by Oil Beef Hooked » 25 Feb 2014, 17:22
tomogull wrote:
Actually, Matt, you touch on a trend that I think could be of great concern to lower league sides in the not too distant future. My grandson goes to football training on Tuesday nights. When Torquay have a Tuesday night game he leaves early so that we can get to Plainmoor before kick off. Of sixteen or so soccer mad 13 year olds, he is the only one who regularly goes to United matches and in fact has been ridiculed once or twice for supporting (quote) 'a crap division 2 team'. I suspect most of those lads would have difficulty in naming a Gulls player ..... but ask them about the Premiership and they will be able to reel off the myriad of foreign names without any bother. Like you, I have very little interest in the Premiership but it bothers me that it now dominates English football to such an extent that young lads have more interest in a team hundreds of miles away, who they've probably never seen play live, than their local team.
So with that in mind, maybe that's why there's been little take up on the free tickets. Very worrying.
We've all seen the myriad of football colours walking around the area. In fact it's a novelty seeing someone wear TUFC attire away from Plainmoor on a non football day. There appears to be no appetite to support the local club anymore.
My son (who is 11) always supported Torquay until he got picked on for supporting a league 2 team. He then caved in to peer pressure and went through a phase of supporting Manure. He was bought the shirts, bed linen, scarfs etc, i.e. all the gear that his mates had. Over time, I have reconverted him back to love TUFC and is now a season ticket holder along with his good old Dad :~D .
Without having more local support coming through the doors, the club is always going to struggle both on and off the pitch. There's no easy answers to this I'm afraid.
[quote="tomogull"]
Actually, Matt, you touch on a trend that I think could be of great concern to lower league sides in the not too distant future. My grandson goes to football training on Tuesday nights. When Torquay have a Tuesday night game he leaves early so that we can get to Plainmoor before kick off. Of sixteen or so soccer mad 13 year olds, he is the only one who regularly goes to United matches and in fact has been ridiculed once or twice for supporting (quote) 'a crap division 2 team'. I suspect most of those lads would have difficulty in naming a Gulls player ..... but ask them about the Premiership and they will be able to reel off the myriad of foreign names without any bother. Like you, I have very little interest in the Premiership but it bothers me that it now dominates English football to such an extent that young lads have more interest in a team hundreds of miles away, who they've probably never seen play live, than their local team.
So with that in mind, maybe that's why there's been little take up on the free tickets. Very worrying.[/quote]
We've all seen the myriad of football colours walking around the area. In fact it's a novelty seeing someone wear TUFC attire away from Plainmoor on a non football day. There appears to be no appetite to support the local club anymore.
My son (who is 11) always supported Torquay until he got picked on for supporting a league 2 team. He then caved in to peer pressure and went through a phase of supporting Manure. He was bought the shirts, bed linen, scarfs etc, i.e. all the gear that his mates had. Over time, I have reconverted him back to love TUFC and is now a season ticket holder along with his good old Dad :~D .
Without having more local support coming through the doors, the club is always going to struggle both on and off the pitch. There's no easy answers to this I'm afraid.
