We’ve already reported on the results of the first two parts of this years Gooner survey which focussed on last season and your views on the squad and manager. In the third part, the questions focussed on more general issues which impact on your matchday experience. Feel free to shoot me for using the words “matchday” and “experience” together like that!

The first few questions in this section concerned your relationship with Arsenal. We received responses from a good cross section of the support with Gold members accounting for 29%, Red members 25%, Silver 11% and Platinum 2%. That still leaves a third of fans who the club will be hoping sign up to the newly launched digital membership. Given that one of the benefits of Red membership was having access to Arsenal Player which is now part of the free digital membership, I wonder how many Red members might choose to go for the digital only option next season as well?

Apologies to anyone who is a Purple member for not including this option in the list. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t even realise there was such a distinction for disabled members. Thanks to those of you who pointed this out.

The average fan who responded to the survey went to ten home games and two away games last season and attended their first Arsenal game in 1989 - what a glorious year to go to your first game! I wonder if anyone’s first game was the match at Anfield? We’d like to hear from you if it was. The most popular year in which people first went to an Arsenal game was 1995, but the answers ranged from 1946 all the way through to 2013 showing that we heard from a wide range of generations.

Sold Out

Next we tackled the thorny topic of ticketing and questioned whether you had ever bought or sold a match ticket from/to a friend for face value or below? A small majority (55%) said they had, although I’d hazard a guess that some of the minority might have decided not to own up to breaking club regulations in case the information fell into the wrong hands! However, the club are well aware this type of thing goes on and in what I presume is an effort to legitimise it, they are introducing a new facility for this season which will enable Gold members to transfer their seats to friends and family on a match-by-match basis without having to hand over membership cards.

The Ticket Exchange system is also undergoing a revamp which will allow season ticket holders to sell their tickets on a match-by-match basis to a fan of their choice and also choose to have the proceeds deposited into their bank account rather than being credited to the purchase of a future season ticket as has been the case previously.

Only 25% of people who replied have used Ticket Exchange in the past to either buy or sell a ticket, with a further 16% suggesting they intend to in the future. That leaves 59% who either never have a need for it or are still to be persuaded by the benefits.

It will be interesting to see how successful these changes are and it’s to be hoped they will help reduce the huge swathes of empty seats we see on a far too regular basis. I think this is an issue which annoys most people because it’s hard to understand the mentality of people who will pay for a seat and then not use it. I’ve heard in the past that there are over 800 season tickets which were used less than twice last season which makes the cost per game a minimum of £500. How anyone can justify that type of expense is beyond me.

The issue of ticket prices filled plenty of column inches last year and Arsenal were the focus of a significant proportion of the ire after charging away fans £62 for category A matches. It wasn’t always reported that the majority of home fans would have been charged more (significantly in some cases) for the same games. We therefore asked what value you felt ticket prices offered for the different categories of games.

I don’t think there are too many surprises there apart from perhaps the 13.1% who feel the prices for home League Cup games (£10 and £20) are “poor” or “very poor”. I thought the club deserved credit for sticking with this price policy, but it goes to prove that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Anyone who watches Arsenal away will know what an expensive business that can be as we are always a category A game for the home side and we are therefore charged accordingly – £48 at QPR, £47 at Fulham and £49 at Upton Park all being prime examples. And it’s not just the ticket prices they have to contend with, but also spiralling food, drink and travel costs.

I think most fans (with the possible exception of Luton Town fans in the late 80s) recognise the contribution away fans make to the game and it’s for this reason that the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) launched Twenty’s Plenty earlier in the year, a campaign calling for clubs to cap the price of away match tickets. We asked what you thought that cap should be and over 60% felt it should be under £30 (5% under £20, 21% between £20 and £25 and 36% between £25 and £30) which is a higher figure than the campaign suggests, but perhaps is a more realistic goal.

It does feel like a tipping point has been reached and fans are putting aside their tribal differences to campaign as one voice, including a march in London during the summer which culminated with a meeting with the Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore. If you agree with the principle, please sign the FSF petition.

Kitted Out

Another expense which many fans incur is for the purchase of replica shirts and the clubs do their utmost to maximise this revenue stream by changing them at every opportunity. However, I felt that there were fewer being worn last season and we therefore asked how often people bought them.

Not surprisingly, the home shirt is the most popular with 23% always buying it and a further 53% saying they will sometimes buy it. In hindsight it would have been interesting to find out what motivated those in the latter category – design, which players are wearing it, timing or just financial circumstances?

The away shirt is far less popular with just 10% saying they always buy it and 47% opting to splash out sometimes. However, that’s only when the shirt is predominantly yellow and as we all know, that’s not always been the case recently. If the shirt is any other colour, then the percentages drop to 5% for always and 35% for sometimes. That’s a pretty big shift if you assume that translates to every Arsenal fan on the planet, so you’d think it would be in the club and kit manufacturers interests to listen to us for once. OK, so they have for the new kit, but let’s hope our rumoured new kit manufacturer (from 2014-15) will also take note.

Speaking of Puma – oops… have I let the cat out of the bag (pun completely intentional) – and prompted by one fan I know who has refused to buy any Nike gear in protest at the 2007-8 away kit and 2009-10 third kit, we asked whether a new kit manufacturer would make you more or less likely to buy a replica shirt. One in ten said it would, but this was partially offset by the 6% who said it would make them less likely, whilst everyone else indicated it would make no difference at all.

A Happy Atmosphere

Next on our checklist of things to ask about was the atmosphere at games. This has been a bug-bear for as long as I can recall now and whilst the likes of REDaction are always encouraging fans to get behind the team, only 44% felt there had been any improvement at home games last season.

We went on to ask you which game had had the best atmosphere last season, home or away, and whilst it might be an obvious thing to say, it’s undoubtedly the performance on the pitch which dictates whether the fans are going to make a noise. The run-away winner was the 5-2 North London Derby which took 56% of the vote and four of the top five games to feature were all wins for Arsenal – Wigan at home (7%), Reading away in the League Cup (4%) and the 7-3 victory against Newcastle at home (3%). The only exception was the visit of Man United (6%), which I suspect had a lot to do with the vocal reception with which we “welcomed” the returning Van Persie!

Most would probably accept it’s when things aren’t going so well on the pitch that the fans need to raise their game to try and lift the team, but there seems to be a large percentage of fans who fill Ashburton Grove who struggle with this concept and are happy to sit on their padded seats and moan to their neighbour. This has resulted in a lot of ill-feeling and confrontations between Gooners, which many people commented upon when completing the survey and it’s sad to see even if the frustrations are understandable.

Our travelling fans were regularly commended for their support of the side and we do have a terrific following, but who were the best visiting fans to visit us? In past surveys, the European teams have always figured strongly in this category and this was no exception with the two German sides we faced battling it out for the honour with Bayern Munich (43%) edging out Schalke (38%). Olympiacos were a distant third with 11%, whilst the first domestic side to feature were Wigan of all teams!