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Of course it’s frustrating, but barring a few idiots, we can live with a year or two of consolidating and rebuilding the club to take account of those shifting circumstances. But this is becoming a bit ridiculous. We’re a part of this operation. We deserve to be kept in the picture.
At every opportunity, the club pleads poverty, and blames the corporations behind the digital disaster. After every bad performance, it’s because we haven’t got a big enough squad. With each signing that doesn’t materialise, it’s because we can’t afford to increase the size of the squad. And now the fans have to fork out more money top watch a less attractive standard of football - because we need to make up that shortfall resulting from ITV digital.
The maths doesn’t work, Barry. You’re not heeding the fundamental lesson which came out of the meltdown last summer. ITV digital had a business plan – which, presumably, you as a club chairman looked at and approved before you gave them the contract – based on the premise that supporters of football league clubs and casual supporters in general would part with large sums of money to watch a basically mediocre product, in comparison to Sky’s offering of premiership football.
People didn’t buy it. They didn’t bother changing their subscription. From that, people like yourself responsible for running the game should have realised that the game is killing the goose which lays the golden egg. The floating supporters in particular, the ones who aren’t so loyal as to come back no matter what, won’t keep paying out ever increasing sums of money for a product which is, frankly, less appealing than it was twelve months ago.
You’ve missed out here on a great opportunity. You had the chance to make a glorious public relations statement. Freeze season ticket sales. Market it as a way of bringing fans back into the fold. You and us united, to get us through the difficult times. Make that statement, and I think you’d have ended up with basically as many season ticket holders as you have this season.
Instead, you’ll be lucky to see ten thousand pay up. Although the die-hards will pay up no matter what, your season ticket revenue will be down on this season, and what’s more, you’ll have made many fans feel alienated and disillusioned.
This policy of trying to squeeze every last penny out of the supporters is driving a stake through the heart of everything good that you and your colleagues have accomplished in the past four years. Granted, if we want things to improve, the money’s got to come from somewhere, and you’ve more than put in your share – nobody doubts that, and all fans have a role to play. But people have budgets. I’m a student, and I outgrow the 16-18 concession this time. I haven’t got the best part of 400 quid to spend on a season ticket; when I’m home, I’ll pay on the gate. Other people have wives, kids and mortgages to put before Burnley.
No-one doubts your personal commitment to the club. Without you, we wouldn’t be in the first division. Without you, we would probably be in administration just now. But then, you aren’t the only person involved in the decision making process.
You have a chief executive who has stated that in every season he is in the post, season ticket prices will rise. Now, he’s an experienced business operator. The nearest I’ve come to it is working on the checkout at a supermarket in my holidays, so I wouldn’t pretend to have anything like his acumen.
But I would suggest that having a policy so rigid that it is immune to changing needs and unforeseen circumstances and opportunities does not make sense. Certainly it is not an approach suited to a club like Burnley, where the fans like to feel that they are an integral part of the operation and not simply a statistic on the balance sheet. Perhaps the man, for all that his approach may have helped us come closer to realising our commercial potential, is not sufficiently in tune with the psyche of the fans to develop Burnley at the present.
He comes across as cold and distant from us. He doesn’t seem like a man in touch with Burnley supporters. Instead, we feel increasingly isolated. Instead of listening to us, and interacting with us, we simply feel like we’re being fed the party line and sold advertising slogans.
When you arrived at Burnley, it heralded a new era of open engagement with the fans. There were regular meet the board sessions, regular interviews. The idea was to unite players, fans and the board in the drive for success.
But that’s easy when things are going well and everything in the garden’s rosy. When times get harder, and the questions become more searching and more critical, that’s when the acid test comes. If you’re serious about this common purpose, now is the time to prove it. We need honest answers and an indication that we’re still on the same side. You have to show that you’re listening and you understand our predicament.
Burnley Football Club is heading towards a defining moment. Attendances have fallen consistently from the 16,000 average which was reached shortly after we got promotion. Without the momentum from on-field success, with discontent rising in the stands, then it requires a symbolic gesture to make people believe again. Otherwise, we might be down towards gates of little more than ten thousand once again.
You’ve dragged this club a long way very quickly. You’re the most generous fan we’ve ever had, and probably the most astute chairman with it. But the good times aren’t always remembered once the harder days set in. You have a chief executive whose approach is close to exacerbating our troubles rather than easing them.
I am, I know, only one supporter. But I’m not the only one who feels this way. The evidence is all around you. And we need a response now.