"Mango's Mouth"

Paulton Rovers are fleecing their loyal fans by charging £20 a ticket with concessions of £15 for their FA Cup tie against Norwich!!!

The club is making a small fortune as it is so to charge their loyal 150 or so followers nearly three times the normal admission fee is in my mind a disgrace!!!

Fair do's to them for getting this far but to impose these charges is simply down to greed!

This is a sound move by Paulton. as it is still cheaper than switching the tie to Carrow Road. In all fairness they dont really stand any hope of progressing so have to take the money they can from gate receipts.

I would have pushed for a switch if it was me cause even a low end FA Cup tie would pull in 6-8 thousand in Norwich so a 1/3rd of the gate receipts at £30 a pop would bring in massive amounts for them.

Can't agree Craig, they're getting a decent wedge from ITV for showing the match live so there isn't in my opinion any need to enforce such a huge price increase.

They've must also have made at least £40k all in from prize money, gate reciepts, hospitality and added sponsorship so they really don't need the price hike.

Craig, as far as i'm aware you cannot under FA rules switch the tie to the away sides ground anymore. If a switch was neccessary due to police enforcement it would need to be played at a neutral ground i.e The Memorial Stadium or somewhere of that ilk.

I agree with Danny, i think it's a disgrace to their loyal fans to hike up the prices when you look at how much they have made already. £40K in prize money plus a further £65K TV money. DISGRACE!

This is their long term future they are thinking about here though. and with the trouble we constantly read about clubs who can blame them. they may be stinging their 150 LOYAL fans. but how bout the prob near on 1000-1500 fans who will be out for the jolly pretending to be Paulton fans. bit like the lot that came out the woodwork for our game against FGR. saw countless people walking round with Mango scarves on who have never been seen before

The loyal ones are the ones WHO WILL RETURN week after week, a bit of respect to them wouldn't have gone a miss, after all they're the ones who've also been there for the bog standard league fixtures and who in all probability buy lotto tickets, golden goal, sponsor players etc to help the club financially. Their financial input over the season and possibly years should not be underestimated.

I feel I need to respond and put the club's perspective on this one.

Unlike most other clubs at this level we are a members only club run by a committee, in theory elected by the membership. I say in theory because in reality over the past few years it has been made up from the twenty or so people (out of a current membership of 920) who are actually prepared to do anything towards running the club.

Virtually all of the 150 regulars to whom you refer are club members. I would hope the players would be rewarded for their efforts and once all of the considerable additional expenses have taken out, every penny earned from ticket sales, sponsorship, TV, radio, merchandising etc will be used to directly benefit all of our members. There will be a time for reflection and I for one would not want to see a sudden flurry of spending, after all it was only a few short years ago Salisbury City were in a similar situation and are now in administration!

This is an ideal opportunity to secure the mid/long term future of our club. Like you we have gone through extremely hard times, playing budget cuts, smoking bans, cheap supermarket drink prices, too much football on TV etc yet still turned in a small profit which has been put back into improving the club facilities.

Or to put it another way if we had asked every member of our club to hand over £15 to secure the short/medium term future of our club how many do you think would have done so? This way they and the other 1,000+ (who actually hand over the full £20) get to see a top League club and enjoy the greatest day in this club's history. Certainly the regular supporters I have spoken to accept the rationale and judging by the number of enquiries from fans of other clubs in the area I don't think £20 tickets sales will be a problem.

Can I also confirm that you cannot switch the tie. In the event that our ground had not been suitable we would have had to find "the nearest suitable alternative", which I suspect would have been Twerton Park. It was made very clear by all parties that were the tie to be played anywhere other than at Winterfield Road we would not be given the TV rights and as a result with ground hire and other costs might even have faced a potential loss! In the circumstances the committee have been working every available hour to ensure we hold this game and maximise the one chance we have to secure our financial future.

It makes you wonder what MUFC would have done had we reached Round 1 and drawn such a plum tie as Norwich at home...... I understand all the reasons put forward by our friend paultonrover to secure the club's future etc, but £20 a ticket is still one heck of an increase. The regulars will still pay it, though, because it's a game they wouldn't dream of missing.

I also heard yesterday that for the cup tie Paulton have been paid £35k by bet365 to have their logo on the front of their shirts and also £20k by Blackthorn for their logo on the back, so another £55k in the clubs coffers.

Danny - you should know better than to believe everything you hear!

We have agreed a sponsorship with Bet 365 and Blackthorne which include both shirt and board advertising but the figures quoted are way off reality and probably only achievable were we to reach the final! The exact details, at least to my mind, are a matter between the club, the sponsors and the FA appointed advertising company who helped broke the deal. This had absolutely no bearing on the cost of tickets as this came well after the decision on ticket prices was made.

Once agreement was reached that we could host the game we had to decide immediately on ticket prices. Yes we knew the TV was on but were ignorant of any additional revenue streams through additional sponsorship, radio etc. What we had to do was agree a ticket price immediately so they could go to the printers (specialist printers I might add for security reasons) so they would reach us and Norwich in time to sell (and in Norwich's case to allow for possible postal sale problems) and to cover the substantial costs of staging the game.

As I've said before I make no apology for trying to maximise the income from this tie to safeguard the future of our club but I do take exception to the title of this thread, The "hardcore" 150 members you originally alluded to and are so concerned about are club members and as adults can purchase club membership for £5 which entitles them to entry to all league games at just £5 a match. So for the 21 home games admission costs, plus membership = £110. Now there are some clubs in this division I believe who charge £8 with no discounts for members which equates if my late night maths are correct to be £168 for 21 league home games. So even with an additional £15 for the greatest day in the club's history and a chance to watch a league club, 5 steps up the pyramid, they are still quids in! In the FA Cup apart from the Bideford game where we charged £5, entry to Tiverton, Newport and Chippenham was £7 - we paid £9 at Didcot.

Which begs the question of course who really are the robbing b******s?

Undoubtedly some on here will say that the £8 we charge to watch football at ZLSWD is too much, but a way around this if one can afford it is to buy a season ticket prior to the end of May which only costs £100, a saving of £68 over a league season of twenty one matches (£8 x 21 = £168), so effectively our supporters who purchase a season ticket are gaining entry for less than a fiver (£100/21 = £4.76, a saving of £3.24 per match, or just over 40%) which incidentally works out cheaper than your members scheme (£110/21 = £5.24, a saving of £1.76 per match, or just over 25%)!!!

What you've posted on here has had no effect on my opinion whatsoever, to charge £20 is taking the piss regardless of how many people turn up and pay £20, especially considering how much more money your now making through further sponsorship!!!

PaultonRover, I've nothing against your club, I just think they've exploited the supporters.

Enjoy your big day.

Hey y'all -listening to your views are indeed interesting.
Mangos would probably do the same as we have at Winterfield Road - can't really blame us
Looks like my tall maroon hat will be on the box!!!

Of course, I would have been off to The Causeway to see us take on the Bear Killers and meet my bestnewmate Greganite, BUT little ole' Norwich City got in the way.

Robins v Canaries - VERY BIG GAME and a MASSIVE DAY for all of us. Just a pity that Mangos were not entertaining Mansfield at the same time. Maybe your time will come one day.

Think of us while you are taking on Thatcham.

Wonder who we will get in the 2nd Round

Groundhopper, I agree, I suspect we'd have done exactly the same thing at Cossham St, but only IF we had drawn Norwich (or Leeds, Charlton or Southampton), and if the media had shown the same sort of interest as they have for your game, but had we been playing Mansfield Town tomorrow, it wouldn't have had anything like the same coverage. Nor the same admission price either!

Look at Grimsby v Bath City - that one's been pretty much ignored by the media this week and yet it's a big game with a hint of giant-killing written all over it. Radio Bristol have covered the Paulton game every morning on their Breakfast show (and later shows as well) and I've heard Alex Ball & Ollie Price among others have their say. Mind you, it did seem daft this morning when presenter Steve Le Fevre was talking to his counterpart at Radio Norfolk, who then said to Steve, "So who at Paulton do we have to watch out for tomorrow" and Steve replied, "I don't know, I've no idea". Pity he hadn't done some homework on Paulton before embarrassing himself like that on both radio stations!

But all the best for tomorrow and I hope all our ex-players enjoy their day. They deserve it. I shall tape the game and watch it later, but of course, by the time we play Thatcham, your game will be over, but good luck anyway.

Yes, maybe our day will come one day. After reaching the 4th QR four times now since 2000 and losing each time, it does get a bit frustrating!

As for the 2nd round, why not play Bristol Rovers? Everyone beats them these days, Southampton have just done it tonight 3-2 at the Memorial Ground.......ooops, Stadium........

groundhopper wrote:Hey y'all -listening to your views are indeed interesting.
Mangos would probably do the same as we have at Winterfield Road - can't really blame us
Looks like my tall maroon hat will be on the box!!!

Of course, I would have been off to The Causeway to see us take on the Bear Killers and meet my bestnewmate Greganite, BUT little ole' Norwich City got in the way.

Robins v Canaries - VERY BIG GAME and a MASSIVE DAY for all of us. Just a pity that Mangos were not entertaining Mansfield at the same time. Maybe your time will come one day.

Think of us while you are taking on Thatcham.

Wonder who we will get in the 2nd Round

Groundhopper I was not going to bother with this forum again as it is getting more childish than ever. After the Truro replay I posted some valid criticism about the turnstile manning,lack of programmes and the safety aspect of a concrete step that people were tripping over.

The only responses I received were that my views were some kind of hoax and that I was not a genuine person. It is always the same on here,you cannot have a decent discussion. It sums up the club and most of the people who post on here to be honest.

Although you irritated me when you stated you had words with the Mangotsfield chairman about a couple of their fans at a Paulton game you do seem a genuine person and of course I will look out for you when the Cinderford v Paulton match is rearranged.

I do not watch the Bear Killers on a regular basis mainly because they are crap! I will make a point of attending this one though so we can meet. I could not spot your top hat on the tv on saturday but am bound to notice it at Cinders as there will only be a small amount of spectators.