Through the turnstiles

Rick Everitt: will not be counting ticket stubs rather than 'enjoying the game'

I often wonder why football supporters are such anoraks about attendances. Indeed, I am a bit of a one myself: among my collection of football books I have one called Through the Turnstiles which devotes itself to the subject.

I recently took my oldest granddaughter to see the English National Ballet in Oxford (just as I used to take her mum to the ballet). Once we had got past a couple of very upper class ticket touts outside, we discovered there were lots of empty seats. But no one publishes attendance figures or says that the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is doing better that the New Theatre in Oxford.

In this context it is interesting to read the following statement in tonight's E mail bulletin from the club:

'Debate among supporters today prompted Charlton to reiterate the way in which the club calculates official attendances at The Valley. Gaps around the stadium have led to suggestions the announced figures overstate the crowd, but the club has pointed out that it has an obligation to report all tickets issued rather than just the number of fans who actually turn up.'

Head of club development Rick Everitt said: "The Football League requires each home club to produce a gate return that includes the number of season-ticket holders and figures for match ticket sales and complimentary issues to home and away fans.' [I also believe that the referee is allowed to bring a couple of his fans, usually his mum and/or partner]

The Rickster continued, 'Match sales form the basis of a three per cent levy collected by the League, as well as the income for VAT purposes, so we have to reflect the entire cash value. We can't leave off people who don't turn up, although we acknowledge that the word "attendance" is not helpful in this context.'

The last sentence is quite significant as it is evident that many of the Addickted, even those who hold season tickets, are voting with their feet and their numbers are likely to increase if performances on the pitch do not improve. To put it in commercial language, the brand is being damaged and once such damage occurs it takes a long time to recover.

However, I agree that it would not be a good use of time or money to count all the ticket stubs to get a figure which reflected those in the ground. It has been suggested that in the old days of The Valley some of the huge attendances under counted the numbers there as some youngsters managed to sneak in without payment. I was amused at a recent non-league match with Leamington to see four youngsters climbing over a wall.