Bromley FC: Friendly football club or cut-throat business?

Financially savvy or a PR own goal, Andrew Miler explores the Wrexham debacle

Season ticket holders received an email this week asking them to confirm if they’re coming to the Wrexham game. This has ruffled a few feathers among the Ravens’ faithful, with many feeling that business decisions are coming at the expense of Bromley fans. Are they right to feel that way? Andrew Miller takes a look at the issues at play.

On Saturday 18th March, Hollywood FC (aka Wrexham AFC) will travel to Hayes Lane for a rematch of last season’s FA Trophy final; a game that will live long in the memory of every Bromley fan. While it’s not a cup final this time, both teams have a lot on the line. 

But, with the unique ticketing arrangement for this game, is there more on the line for Bromley fans than meets the eye?

Bromley’s famous FA Trophy victory resulted in a fantastic offer from the club. To celebrate 97 minutes of cup final glory, for 97 hours only, Bromley fans could purchase a season ticket for the 22/23 season for just £97. 

Understandably, this offer was well received. Exact figures aren’t available, but if you believe the rumours, Bromley sold well over 2,500 season tickets. For context, the previous season they only sold a few hundred.

At the time, I thought: "What a great deal! Take my money!" But once I had my ticket, I started to think about how attendances would be affected by the inevitable ‘casual fans’.

‘Casual fans’, to me, are people for whom Bromley are a second team; the team they watch when their Premier League or Football League team aren’t playing. Perhaps they’ll visit Hayes Lane as little as, say, five times a season.

Even if you only attended five Bromley games with your £97 season ticket, it would still work out £3 cheaper than buying five individual advance tickets at £20. I think a lot of casual fans did that maths and took the plunge.

This hasn’t caused any issues so far this season, but clearly the business brains at the club have decided it might be an issue for Bromley’s forthcoming fixture with Wrexham. This prompted an email to season ticket holders asking them to confirm their attendance. The reaction has not been positive. 

Where ticketing is concerned, there are two ways of looking at it. From the fans’ perspective, season ticket holders might be asking: “Why should I have to do this? I bought a season ticket, so that should guarantee me entrance, no matter what.”

From a business perspective, with well over a thousand away fans expected to attend, in addition to a bumper crop of Bromley supporters, this fixture is probably going to generate the highest attendance of the season. It makes sense to capitalise on that. 

In the email to season ticket holders, one line in particular caught my attention. "Given the large number of Season Ticket holders who have a guaranteed ticket for this fixture and the current percentage of those who attend fixtures...."

Reading between the lines, as well as looking around the ground on match days, it’s clear that there is a big difference between the number of season ticket holders and those who actually attend. I believe this has a lot to do with casual season ticket holders, and those are the fans who seem to be on the club’s mind going into the Wrexham game.

Looking at the fixtures for our London neighbours on the 18th, you can see a perfect storm brewing. Crystal Palace and Arsenal don’t have a game that day (they play each other on the 19th). Charlton are away. Tottenham are away. West Ham don’t have a game. Dulwich and Welling are away. Only Chelsea and Millwall are playing at home that day. As a result, there will be a lot of floating fans looking for a local football fix.

From a business point of view, I can see exactly why season ticket holders are being asked to confirm their attendance. Clubs at this level need to maximise revenue, so if five-hundred season ticket holders don't attend for some reason, that's five-hundred tickets going to waste. You could have sold that space to non-season-ticket-holders for roughly £10,000.

However, as fans on various internet forums have pointed out, not everyone can plan that far in advance. Others have been keen to stress that season ticket holders have purchased a guaranteed ticket for the whole season, yet would be turned away from this game if they didn’t confirm their attendance in advance.

It seems like a bit of an own goal from a PR perspective. 

My advice, as a few people have mentioned elsewhere, is to claim your ticket (you've paid for it after all). I’ve already claimed mine and it took me about a minute. Then, if you can't make it on the day, so be it.

The other issue for this game is segregation. Normally, away fans occupy a corner on the east side of the ground, where roughly 800 fans can stand and watch the match. However, as any National League fan will tell you, Wrexham travel in great numbers and sell out their away allocation more often than not.

Remember when I mentioned maximising revenue earlier? Well, it appears that we’ve given Wrexham a bumper allocation of away tickets: word on the street says up to 1,500. From a business perspective, more guaranteed ticket sales equals more money for the club. But this increase in allocation means the area normally allocated to away fans is too small.

The logical step would be to give the away fans more of the east terrace, which we did against York in the FA Trophy semi-final. However, the email to season ticket holders stated: "Following the relevant advice from Police and Health & Safety planning meetings, we will need to make use of our new electronic turnstiles to allow safe and controlled entry for both home and away spectators. As a result the away supporters will need to be predominately (sic) located on the North Terrace behind the goal."

Why does this matter? Well, a lot of our atmosphere comes from the north terrace behind the goal, especially lately with the group of young fans who are constantly making noise. I also think we play better shooting that way as the fans help to pull the ball into the net. It feels like a lot more goals are scored at that end than in front of the Glyn Beverly stand.

This alteration also raises the question of whether Wrexham fans will have access to the £5-a-match Ravens Bar. The bar’s members are being shunted off to the usually off-limits players’ bar above Broomfields, so it suggests that Wrexham fans will have access to it. 

This would make sense, as I doubt the existing away facilities are cut out for such a big crowd. But will Wrexham fans have FREE access to the Ravens Bar? If so, I expect a lot of Bromley fans will be outraged, and quite rightly so in my opinion. 

Prior to the opening of Broomfields, the Ravens Bar was Bromley fans’ social hub. Today, it’s a members-only bar that costs £5-a-match and many fans have taken its loss quite personally. The queues in Broomfields on match days are a testament to the need for more open-access bar space in the ground, so if Wrexham fans get FREE access to the Ravens Bar, I can see it causing upset.

The big question is whether the club's business brains are more intent on making money than giving the best possible experience to their fans. Can you have it both ways? 

If you had the opportunity to make more money for your business, to invest and help it grow, but would have to annoy some of your customers to do so, would you? Some might.

But without fans, loyal or casual, clubs in the National League would cease to exist. So is it worth chasing that little bit of extra cash at the risk of losing them? Those lost fans were likely to be worth a lot more money in the long run.

It’s not just Bromley, of course. Fans up and down the country are asking the same question: Are we cherished fans or barcoded customers?

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