Football Diary
by Patrick O'Connor
AS football continues to head towards financial meltdown with Portsmouth, Crystal Palace and Notts County hovering dangerously above the trapdoor, clubs lower down the food chain are doing their best to woo fans back to their stadiums.
League Two side Northampton Town are offering fans a free week's holiday abroad - if they buy a season ticket for next season.
Supporters who buy a season ticket before March 5 will be rewarded with a week's self-catering accommodation in Spain or Tenerife. Simon Chadwick, professor of sport business strategy and marketing at Coventry University Business School, believes Northampton's holiday offer might be the start of more extreme deals: "The difference between now and a year ago is the financial downturn which means getting fans through the turnstiles is imperative, hence the drastic promotions," Chadwick told BBC Sport. "We will see more widespread and more focused schemes in the future but, in the meantime, we will see these strange promotions - this could be just the tip of the iceberg."
Blue Square Premier side Mansfield Town decided to offer fans the chance to pay whatever they want to see their home game against Gateshead on Saturday and the move paid off as they more than doubled their home attendance. The kick-off was delayed by 10 minutes as more than 7,000 supporters took up the club's offer, unfortunately the bumper attendance did not produce the desired effect on the pitch, as promotion chasing Mansfield lost 2-0 to a side third from bottom.
But spokesman Mark Stevenson told BBC Sport the club was delighted with the fans' support. "The scenes in the first-half brought back memories of the 1980s," he said. "The players appreciated the huge crowd. Unfortunately they had an off-day but they would love to play in front of that many people every week: "We hope that people, despite the result, had an enjoyable day and will return - we are becoming a hub of the community again."
Extra police and a full quota of staff were brought in on the day to help control the crowd at the Field Mill ground, which has a capacity for 9,400 supporters. With fans paying as little as three pence and as much as £50 on the day - usual ticket prices are £16 - Mr Stevenson said he expected gate receipts to be up. It is believed to be the first time an English football club has tried such a scheme and Mansfield will now have to decide whether to repeat the exercise. The resulting crowd of 7,261 was 4,000 more than usually come through the turnstiles at Field Mill and was also higher than the 6,500 for the FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough in 2007.
Meanwhile new West Ham owner David Sullivan claims the wealth of Chelsea and Manchester City is bad for football and a salary cap is needed. After buying the Hammers, Sullivan and partner David Gold - both West Ham fans - revealed the club's debts were £110m. Sullivan said that he had always been against wage caps but:"I'm starting to swing towards it. It's the only way to keep clubs solvent."
Sullivan said the overall financial climate in football was not being helped by the riches of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City: "There was a kind of reality coming back into the world until (Abramovich bought) Chelsea," he told the BBC's HARDtalk programme. "After Chelsea there was some levelling off, then the Icelanders came to West Ham and it was madness, what they were paying people relative to what they were earning, and then Manchester City did the same thing."
And finally, a piece of advice to footballers - stay away from nightclubs, it just isn't worth the hassle. Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll has been charged with assault following a fight at a nightclub. A man suffered minor head injuries during the incident at Blu Bamboo in Newcastle's Bigg Market area December 7. Stoke City striker Ricardo Fuller has been arrested by police in connection with an incident at a Hanley nightclub. The 30-year-old, has been arrested on suspicion of assault. Officers had been called to the JFK nightclub, in Trinity Street, at 1am on Sunday. Fuller has since been bailed by police pending further inquiries.
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