'Fans not customers'

[Steve.S]

if supporters want premiership football, then there is a price to pay. As soon as the stadium was built, it became a money making machine that has to pay its way. the point will come that if we make it into the premiership, there will be plenty of people wanting your seat and the ground will sell out to the bigger clubs. the test will come when the results go against us and we fall back down to the championship. because the real fans would have been priced out of the game and the big spenders will not want to follow a club in the championship. the 30,000 seater stadium will be lucky to find 8,000 supporters to fill it and they will wonder what went wrong. clubs need to look at clubs like
Leeds, Portsmouth, Coventry, Blackburn Birmingham to name a few, its all very well wanting success, but its the fans that make the club and its their support you need on the way up.

 

[ewe2]

Without the "The fans ",there would be very few customers !!!!

 

[Billy the Fish]

I thought it made our fans look like a load of ungrateful twats. Thanks for the £90m stadium, the £15m training complex, and the millions spent on players. But we want more

That's a strange thing to read into it.

It's not about wanting more, it's about remembering that most fans will pay whatever price is set because they love the game and the club. The people running clubs are often guilty of abusing that love and milking it for all it's worth, Arsenal are probably the worst culprits with their prices.

I'm glad people are willing to speak out now, because one day when the chips are down it might just come back to bite the club we all love on the arse. Without the dedicated support of alot of people there wouldn't be planning permission for a stadium for Tony to spend his money on, so it works both ways.

 

[Ernest]

THANKFULLY I didn't SEE that Dick Tight banner on TV

 

[Cheshire Cat]

People will pay for quality........ won't you?

 

[abc]

I don't get this.

I WANT to be treated as a customer not just a fan. Customers come and go according to value offered. If all football fans simpy acted as customers the Premiership et al would struggle to extract the amount of money they do from fans. If the quality of the football, the catering, the transport, stewarding, view etc was not 'good value' mere customers would simply go elsewhere forcing clubs to reassess everything from how much they charge to whether they invest in safe standing. Unfortunately we act as 'fans' which means we will accept all sorts of rip off prices and treatment that we would never tolerate if it were not for a inexplicable love of our respective clubs.

Clubs treat us as fans because they can. It would be their worst nightmare if we acted purely as 'customers'.

Perhaps a better banner would read 'we are customers not just fans' ?

 

[Return of the Rev]

Good post - I think some would be happier going back to the Goldstone!

another vote for the goldstone

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Thing is, every FAN who ever signed a petition, went on a march or formed/stood for/voted for an Albion political party was doing their part to safeguard the future of football in (just about) Brighton & Hove. That job is done. However, that is the past. Those people have no control over the future direction of the club. The present is self-important folk strutting around in lanyards and cherry-picking FA Cup ties against Premier League opposition. Anyone who was there when it counted can gain quiet satisfaction that every single bumped-up steward and blazer-wearing meeter n greeter directly owes their employment to YOU. Total respect

 

[trueblue]

Pathetic banner. Primary school slogan with no coherent point. As well as being a huge football 'fan', I'm quite happy to be treated as a 'customer', thanks, as this implies that the club will listen to me and try to make the whole match day as good as possible. It was when we were only 'fans' - such as in Bill Archer's day - that we really had problems. Considering the magnificent advances the club has made both on and off the field thanks to the generosity of one of the best owners anyone could ever hope for, it's an embarrassing effort - up there with the Ipswich fans last season.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Without the "The fans ",there would be very few customers !!!!

This...and if it wasn't for all of us marching, writing letters , going to the FA, protesting week after week, going to mellor to harangue the wanker archer, we wouldn't have a football club for all of you who prefer to be customers that fans...it's nothing about being grateful for a stadium, it's about having brighton and hove albion in your very soul and to be genuinely concerned that the owners have brought in someone who sees this as as business 100% and doesn't give a flying f*** what the fans of the club think, so long as he is maximising profit for the club.

Now that is fair enough if you want that for our club, but I will always be a fan of this club, not a customer....I am a customer of marks and spencer and sainsburys, I am not a fan.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

Shame that dopey skull and cross bones flag is still there

ha ha IT'S CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Balance it's all balance,i respect TB getting Barber in to gain full benefit of revenue streams,all for it,it just needs to be done in a sensitive way that appeases all,a hard act,but achievable and i am sure Bloom is very much aware of treading the tightrope the correct way long term..

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

SO WE ALL TOW THE LINE AND MEEKLY GO ALONG WITH THE CLUB, need to start a union up," rebels with a cause".

 

[Kneon Light]

I don't think anyone should be embarrassed about the fact that this debate is going on. It's a sign of a healthy situation that people can be discussing openly what the relationship should be between the Albion and its supporters / customers. If we were owned by a bunch of "investors", the discussion would be pointless, because they wouldn't have any reason to be interested. Our owner is a fellow fan, not just a service provider, or a salesman of a product that his company manufactures.

A debate is not embarrassing. Contact the club and discuss any grievances. Barber has already responded in the programme in the past to people's complaints. Debate is a good thing. A pathetic banner at a match screened live across the world is not and does (as one poster quite rightly put it) makes us look like "ungrateful twats"

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Fans could use this to their advantage with the adage 'The customer is always right'.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

as the old sham 69 song goes" if the kids are united they will never be defeated"

 

[ewe2]

This...and if it wasn't for all of us marching, writing letters , going to the FA, protesting week after week, going to mellor to harangue the wanker archer, we wouldn't have a football club for all of you who prefer to be customers that fans...it's nothing about being grateful for a stadium, it's about having brighton and hove albion in your very soul and to be genuinely concerned that the owners have brought in someone who sees this as as business 100% and doesn't give a flying f*** what the fans of the club think, so long as he is maximising profit for the club.

Now that is fair enough if you want that for our club, but I will always be a fan of this club, not a customer....I am a customer of marks and spencer and sainsburys, I am not a fan.

Well said.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

This...and if it wasn't for all of us marching, writing letters , going to the FA, protesting week after week, going to mellor to harangue the wanker archer, we wouldn't have a football club for all of you who prefer to be customers that fans...it's nothing about being grateful for a stadium, it's about having brighton and hove albion in your very soul and to be genuinely concerned that the owners have brought in someone who sees this as as business 100% and doesn't give a flying f*** what the fans of the club think, so long as he is maximising profit for the club.



Now that is fair enough if you want that for our club, but I will always be a fan of this club, not a customer....I am a customer of marks and spencer and sainsburys, I am not a fan.

This

 

[Bruntburger]

Good post - I think some would be happier going back to the Goldstone!

Yes I'd rather have the Goldstone too.
Terracing and £5 on the turnstiles

 

[FalmerforAll!**]

I suppose I agree with the sentiment, not sure what an a banner as small as that one would do!