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Post by Derek fogden on Dec 25, 2017 10:57:47 GMT
You do realise there is street parking for hundreds and hundreds of cars within the Crabble area.
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Post by nws on Dec 26, 2017 9:23:02 GMT
Yes. I was quite confused by this 'parking nightmare'. TBH I think it is deemed a parking nightmare if you have to walk more than 500m to the ground
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Post by porkystone on Dec 26, 2017 11:03:58 GMT
Yes. I was quite confused by this 'parking nightmare'. TBH I think it is deemed a parking nightmare if you have to walk more than 500m to the ground No, it's a parking nightmare if your car is parked in a muddy field ( the old Dover / Crabble Cricket Ground ) with either a 1/4 mile walk to the stadium up an incline or a shorter severe hike up a slope ( mitigated only by Dover's excellent buggy service ) ............. Will be fun tonight doing the reverse of that in the driving rain.
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Post by Nick on Dec 26, 2017 11:50:46 GMT
seem to recall it took over 30 minutes to get out of the car park last year are there better options ?
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Post by Nick on Dec 26, 2017 21:53:58 GMT
turned out a lot better today, parking on the roads outside the car park (saved 15 minutes get away)
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Post by jdl on Dec 26, 2017 23:56:23 GMT
The answer to the original question is 468 - pretty impressive.
And that means that Dover's attendance today (2,078) was actually only 1,610 home fans - pretty pathetic for a home derby game (Dover's not exactly a small place).
Mind you, that's still better than their average this season: 1,392. That's over 1,000 less than our average (2,474) and means that Dover are not only struggling at 18th on average attendance in the NL, but also that nine other clubs outside the NL have bigger gates.
Which leaves me with my perennial question of how do clubs with such low attendances survive, let alone punch above their weight? Especially when, like Dover, they have very little coming in in the way of non-matchday income.
And, once again, this highlights the absurdity of the 3G 'debate' - how come the NL and ELF have no problems with a club like Dover, with a non-self-sustaining business model, and a sloping pitch, but threaten us with relegation just because we have a better playing surface?
It may be plastic, but at least it's flat!
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Post by nws on Dec 27, 2017 1:19:05 GMT
The answer to the original question is 468 - pretty impressive. And that means that Dover's attendance today (2,078) was actually only 1,610 home fans - pretty pathetic for a home derby game (Dover's not exactly a small place).Mind you, that's still better than their average this season: 1,392. That's over 1,000 less than our average (2,474) and means that Dover are not only struggling at 18th on average attendance in the NL, but also that nine other clubs outside the NL have bigger gates. Which leaves me with my perennial question of how do clubs with such low attendances survive, let alone punch above their weight? Especially when, like Dover, they have very little coming in in the way of non-matchday income. And, once again, this highlights the absurdity of the 3G 'debate' - how come the NL and ELF have no problems with a club like Dover, with a non-self-sustaining business model, and a sloping pitch, but threaten us with relegation just because we have a better playing surface? It may be plastic, but at least it's flat! Just to add a little fact into this. The 2011 census showed Dover town to have a population of 43k and Maidstone to have a population of 113k
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Post by toonarmy on Dec 27, 2017 8:51:55 GMT
The answer to the original question is 468 - pretty impressive. And that means that Dover's attendance today (2,078) was actually only 1,610 home fans - pretty pathetic for a home derby game (Dover's not exactly a small place).Mind you, that's still better than their average this season: 1,392. That's over 1,000 less than our average (2,474) and means that Dover are not only struggling at 18th on average attendance in the NL, but also that nine other clubs outside the NL have bigger gates. Which leaves me with my perennial question of how do clubs with such low attendances survive, let alone punch above their weight? Especially when, like Dover, they have very little coming in in the way of non-matchday income. And, once again, this highlights the absurdity of the 3G 'debate' - how come the NL and ELF have no problems with a club like Dover, with a non-self-sustaining business model, and a sloping pitch, but threaten us with relegation just because we have a better playing surface? It may be plastic, but at least it's flat! Just to add a little fact into this. The 2011 census showed Dover town to have a population of 43k and Maidstone to have a population of 113k Why let facts get in the way of a good / average / crap (delete as appropriate) story
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Post by Bernie on Dec 27, 2017 9:12:16 GMT
And my dad's bigger than your dad.
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Post by nws on Dec 27, 2017 10:13:05 GMT
turned out a lot better today, parking on the roads outside the car park (saved 15 minutes get away) I'm sure someone from Dover had mentioned that, in this thread, and prior to your post. However, well done on your 'discovery'.
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Post by jdl on Dec 27, 2017 21:04:41 GMT
Just to add a little fact into this. The 2011 census showed Dover town to have a population of 43k and Maidstone to have a population of 113k Why let facts get in the way of a good / average / crap (delete as appropriate) story 'Facts' are tricky buggers, and the 'facts' here are not - and here's a surprise - quite as nws claims. A quick Google search returns the 'population' of Maidstone as 113,117, but a slightly more diligent search reveals a very different picture. For instance, Wikipedia gives three different figures: 138,948, 107,627 and 75,070 - none of which match Google's. The problem is that the 'population of Maidstone' varies dramatically depending on the area you define as 'Maidstone'. There is the actual town itself (which might or might not include the greater urban area), or the borough (which extends out as far as Lenham, but includes nothing west of Allington), or the 'District of Maidstone'. The upshot is that using nws's figure is comparing apples to oranges - or perhaps bananas. The towns are indeed of quite different sizes: Maidstone 75k, Dover 31k. But this is hardly a fair comparison, as the catchment area for each club extends beyond the towns themselves. A much better analysis would be to compare the two districts: 139k for Maidstone, 114k for Dover - much less of a difference than the town-to-town comparison. But you also need to factor in the very different geographic locations of the two towns. And especially the 'other club' effect - potential local supporters who support another team - which affects Maidstone far more than Dover. We have Gillingham just over the hill, Charlton, Palace and Millwall 'just up the road', and the rest of London within an easy commute. Whilst Dover has.. er.. Folkestone. And I would hazard a guess that there aren't too many Folkestone fans living in Dover. So, catchment area-to-catchment area, ours is about 20% bigger than Dover's, but take into account the effect of having a local EFL club, and being so close to London (and having had no club actually in the town for over 20 years) it probably pretty much balances out. Dover should be reasonably expecting crowds about as big as ours.
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Post by jdl on Dec 27, 2017 21:10:03 GMT
And, anyway, none of that affects the actual points of my post - the question of how low attendance clubs survive and the absurdity of the 3G 'debate'.
As usual, nws ignores the post itself, and just jumps on any minor point he can find to start an argument...
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Post by spurstone on Dec 27, 2017 21:21:08 GMT
And, anyway, none of that affects the actual points of my post - the question of how low attendance clubs survive and the absurdity of the 3G 'debate'. As usual, nws ignores the post itself, and just jumps on any minor point he can find to start an argument... There are many factors that can influence attendances and success at a football club, but they are not critically defining, and, as such, are subject to changes in their nature. It is what it is, was what it was, and will be what it could be.
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Post by spurstone on Dec 27, 2017 22:00:49 GMT
And, anyway, none of that affects the actual points of my post - the question of how low attendance clubs survive and the absurdity of the 3G 'debate'. As usual, nws ignores the post itself, and just jumps on any minor point he can find to start an argument... There are many factors that can influence attendances and success at a football club, but they are not critically defining, and, as such, are subject to changes in their nature. It is what it is, was what it was, and will be what it could be. And, just to potentially back this up, when Dover v Maidstone happened in Ryman South not that many moons ago, there were 2,400 approx in attendance from memory and definitely more than the 468 or whatever stones that were there yesterday. There were factors in this of course.
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Post by Derek fogden on Dec 27, 2017 22:15:18 GMT
Dover also has. 50% catchment area of English Channel. I'm quite happy with our crowds considering the size of our small town and catchment area.
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