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Is there anything you’d like to see done to improve attending VP or to enhance our reputation


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1 hour ago, kendoddsdadsdogsdead said:

Actually i always thought it stood for vale's loyal following.emoji848.png

Nah, you don’t hear it as much now because half of them are banned following the trouble at Grimsby a couple of years ago.v, v, Vlf Vale’s lunatic fringe, or front.

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Mine would cost money and looking round VP there has been quite a bit spent, however, if it was possible a decent scoreboard / video screen would enhance the match day experience, especially for those of us on the Railway side who have virtually no facilities at all.

 

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Obviously a renovated stadium would be wonderful but would cost a fortune. I still think transport links to the stadium are dreadful and undermine support widening. I remember getting a taxi from Stoke station when I didn’t have a car, with the taxi costing nearly more than the matchday ticket! Why no shuttle buses on match days? 
 

The atmosphere thing I don’t get, the railway has always been our liveliest stand and I feel that the Bycars should become a family stand as that is dull enough to deter yobs. In fact, Railway aside, the rest of ground can be rather dull. 
 

In the Rudge era, the whole ground would belt out “wonder of you” pre match. These days is rarely raises a murmur. 

Worst time for me was the dreadful end of Smurfwaite 2018 era when we lost to Colchester in February. We barely got 3,000 for a Sat afternoon kickoff. We played badly. I went for a pee at full time, came out and the whole ground was empty and they had turned off all the lights.

I have never known the ground feel so dead as during that game. Walking back, there was hardly anyone around. A desperate time, which shows how far we have come in 3 years. 


 

 

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7 hours ago, TJHValiant said:

Obviously a renovated stadium would be wonderful but would cost a fortune. I still think transport links to the stadium are dreadful and undermine support widening. I remember getting a taxi from Stoke station when I didn’t have a car, with the taxi costing nearly more than the matchday ticket! Why no shuttle buses on match days? 
 

The atmosphere thing I don’t get, the railway has always been our liveliest stand and I feel that the Bycars should become a family stand as that is dull enough to deter yobs. In fact, Railway aside, the rest of ground can be rather dull. 
 

In the Rudge era, the whole ground would belt out “wonder of you” pre match. These days is rarely raises a murmur. 

Worst time for me was the dreadful end of Smurfwaite 2018 era when we lost to Colchester in February. We barely got 3,000 for a Sat afternoon kickoff. We played badly. I went for a pee at full time, came out and the whole ground was empty and they had turned off all the lights.

I have never known the ground feel so dead as during that game. Walking back, there was hardly anyone around. A desperate time, which shows how far we have come in 3 years. 


 

 

The Railway hasn’t always been our liveliest stand, it was always the Bycars.

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1. The queues around the Railway Stand turnstiles / gate to Synectics car park are a bit of a free for all, especially around the new bollard they put up. A bit of organisation would be useful around there.

2. There’s still a significant minority of people that boo the knee every week. I’ve not seen the Sky footage so I don’t know if these people succeeded in embarassing us on national television. I don’t know how we can reach out to them and get them to at the very least be anti-anti-racist a bit more quietly. 

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20 hours ago, kendoddsdadsdogsdead said:

Please explain why you find the letters v.l.f embarrassing on a port vale flag?emoji848.png do you know what it stands for?

It's promoting the old days of football hooliganism when VLF was the Vale "firm" - not something a progressive football club wants to endorse. I'm pleased someone else noticed it as it looks like an oversight that the flag was allowed in. 

I personally think the one thing that would hugely improve Vale Park would be the completion of the Lorne St concourse.

That would:

1. Give young fans a brand new area with decent facilities and decent sightlines and surely we want to encourage young fans as they are the future

2. Improve the overall look of the club by having a full open main stand

Crucially, for me, it's also something that we can directly affect and make happen. Raise enough money and it can be completed.

I've been thinking about anything I can do on OVF to raise a bit more money (auctions of memorabilia or raffle tickets) but if anyone has any ideas on how OVF can raise a bit of money for the concourse do send me a private message.

 

 

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  • Incentivise the hell out of young people attending. Throw tickets out at schools. Send them a welcome pack with a scarf. One adult gets in free for the first game with each free ticket received in school. Get the more media-friendly + local lads out every week bigging it up. 5% retention rate = profit. Sort the music out too (personal bugbear). A 10 year old doesn't want to hear 'Ace of Spades' sound like a dying animal as its blasted through an old PA. Gave me a headache on Saturday. Ramp up Wonder of You. 
  • Good idea to get the youth teams in the Bycars. Keep doing that. Looks better. Make the Bycars cheaper - I ain't gonna move but I want to see the stand behind the goal a bit fuller than the 15% rate we see at present.  
  • Tickets, Turnstiles, Toilets - upgrade them all. More streamlined ticketing system with better communication, none of this guessing game/rolling the dice in whether tickets have sold out (more for away games, this). Get the rewards scheme up and running - attend 5 games in a row with a match day ticket, enter a raffle to win a shirt and meet some players. Upgrade the turnstiles and get more of them operational, especially in the Railway. Sort the toilets out. They're horrendous. You need to be appealing to people who don't usually attend Port Vale games. This mindset that there are myriad 'stayaways' who need to be coerced into coming back needs to end. Focus on those who haven't been before - a cheap, exciting day with nice facilities. You wouldn't come back if you had brought your little lad to the Vale and had to go to the Railway bogs at HT, before queuing for 30 minutes for a bad pie only to learn they only do cash. Trial a shuttle bus from Longport and Stoke station, I dunno.
  • Really go hard on the FanZone. Great idea - get it sorted proper. Permanent structure and make it a key feature of the kid's day. Injured players knocking about. Proper ales on for the parents. Free tat galore for the kids. 
  • Move the away fans closer to the Railway. Get an atmosphere. Yes, there might be some naughty words, but we all want a bit of tastiness and grown men making fools of themselves. It's not actually gonna kick off so let the silly lads have some fun. Get some noise and atmosphere going. Don't put the 70 fans from Stevanage as far away as possible and extinguish any hope for some noise before kick off.
  • Again - focus on those who haven't been before. Community Club of the Year. All the mental health work. This is great - hammer it home locally. We're a good club doing things properly winning games. Sort the facilities out and then tempt the family whose kid plays FIFA and supports Liverpool. Come up Vale, son. Free entry + scarf + mars bar + Dad gets in free too + that funny Brazilian man who came into school last week is playing and will take a picture with you post-game. Smash some tinpot outfit 7-0 amidst a crumb of an atmosphere as we stroll to the title. Profit.

This is all reliant on Dazzler + The Matrix delivering and winning games of football, but we need to back that up with proactive engagement. Stoke have lost 15,000 fans in the last 3 years. The rise of FIFA on game consoles has led to a load of young kids who like football but haven't been to a proper game/got a local team. Kids aren't getting into football through their parents as much. These are the ones to target. 

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In my opinion, parking (or something for transport) has to improve. The ally by the Bycars is now being roped off by a local house owner who guards his wheelie bin rope barrier thing with his son and a massive spliff, the car park opposite the tip has been closed by Dougie mac and only half of the official car park was available. It was hard (ish) to park with 7k ... imagine a big cup game.

And the bar in the Paddock is a joke at half time. The girls there are always moving so its not hard work, but the system or something has to help. 3 games on the bounce and I've not had a coffee or food. From my family alone, that about £20 in revenue lost and I can't be the only one who won't miss the end of the 1st half or beginning of the second for a brew.

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I absolutely agree with the incentives to get young folk to visit but if their perception of the stadium when inside is rubbish then that won't help bring them back. So, I go back to my point - and I do think if you are going to get young kids wanting to go, the best thing is to give them a brand new custom built space in the LS rather than the Previous regime's aftersight of a family area (been there. tried to watch a match from it, it wasn't great) last block of the Bycars. 

You've got a space in the LS where it will be family only where you can sort out h-t activities (autograph signing, competitions, Boomer milling around). You can have a dedicated concourse refreshment bar and so on.

It obviously is a longer team goal and not a quick fix but in my view, the sooner we get there, the better. It's something we as fans can directly affect too. The more fundraising efforts the better in my opinion.

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2 minutes ago, Row L said:

In my opinion, parking (or something for transport) has to improve. The ally by the Bycars is now being roped off by a local house owner who guards his wheelie bin rope barrier thing with his son and a massive spliff, the car park opposite the tip has been closed by Dougie mac and only half of the official car park was available. It was hard (ish) to park with 7k ... imagine a big cup game.

Same here. For me, that's one of the key issues with VP as it's so tricky to park. I have no choice but to drive to it but I wonder if (as we all hope) attendances rise whether there can be some sort of co-ordinated transport system. I'd get the train from my house to Stoke station if there was a dedicated bus service back and forth. I wonder if park and ride can be implemented anywhere else (no expert on parking in S-o-T now). I know Wycombe do a very popular park and ride from the railway station to their ground for instance. 

I think transport and parking is a thing for the future if our crowds do climb but it's certainly one to start planning for now. Afterall, while some people (lucky sods) can simply stroll to the ground, there's a lot of us (whether through geography or health issues) who need to have drive there and there are not that many options!

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Agree with the parking situation. I take my Grandad & he can't walk too far. We have been able to get on Synetics most weeks at a fiver a time but on Saturday (& a few occasions before) it has been full over an hour before kick off. This leaves little option other than to drop my Grandad as close to the entrance as possible & head off up towards High Lane looking for a parking spot. It's far from ideal but it's the way it is at the moment.

Totally agree with Rob's comments on the family area. My 6 year old daughter has a season ticket this year. As per my earlier post, the toilets are a disgrace & not fit for young kids. My only concern with the Lorne Street stand is the proximity to the away end. Not a massive worry at the minute with some of the away following's we see, but certainly if we were to make our way up the to League 1/Championship at some point, it could prove a little heated up in that corner. I still think the old family stand in the corner would be perfect but I also understand the amount of money it would take to develop that corner of the ground. It would take more investment than completing the Lorne Street but it's a great view from that corner of the ground, potentially the best in Vale Park. Miles away from away fans & a dedicated space for families.

Either way, the family area should be a big priority. Lots more young people at the games this season & we have a massive chance of attracting the next generation if we can get things right.

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I haven't had a ST for a couple of seasons but took my daughter the Orient game and she loved it. I explained about the swearing and aslong as she doesn't repeat it that it would be ok. She loved it the chants, shouting, joy, agony of going 2 - 1 down before coming back to win it is part of the appeal. I want the ground safe for kids but not some sanitised Disney like experience.

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