make out that we have paying punters desperately beating down the door to get in.
That clearly is not the case as we have to offer a wide range of promotions just to get 35,000 in and even then there are still c.500-1000 empty seats per match, whatever the publically announced figure is.
My other point was that, both Spurs and Chelsea want to have bigger grounds at the similar capacity to the OS but have used similar tactics to sell unsold seats. Spurs estimating their projected attence levels upon a spurious season ticket waiting list.
The one abiding phrase I can always remember when growing up from all West Ham fans was " if only we could fulfil our potential, there are loads of fans in Essex that the club don't reach out to etc etc..."
Well, the club are trying to make inroads to that potential, and the reaction from some, is to either criticise or **** yourself at the prospect. We've never had the ambition to grow in the past, it's not going to happen overnight, we won't instantly be rich, we won't instantly win anything, all it does is give us the opportunity to grow healthily.
In the same way that Arsenal may on the surface of it, looked to have taken one step backward on the pitch, the club has undoubtedly grown off the pitch which will push it two steps forward in the long term future.
You have to aspire to achieve, otherwise no one is going to hand it to you on a plate.. I would rather do it the Organic way than become a novelty Football Club like Chelsea FC.