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Post by ambersalamander on Nov 8, 2006 0:15:07 GMT
except when pissed
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Post by stretfordendling© on Nov 10, 2006 16:46:27 GMT
I'm really not looking forward to this weekend
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Post by malxscfc on Nov 12, 2006 22:01:18 GMT
There were loads of plus points to the day, both before and after the football game, but as a football game - i.e. a Non-League footballing experience - it really ranks low on my register of memories. I don't suppose losing the game in the last minute helped matters either - I know how it feels. Away trips are much better if your team plays well and/or wins (the two do not necessarily go hand-in-hand!). Having said that, we were pretty shocking in the Conference play-off final at Stoke against Altrincham, and that still rates as the second best away experience with Boro. I'll fight sarcasm with sarcasm - I'm sorry you and the kids don't share the same interests. They have as much right to be there as you have, and they like having the drums. Sure, if it ruins it for the majority, they should not be allowed to do it. But until lots of aggrieved people write to the club requesting musical instruments be banned, they will continue to support the team in the way they see best. Kids can be an irritation but most people know you have to humour them cos they don't necessarily realise it. "Witless" - or just doing something you don't like? "No sense of occasion" - or supporting their side in a way they enjoy? But don't think I don't respect the real fans, or the Club itself. We were all impressed by the set-up and the welcome we received. That's fair enough and is much appreciated. But the only reason I stepped into this debate is because the tone of the original two posts was very much fiercely derogratory towards the experience of an Eastbourne Borough away match, and I was surprised as I have truly never heard it expressed so voraciously before. But as long as others realise it is the views of two individuals - rather than Eastbourne Borough forever being known by all and sundry as "that club with the drums where everyone hates going", I'm content ;D I'm fairly well known in these parts as a mindless supporter of youngsters, but it's a case of ettiquette and behaviour. If someone's out of line they need to be told. Admit I get thoroughly fed up defending our 'perceived' poor away attendance, but I'd doubt there were 650+/745 Eastbourne fans there last week. We got accused all last season of bringing no fans, yet managed to be around at about a third of the best attendances. Not doing too badly this season either. Fed up with that old chestnut......... Anyway, the bells..... Hardly noticed the flipping bells. Certainly not high quality campanology, but hardly offensive. Moronic, surely, at worst. Maybe you have little singing - shame - maybe you have little crowd interaction - shame - but if there ever was, or might be, we will never know, because your 2 silly little pre-pubescent faneens killed off any interaction whatsoever. It's like the bully at school who had the loudest voice, and the most threatening grimace. If you are happy with that, do, pray, continue. I shan't be writing to your Club, since writing to MPs, Euro MPs and Companies appears to always be a waste of time. If I'm in Eastbourne on a weekday when your Office is open I might talk to someone face to face, perhaps, but otherwise, I'm not daft enough to think paper will suffice in changing policy. In any case, that was 7 days ago, so why should I care? I admit the bus journey into Salisbury was fine. The coffee at the railway Station was good. It was good to meet up with the lads there, as always. The trip up was good. We finished a few crosswords between us, settled the Palestine-Israel issues in 1 fell swoop, and decided that train tracks are unused, and that environmentalism demands that we should use them a hell of a lot more, and I don't just mean one extra train. We loved our time in Eastbourne - breakfast, friendly people, a decent Pub, Bar Billiards, cheerful Taxi Ride, a great Clubhouse with a decent pint of Smiles served by the best Staff we've encountered in an aeon or two. To now, it was just a pleasant day-out for some friends at the seaside. Then we entered the ground, and the drums were playing. Suddenly I embarked upon the most useless, soulless and pointless non-League experience to date. Where's the discrepancy? Why do you doubt my veracity or heart-felt combination of logic and sentiment on this one?? The ACTUAL, bodily presence within the playing arena was profoundly miserable from beginning to end because of the total domination of the sound-waves by 2 - yes, it was just 2 - unwitting little twerps who'd asked Santa for some re-formed goatskins last Christmas. After the game, all continued on the previous vein, and we all had a thoroughly enjoyable day out! My Musical Education is strictly Classical in tone - in contrast to my colleague DaveT who is far more qualified than me, and is more of the modern persuasion - but I can assure you that it IS possible to play a drum intelligently, and equally probable that you will bomb if you don't know what you are doing. "Your" Eastbourne Drummer Boys are terminally dire with the drums. They will NEVER be good at them, no matter how many hours of practice they put in torturing the fans over the next 10 seasons or so. They have no sense, no wit, no grasp, no education, no feel and no instincts for the musical instruments they ruin EBFC with. But as long as you are happy to let the children play, that's fine. At the Ray Mac, there is talk of having a kiddies' playground near the Car Park to satisfy the whims of our younger contingent... Alleged wife-beaters, date-rapists, muggers, even people who throw chewing gum on the pavement don't share the same interests as me, but they still have the right to be in the same Pub as me. You don't have to condone something because it's allowed to happen, surely? And drums will never be allowed into the Ray Mac; Morgue though it might be.
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Post by coops on Nov 13, 2006 10:08:41 GMT
We got accused all last season of bringing no fans, yet managed to be around at about a third of the best attendances. Not doing too badly this season either. Fed up with that old chestnut......... Yes, your away attendance has come a long way since the days of the infamous "Salisbury Three"! Mind you, so has your home attendance. What has casued the upsurge in your support, when I lived in the area you used to get about 250-300 at most in the old Victoria Park ground and when the Ray Mac was being built there were fears that moving so far out of town would make things even worse. Tamworth had a similar upsurge in the mid 80's, perhaps even more dramatic as the crowds went from an overage of less than 100 to over 800 despite the club dropping DOWN into the West Midlands League!
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Post by malxscfc on Nov 14, 2006 10:51:37 GMT
We got accused all last season of bringing no fans, yet managed to be around at about a third of the best attendances. Not doing too badly this season either. Fed up with that old chestnut......... Yes, your away attendance has come a long way since the days of the infamous "Salisbury Three"! Mind you, so has your home attendance. What has casued the upsurge in your support, when I lived in the area you used to get about 250-300 at most in the old Victoria Park ground and when the Ray Mac was being built there were fears that moving so far out of town would make things even worse. Tamworth had a similar upsurge in the mid 80's, perhaps even more dramatic as the crowds went from an overage of less than 100 to over 800 despite the club dropping DOWN into the West Midlands League! You're quite right, it does all seem odd! DaveT is one of the famous 'Salisbury 3', and was so, even at times when there were only 2 of them! We've had a core home attendance of 500-600 for several years now, but things have moved up a step the last couple of years. 5 years ago we nearly went pop, but were taken over by Directors who loved the Club, and struggled financially to keep it in the black for a while. Nick Holmes (Manager) has made a big difference in the past few years, along with his able assistants, so we are winning more. The Salisbury footballing fraternity is notoriously fickle, though, so the attendances are slightly puffy because of our good 18 months or so. Now the Board of Directors has grown in stature, and offer very low prices of entrance, which certainly helps. Kids for free is really starting to bring adults in too, and hopefully cementing for us a core of future fans. There's now a real buzz among the Schools around here about supporting your local team, not just donning the ubiquitous red or blue of the big nancy boys.... Added to this, the local Press are competing to get coverage of our games, at last, so the rollercoaster's building up a head of steam. Expect a few extra for Bognor (maybe 120 in total?), and over 2000 against lowly Enfield FC in our Trophy game on the 25th, mainly because fans are obliged to attend in order to get a voucher to see the Forest game , which is sneaky, perhaps, but as fair a way of allocation as is reasonable in the circs. Hopefully there'll be a knock-on effect on crowds after Forest have given us a 2,700 sell-out on December 3rd, even if that's as far as we'll be going in the FA Cup for this season....
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Post by medibot on Nov 14, 2006 13:46:55 GMT
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Post by amberaleman on Nov 14, 2006 23:57:20 GMT
Expect a few extra for Bognor (maybe 120 in total?), and over 2000 against lowly Enfield FC in our Trophy game on the 25th, mainly because fans are obliged to attend in order to get a voucher to see the Forest game , which is sneaky, perhaps, but as fair a way of allocation as is reasonable in the circs. Hopefully there'll be a knock-on effect on crowds after Forest have given us a 2,700 sell-out on December 3rd, even if that's as far as we'll be going in the FA Cup for this season.... We seem to have moved away from the original subject of this thread. Maybe that's no bad thing. Good luck to Salisbury in what I assume will be the biggest match in their history. Mention of "lowly Enfield" in the other competition should remind us all what a roller-coaster ride this game of football can be. Twenty years ago, Enfield were one of the strongest non-League sides in the land. Their demise is a sobering lesson in what can happen when a club falls onto the hands of someone who's more interested in the capital value of the ground than the game played on it. In response to the abandonment of their traditional home, the Enfield fans formed Enfield Town - who, interestingly, are now one place higher than Enfield in the Ryman League One North. Don't expect Enfield Period to bring many supporters with them.
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martello
Steaming Bovril
I used to be indecisive...now I'm not so sure...
Posts: 371
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Post by martello on Nov 18, 2006 14:45:20 GMT
Admit I get thoroughly fed up defending our 'perceived' poor away attendance, but I'd doubt there were 650+/745 Eastbourne fans there last week. I'm not going to debate the rest of what is a well-argued post, as we both shall agree to disagree, but if there were more than 100 Salisbury fans at Priory Lane I'd be surprised - isn't less than 100 about the norm for visiting sides anyway? Anything over 100 for matches which aren't exactly local is the exception rather than the rule, surely? Seemed to be about 30 or so behind the goal Salisbury were attacking in the second half - I know that that's not a representation of the whole visiting attendance, who could be dotted around the ground, but it's surely a good proportion of it?
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Post by malxscfc on Nov 20, 2006 17:03:41 GMT
Admit I get thoroughly fed up defending our 'perceived' poor away attendance, but I'd doubt there were 650+/745 Eastbourne fans there last week. I'm not going to debate the rest of what is a well-argued post, as we both shall agree to disagree, but if there were more than 100 Salisbury fans at Priory Lane I'd be surprised - isn't less than 100 about the norm for visiting sides anyway? Anything over 100 for matches which aren't exactly local is the exception rather than the rule, surely? Seemed to be about 30 or so behind the goal Salisbury were attacking in the second half - I know that that's not a representation of the whole visiting attendance, who could be dotted around the ground, but it's surely a good proportion of it? We're doing it again, Martello old pal! No one ever believes us at Salisbury, but as we always try to explain.... our fans never stand together. Many are in their 50s and 60s and find the rest of us too loud and leery. We have little or no co-ordination unless we are corralled into one place, and no one ever thinks we take any numbers unless we are all seen together at the same time. This only happens with segregation, and the only confirmed gates I can quote (which admittedly are grossly misrepresentative games in the FA Trophy) are 300+ for Canvey and 1330+ for Exeter, last year. Put it this way, have a look at the www.confsouth.co.uk/ front page and you will see that we tend to take more than home fans think, even if we are in second place to the Exiles. Even that will have changed by the time we meet Eastleigh in January. [I'm really trying hard not to come across as big-headed at all, I'm just trying to counter this general sense of inferiority we've felt since we first started looking at Conf South Forums, and seeing the lack of enthusiasm amongst many CS Clubs on news of our Promotion. ]
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Post by malxscfc on Nov 20, 2006 17:06:28 GMT
Will enjoy this to full effect when not in the Office!
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martello
Steaming Bovril
I used to be indecisive...now I'm not so sure...
Posts: 371
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Post by martello on Nov 20, 2006 17:20:56 GMT
Ahhh but Malx you're assuming I'm following the apparent trend of saying that Salisbury don't bring that many away. I'm not. But maybe I'm being naive in thinking that most clubs at our level don't take more than 100 for league matches that aren't exactly local.
Let's look at the original point ("I'd doubt there were 650+/745 Eastbourne fans there last week) from another angle - with crowds of 615 and 627 for games against those "come-on-a-tandem" merchants Basingstoke and Hayes, either side of a Salisbury crowd of 745, is it not possible therefore that at least over 600, if not perhaps as many as 650, of the crowd were home supporters?
And I did point out that I wasn't basing the away support simply on how many stood behind the goal.
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Post by ambersalamander on Nov 20, 2006 19:24:01 GMT
Basing the away support? I thought Basingstoke came on a tandem
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Post by amberaleman on Nov 20, 2006 23:17:13 GMT
Sometimes, Martello, the wise thing to do is just to let go....
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martello
Steaming Bovril
I used to be indecisive...now I'm not so sure...
Posts: 371
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Post by martello on Nov 21, 2006 0:13:11 GMT
Try telling that to a mountain climber friend of mine ;D
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Post by ambersalamander on Nov 21, 2006 0:25:47 GMT
I climb things a lot I have to, cos I'm small
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