Don’t want the fairytale to end.....

He’s added 1000 to the gate we had for the Crawley game. It’s going to take a while to get people going again but it will happen if we continue improving. Mates who don’t go are at least talking about it which is a good sign

My brother was taking his Grandson until the weather struck and he had a change of heart. I suspect there will have been a few waiverers put off by the wind and rain. 4700 with no away fans and strong wind/rain is pretty good for this league i think. Under the previous regime, think it would have been 3700 ish.

The thing for me as wall as great enthusiasm, infectious personalty and being accessible & approachable Ian Holloway is one clever f****r. He seems to completely understand what he was taking over and what needs to happen on and off the pitch and is prepared to take full accountability in making it happen.

According to the offical site our home capacity is 6893.


In the home games since Holloway has been in the building we've had the following uptake of home capacity, again provided by the figures quoted on the official site.

Morecambe - 67.33%
FGR - 66.72%
Stevenage - 60.26%
Exeter - 84.74%
Salford - 64.08

Prior to that the Crawley game was 51.85% with the Scunthorpe game, unsurprisingly, clocking 81.97% - although not as high as that for the Exeter game.

Even going back to the opening home game against Bradford with sky high optimism, we only recorded 73.97% of home capacity.

I suppose just from looking at the numbers, which doesn't take into account a number of other factors such as time of the month (for payday), the weather etc. the Holloway factor peaked for the Exeter game before dropping off with a gradual recovery since.  From memory the Stevenage game wasn't a particularly cold evening but a night game in January is never going to appeal to everyone.  

The question is, as ska face, alludes to - is there a glass ceiling for this club when it comes to numbers?  Go back to the Buckley Mk I days and he was very vocal about his frustrations that we were playing big sleeping giant type clubs off the park yet struggled to pull 5,000 in.

Is it the cost of the ticket for the local person?  Does the lack of a stadium experience really put that many people of?  There's quite clearly a local appetite for this club at the moment.  I've lost count of the number of people who have a very fleeting interest in the club yet are asking questions now.  You can't buy that.   It's essential that the club tap into this Holloway factor in a way that's organic and doesn't disrupt the natural connection the man has with the people, I think we all grew a bit suspicious of Jolley selling season tickets.  The bloke recognised that we needed to do something a little bit different though and fair play to him for having a go at it.  Unfortunately he just didn't have that natural charisma that Holloway has.  

https://www.grimsby-townfc.co.uk/tickets/first-time-visitor/