Crowd management for the U 20's International
By noibla
February 14 2015
Last nights game was a big success particularly in tems of the crowd management and available facilites for the supporters who saw a very entertaing game albeit somewhat one sided as the score shows and the weather by and large held off from what we were expecting. The Royal Marine drummers were there to give us their usual high standard of performance something which always commands admiration from all, this year we were treated to a short performance in both the Midas, corporate, and also in the supporters marquee which was warmly appreaciated by everyone there. Photo's to follow in another story soon.
I mention the impressive way in which the club staff organized and handled the evening because of what I felt about the amount of criticism they took when the Pirates came to town a couple of months or so ago. the crowd last night was 3027 and for the Pirates it was 3982 which although not that much bigger, some 25%, but on this occasion the club had a good idea of the numbers partly because of the pre paid sales which wouldn't have been the case for the local derby and more to the point with our average game attracting about 1500 or so it turned out to be an increase of some 270% much bigger than other derby games of late.
And of course the biggest challenge came when after catering for a smaller crowd by way of staff based on previous gates, a very large number of extra arrived too late to organize themselves with food and drink beforehand prior to the k.o. in fact so late that the ref wouldn't alter the k.o. time for us to try and cope with the unexpected late arrivals. That was surely far too late to arrive for an event in which there are going to be large numbers in attendance ?
As I said this time the club had a much better idea and it went very smoothly with different channels one for ticket holders one for those wishing to buy on the night another for pre paid tickets to be picked up from another area and so on, compared with previous expierences it went very well with plenty of staff to cope with the food and drink and without a last minute panic of course which helped.
One thing you will al notice on Sunday for the game with L.S. will be the several tons of gravel laid to improve the walk ways, o.k. I know it was an International with the R.F.U. plus two U 20,s squads on parade last night but it is now also there for the use of everbody's benifit as the ground was becoming rather muddy again.
It was nice to see the extra numbers of younger supporters being an U 20's match and with plenty of banter going on an enjoyable evening, I hope it was a success for the club as well.
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, which meant the attendance last night was around the same as the Pirates game 
.
Hopefully those unable to attend last night but coming tomorrow will notice several improvements around the ground (gravel has already been mentioned). And as the normal PA announcer is unable to attend A Nomad will be deputising
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