David Oudot
There are three more articles on the Gooner Survey Results to come along for you. To come we have a section of questions on how our Club itself is running and whether anything needs to be changed, and an overall review of the Gooner, its website and podcast to finish everything off. But before that we have arguably the most important set of questions – those about us as Arsenal fans, how things are working for us as a supporter, a follower, and a customer, and whether any changes would be welcomed.
First few questions confirm that out of the c.3000 of us taking part in the survey, 480 are not members of the Club itself and the rest of us vary from Platinum to the newly-fangled Digital Membership. The most being 517 Season Ticket holders and 451 Red members. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that out of those 517 Gold Members, only 76 of them went to all the games included on their ticket and/or went to the League Cup games as well. One would believe that they go on to use the ticket exchange system in place through the Club which would perhaps suggest it is a good thing. The majority of the c.3000 of us went to 0-8 games over the course of the season, with the average number of games between us all being 4. Whilst we’d absolutely love to go to every game of every season, the sad fact is that football is ridiculously expensive nowadays so seeing a game is a genuine treat. If I find a woman stupid enough to start a family with me then I’m already 99% certain that that is when my relationship with Arsenal will reduce.
An interesting stat we went on to learn from the next question was that a few of us left before the final whistle for every game, and over 450 of us did that for at least one game. As ‘Fever Pitch’ will always remind us that act was sacrilege and frowned upon by the rest of the fans back in the day, but life changes. With there now being 60,000 of us and the vast majority of us unable to afford living in Islington, we have to worry about getting home – whether it’s a Saturday afternoon, a Tuesday night, or there’s a nightmare like the tube drivers on strike as we had for the Newcastle game last season. I don’t blame anyone for leaving early at all and this is something for the Club to look at themselves. Surely something can be done with Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations for a start? I know the Club spoke with the respective line operators at the time we were moving ground and were priced out of having them open, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
Arguably the most interesting point is that less than 40 of us went to more than 10 away games. If the tickets themselves aren’t pricey enough then anyone having to get to Newcastle or Sunderland etc. probably has to mortgage their kidney to cover transport etc. FSF are doing a lot to help actual football supporters going to away games but the Premier League’s response to bury its head in the sand says a lot. Having said that, I’m keen as mustard for away games but as I’ve only got 2 credits to my name for the last 3 years then the games always sell out before the likes of me become eligible (apart from European away games which I just can’t afford, sadly). A proper chicken and egg situation there methinks.
At the games themselves, the atmosphere itself is part of the reason why we turn up and one of the highlights for this season would appear to be how it was improved. 76% of you felt it has improved this year and when you look at the games that have been picked out in the next question (hundreds of people choosing Bayern Munchen (h), Tottenham (h) x 2, Liverpool (h) x 2) then there’s probably a good point there. Of course, when you don’t have to sit through turgid 0-0 first halves without a shot on goal and there’s something to actually sing about then that does help, but hopefully this better atmosphere will see it continue to improve from season to season.
One idea of further improving the atmosphere in general would be to introduce singing section no. 2 into the ground at the Clock End, and 81% of you felt that that was a good idea. And the other idea of a safe-standing section was also backed by you with 74% in favour of that… 52% of you saying you’d then prefer to use that standing section rather than your current seats. Whilst we admit that the atmosphere is a lot better than it was in the 2013 season, it’s good to see that we want further improvement and eager to try these two particular ideas out.
An interesting point that went on to be made was as we to refer to our new ground. Whilst my editor refuses to acknowledge Emirates’ presence within the club by referring to the naming rights they hold over this stadium, 70% of you have bitten the bullet and refer to it as ‘The Emirates’. With the deal being renewed whether we like it or not then I suppose we just have to live with it, even though 14% of us still use Ashburton Grove, and 9% use Highbury for old time’s sake.
Going back to atmosphere, part of every game is the group of away fans in the Clock End and 43% of you were overwhelmed by the brilliant and bonkers Borussia Dortmund fans… and who can blame you?! With them leaping up and down, very loud and boisterous German songs for 90 minutes, and incredibly nice men, it’s always a pleasure to have them here (save for their team beating us, obviously). Credit also to our former neighbours Palace who 29% of you thought were the best opposition guys amongst us and they too were always up for a laugh.
When it came to which song you like…. Well… we don’t sing many, do we? I’ve tried to get “Feed the Ox and he will score” and “Oh Jacky Boy” going for a couple of years now but they don’t even venture outside of Block 99. Out of the several we’ve been singing this season our faves are all the same amongst you… “It’s Happened Again!” against Spuds, “Big F*cking German” when referring to our World Cup winning centre-half, the nutty “He’s Lukas, Lukas, Lukas” about his German teammate, and “49, 49 Undefeated”. If we can get a song about Sanchez going before the season itself starts I’ll be very appreciative! 49 is also the banner we particularly like with loads of you pointing that out and when that comes out across the North Bank Lower ahead of every game it obviously gets a tingle going on the back of all of our necks.
Other things to consider on our matchdays include the programme, the food and drink available in the ground, and what we get up to before and after the game itself. Before or after every game many of us like to have a beer or three with other Gooners and based on what you guys have said, the main pubs of choice are The Tollington, The Highbury Barn, and The Twelve Pins – covering all three area around the ground, thinking about it! All lovely places with brilliant landlords and many thanks to them in advance for giving me a gallon of IPA each. Cheers, gents!
On your way to the Ground you walk past a selection of people offering that matchday programme for sale, but 43% of you walk straight past them and 20% of you will only buy it occasionally. 30% of you will always buy it and the rest of you have a digital subscription to it, but the Club should find it slightly concerning that less than 40% of these Gooners are regular buyers of the once adored matchday programme. Having said that, it used to be 2d back in the day…
Anyway – you get to the ground itself and after your pints may have left you needing a nibble but not many of these Gooners like the food offered by those chaps at Delaware North. 1/3 of us never use them, 24% say it’s a rarity, and only 10% consider it a regular thing. Let’s face it – the food at the Ground is overpriced and under-quality and if these guys want their licence renewed they need to start serving proper food. 50% currently rate it as ‘ok’, but less than 15% would consider it to be ‘good’ or more. When asked what needs to be done a lot of you have asked for a High Street brand in there like McDonald’s (there’s one at Anfield), but generally ‘burgers’ are a big demand… as long as they’re cheaper. I really don’t think that having a mini Maccy D’s in there would be a stupid idea, and at least you know what you’re getting there. Any of you coming to the Ground from Holloway Road will always see the McDonald’s there is always rammed, so you’d be giving the people what they want. Having said that, when asked whether more options would change people’s current match-day routine, only 25% said that it definitely would do, so maybe the Club are stuck between a rock and a hard place here.
Anyway… regardless of how many games we see, when we have to shoot off home, and what we get up to on a matchday, the big questions are how our Club handle us supporters. And arguably the most prevalent for all of us whether we are Gold Members or not is how we feel about our Club deciding to up the prices by 3% for the 2014/2015 season… in December 2013. 82% of us consider that to be unjustifiable and when their decision to raise the price was 8 years since we’d last won a trophy and we had the most expensive season tickets in world sport (you can get the best seat at Boston Red Sox for $4,000… but they play a 162 game season!), this was the most blatant p*** take ever. Even our FA Cup win doesn’t change that for me, and if the rumours that the 3% rise will become a perennial occurrence then that’s horrid.
Something else the Box Office introduced last season was a new grading of games, varying from Grade A to C, rather than just having Grades A and B. 33% of you weren’t fussed one way or the other with it, but of those of you that did have an opinion it was almost a clean split. 51% thought it was a great idea, but the other 49% preferred the A-B format or that there was no point in having Grades at all – just keep matches at the same price. It will be interesting to see what happens with it over the course of this season and whether the Club decide to persevere with it or not.
When it came to getting a ticket for the Cup Final, the Box Office decision was based on the number of away credits season ticket holders had and 48% of you thought it was a good idea, with 29% thinking it was a bad idea. I lost out in the first round of the ballot and was heartbroken my 2 credits didn’t get me a ticket, but if those tickets went to people who had been to Naples, Liverpool (twice) and Manchester (when they could have sat through those games on TV) then how could I hold it against them?
This year our relationship with Nike ended when it came to them renewing their agreement with the Club and, ironically, they didn’t ‘just do it’ and were replaced by Puma. Even though it’s a major, long-term change of brand for us to wear on our chests that aspect to it doesn’t really matter. When asked whether the shirts being made by Nike/Puma would affect you buying them, the vast majority weren’t fussed one way or the other (over 72% didn’t care about Puma, over 82% about Nike). When it came to the likelihood of buying the new shirts themselves the factors that did count for you were the design and the price of both the home shirt and away shirt (26% and 21% respectively). With them giving us red shirts with white sleeves and shorts at home and yellow shirts with navy sleeves and shorts away from home they’ve got the basic designs right. However, with the Club’s first team shirt Ts&Cs changing and now saying the Club will be changing them every year, the price becomes a far more important issue here.
To finish us off in this part we take a look at your top social media aspects of being a Gooner and pretty much all of you agree that Arseblog is by far and away your number one favourite unofficial Arsenal website/blog, and who can blame you? Pretty much all of us subscribe to his daily blog update, and the man is having a Q&A session with ArsenalAmerica when he’s on holiday in New York soon. Impressive, huh? He’s also one of your preferred twitter feeds as well and looking through the long list of them I was nodding fervently in agreement at a lot of the names you’ve mentioned. Tim Stillman, Simon Rose and Darrenarsenal1 appear to be three of the leaders with hundreds of followers each based on these results.
But to finish us all off with a huge chuckle is the unveiling of the most annoying Arsenal fan where 107% of you voted for Piers Morgan. Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration but considering I’ve been through the answers of 100+ questions so far, I can confirm this is the only question with that many answers that were the same. And despite wracking my brain for 15 minutes I can’t think of anything remotely positive or non-cringeworthy he has done as a supposed Arsenal fan. If we could sell him to Spurs I’d happily drive him up there.
Twitter @DavidOudot
