Three Days to Go

New season starts at Forest Green on Saturday, as if you didn’t know!

How are we shaping up for this new season? As ever, on the pitch nothing is guaranteed until games are being played for real, and neither team has a 20-goal head start! New players we have seen such as Jennings, Green and Spencer certainly don’t look out of place, and Fowler looks quality. The rest of the lads from last season are still good enough. All in all we look quite tidy.

Off the field things look slightly less rosy. Still no full-time Club Secretary, but plenty of Directors. The “all-ticket” mess is still ongoing. Are all our home games all-ticket? Will anyone be allowed to pay on the gate? Are we going to turn away all the old duffers who don’t know the games are all-ticket? Will the new kiosk for the sale of tickets at the ground ever be built? All these questions remain unanswered.

If the all-ticket policy is to continue the club needs a facility for online purchase of tickets, and an outlet for purchasing on the day. Not everyone plans in advance to watch the Poppies, and not everyone lives five minutes from the ground either. I fear attendances will take a sharp dip in the opening weeks of the season.

Why is it that more obstacles are being put in the way of supporting the Poppies, when a mixture of lethargy and pessimism will do an effective enough job anyway? When some fans finds it an effort to make it up to the Poppies to see the game, how will they be convinced to make the journey twice?

Perhaps a handy way around these problems would be for fans to pay money at the turnstile as they enter the ground. No, really. Wacky I know, but it could just work! Like it’s worked for the last 137 years without much of a problem.