Dave Benson Phillips

I told Essruu and Turkish your link and they looked through themselves, I think people who have a mutual friend (ie: me ) can look at your profile pictures.

Georgie, I sent you 650 text messages in the last 2 months ( not the record I might add, my ex recieved 1016 off me in one month before Xmas ) Still, an impressive show.

It's not on private.

Yes. As I said, a hypothetical question, as the club may indeed announce it shortly. Time will tell.

We will agree to disagree then. And anyway, was just a hypothetical question as I am sure the club will not drop a game designed to honour the greatest man in Southampton FC's history during the year his wife, another loyal SFC servant, passed away.

You don't think Ted Bates deserves a memorial game then I assume? And it would be a bit of a dishonour not to have it, especially as Mrs Southampton FC passed away recently?

Even if we were romping away at the top of the league, I still won't go to 14 home games. There will be at least 10 games I won't justify paying £25 for, weddings, other engagements, tv games, midweekers, crap opposition etc etc, 3 game months, games either side of away days etc and taking up the 3 or 4 corporate invites I get each season and lastly using mates season tickets who are on holiday... I will probably do 6 or 7 homes next season, so they had the choice of... £328 + £6 spend per game on beer x 23 £138 Total - £466 Or if I go to 6 games ( the most likely figure ) Total - £168 So they have lost the best part of £300 from me. Genius.

Forget the opposition, it's a friendly and a memorial game to a man who is known as Mr Southampton FC Would it be right to remove this memorial game? Especially considering the death of his wife only weeks ago.

Edut

It would actually be more than 14 games, because obviously bear in mind the average spend at the ground as well, so if someone has a season ticket, they are buying food and merchandise 23 times as well ( 9 times more than the non-ST break even point ), thus increasing their spend. So infact it is probably 16 or 17 games to make it cost effective for the club to have casual fans as opposed to STH's. Is the average attendance of a casual fan going to be 17 games? It won't even be half that.

It's a memorial game for Mr Southampton FC Would it be acceptable to just ditch it? I don't see how it could possibly be bad to play a top team in a pre-season friendly.

Rather than start a new thread, I will stick it on a related one. What would everyones feelings be if the club scrapped the Ted Bates Memorial Trophy game?

Must have forgot to put you on ignore. Yes that must be right, Saints thought, " Oh, let's wait till we have all the fixtures and then we can announce them all at once so..... oh.... hang on.... who released the details of the 3 other friendlies? FFS " Nice one Einstein.

Georgie, Essy has been going through your facebook profile. Pay no attention, he is jealous, I have it on good authority from Turkish that this is the case. :-)

The fans charter was written up by Andrew Oldknow, who has now left the club ( think of that what you will ) In my opinion since Oldknow has left Cortese has not employed a replacement, and instead decided to be the decision maker in every aspect of the business, including those he knows little or nothing about. Which is why it is scattergunned with mistakes, inconsistancy and PR ball-ups. For the record, on the football management structure side of things and shaping the football side, I think he has done a good job, he really could do with a decent chief exec to deal with the customer experience side of the business.

He is a proper skate to be fair, a Navy c*nt. I am sure he would love the thought of an ex-army scummer bringing up his child. ( That is sarcasm by the way )

I am not sure if ESB is taking the p!ss or not?

Surveying and Sales - Get the Academy boys in the concourse speaking to people ( doesn't have to be at the turnstiles ) , fans would enjoy interacting with the Academy players, it's free labour and a valuable customer service tool and data capture. They could also promote and sell coach tickets etc for away travel, take payments direct from the till at one of the kiosks. One thing I have never understood is why SFC and most clubs never sell any merchandise in the concourses, although it's of no interest to me ( obviously ) , I don't understand why they don't sell merchandise in each kiosk and the outside perimiter of the stadium, selling flags, jester hats, vuvuzelas ( lol ) , t-shirts and other cheap matchday merchandise. Don't even need any further resourcing, sell them through the food bars inside and stick a table up outside and get Academy players on them. There are ways to upsell, but I don't think there is anything the club can upsell over the phone, even coach travel, everyone ( including season ticket holders ) has to make contact to buy an away ticket, it's at that point the club should sell the travel club as an add-on to that specific purchase. Is pointless trying to sell a ticket to Hartlepool away when they are buying a ticket for Charlton at home. IMO it is much easier to sell when someone is in your shop rather than on the phone, St Marys is their shop and they should concentrate on getting as many people through the doors as possible. Just my opinion, right or wrong.

Are you buying one? You seem to comment on alot of season ticket related threads, I assume that this is because it's of interest to you?

I think exceptions in the case need to be made when the girl lives in P*rtsmouth. If there is to be any potential relationship, and before you dip your wick you need to be absolutely certain that it's going to be worth your pain. Some of the issues you need to resolve / investigate is if they would ever move out of P*rtsmouth, obviously if they won't then you might as well leave with your dignity intact and never speak to the person again. With regards to kids, it is alo important to accertain whether the child is a skate, and if it is, make it crystal clear that you won't accept any public acts of "skate c*ntishness" by the child. Adoption and moving in is only acceptable when things get serious. And the rules for non-skates? Depends what the situation, whether she has her own house, whatever the cheapest option is for you. If she is going to let you crash at hers rent free, saving you £100's then I would advise on falling in love with her very quickly.

People moving seats I would imagine.

I will give you some relationship advice later on facebook Turkish. ( btw I have an AWESOME photo to show you )

Not telesales but I have worked in Insurance, and done internal sales. The flaw in your plan is that the people wilthout season tickets won't make 23 "contacts" a season. Also, what else is there to upsell? Saints have tried getting involved in the finance/insurance industries and massively failed. When I was in Insurance we sold Healthcare but I had the option to upsell personal accident insurance, home, car etc... what could the club realistically upsell? Buy a season ticket and the club has your membership for a year and your commitment, they have your commitment that you will turn up 23 times a year onto their selling ground, buy their programmes, burgers, beers, megastore etc etc... Businesses would much prefer to have you in their shop to upsell other products, rather than using unskilled call centre operatives.

But fans won't pay top whack for League 1 football. All the people who are in the " I will pay anything, as long as I get to see Saints play " group will have a season ticket ( minus the people who were forced out ) That leaves the fans who won't pay for success, they want to go and watch football, but at a good price and there needs to be offers etc. £25 for League 1 game does not provide value for money to people in this group. It might be acceptable to all of you in the core 'ardent fan' group, but after beer, programme, bus etc you are looking at £40 for a League 1 game. Also, I really don't think we spent much over our revenue, with maybe the exception being the initial signings ( which would have been factored into the purchase price ) The ardent fans might 'pay extra for the good of the team' , but the ones which the club are relying on to come in and fill the ground most definately won't. It won't work, it's a stupid and naive business decision and if it does work I will happily admit I am wrong.

They wouldn't pay it for 23 games though. Not a chance, never. And there is no way each lost season ticket holder will end up averaging out at 14 matches a season. Not when you have to justify each £25 ticket on a match by match basis. Would you ( or anyone for that matter ) pay £25 to watch Daggers on a November Tuesday night? How many people will pay £25 for a lunchtime kickoff against Plymouth which is on TV? Then you have - Weddings Other engagements Midweek games Bad weather ( it's cheaper to wait till the matchday to see what the weather is doing because of the stoopid ticketing ) Unattractive opposition 3 home games in 3 weeks ( cost issue ) There are so many reasons why people won't justify going to matches on a game by game basis, and we don't have enough fans waiting in the wings to replace them. We are in League 1, you need to treat your core/loyal supporters with respect and gain commitment off them, push them out and you are in serious trouble.