By Mark Bradley

When you volunteer or work at a club in the National League System, I wager that you sometimes find it hard to believe that there are nearly 3 months between the end of one season and start of the other. It goes in a flash. Subtract from that your well-earned break and there’s plenty of work to occupy the time that remains.

While there is so much to do on the club development front, it’s important that these plans include the match day experience too, because a club that delivers a great match day will be rewarded with advocacy from existing fans, the support of many more new ones and the extra revenue that this will create.

We are working with you, your local FA consultants and the National Club Services team to help you improve the match day experience and we’re doing that by providing fan experience assessments to up to 50 FA Accredited clubs per season.  We’re in the second season of the programme now and that experience – as well as that gained during more than a decade’s experience of working with non-league clubs – has given us an insight into the opportunities that you might factor into your plans.

First of all, it’s important remind ourselves of the intrinsic benefits that football played at our levels of the game offers to supporters.  When they look further up the pyramid, they see paid-for hospitality when entrance to our club houses, lounges and social clubs is free.

At our levels of the game, you can get closer to the action. You can hear what the referee is saying and you can better appreciate how teams are coached.  It’s impossible for supporters to change ends at Premier League and EFL games, of course, but that freedom will often be part and parcel of what our clubs offer.

It therefore follows that a club seeking to grow attendances should focus on its USPs (unique selling points). There are those I have described above but there are also those specific to YOUR club. They’ll often range from a friendly team of volunteers to freshly cooked good quality refreshments or from a free car park to a packed club house where you can watch the big game on TV before taking your place for the main event.  We seldom appreciate just how beneficial these factors are to fans, so I’d encourage you to focus on what makes your club special while promoting the benefits of the wider non-league game, too.

Your main club homepage (whether it be a website or a Facebook page) should ideally contain a welcome to the club and a compelling list of reasons to come to games with well-written content on what makes the club and its match days so unique.  You should include a guide to match days at your club: making it easy for new fans to attend and reminding the familiar why they love coming to games too.  While elements such as refreshments menus might differ from game to game, why not include a list of items for illustrative purposes?  Our clubs offer much more than a game of football but, from many of our assessments, you’d be forgiven for thinking just that. 

In the days before each game, you have an opportunity to communicate both the football and the ‘off the pitch’ elements of the match day.  A club that puts out a social media post with date, time, opposition, kick off time and location is getting the basics right but a club that adds more character and depth to the posts - whether via pictures, videos, fan testimonials, up-to-date menus or even, as several clubs now do, a message stating that the club is ‘dog-friendly’ (with water bowls provided) – gives much more compelling reasons to attend.

Aylestone Park FC, a club on the outskirts of Leicester, know that a dog-friendly club generates positive advocacy amongst local dog walkers while Easington Sports (a club located south of Banbury) include their canine affinity in pre-match day social media posts.  If your club is surrounded by large housing estates, a friendly approach to man’s best friend might make humans more likely to advocate your club.

If you have a free car park, make the most of it. Let people know it’s free. Tell them how many spaces you have and, if possible, when to arrive to secure a spot.  How about encouraging (new) supporters to arrive an hour or so before kick off? Invite them to spend the pre-match period in the comfort of your club house.

Much of the above can be conveyed digitally but, on the match day itself, it’s the human touch that really makes supporters feel valued.  Clubs always cherish hard-working volunteers – they couldn’t put a match on without them. But our assessments have uncovered a volunteer role that, if managed well, will usually secure the fan’s advocacy, if not their regular custom: that of the match day host.

Many clubs pro-actively welcome fans to games. Sometimes it’s a volunteer car park attendant who greets you with a smile and a bit of friendly interaction. The two guys on the main gates at AFC Portchester can take a bow now!  They will spot a new face and make an extra effort to make them feel welcome.  Then, once the match is started, they will reappear to make sure you don’t forget to pick up a pin badge or another souvenir of your day. 

But, in spite of the many great experiences we have recorded, there are still instances where our assessor is in a club house early doors where it’s clear that he or she is the only new face and yet nobody has taken the time to welcome them.

That’s why we believe designating one of your existing team to the role of ‘match day host’ could be the best signing your club makes this season. An out-going person with a love for the club and an appreciation of what makes its match days special will, more often than not, be the reason someone comes back. Our visitor to Devon’s Elmore FC met one such individual (and hasn’t stopped talking about him since!).

What plans does your club have to encourage more children and young people to attend matches?  The first and obvious source of new young attendees will be your junior clubs. As well as forming a guard of honour at home games, what else could you do to secure their support? 

Simple activities like face painting, keepie up challenges and even early- or late-season half time inter-school penalty shoot-out competitions on the pitch will not only appeal to the competitive spirit but will also surely see their parents, carers and school mates attend too. What an opportunity to convert them into regulars!

Could you designate some match days as community events to show your solidarity with groups supporting your most vulnerable residents, for example? Do you encourage young fans to choose the music for your match day playlists?  Is your menu (however small) in some way representative of what young people want to consume these days?

A good match day plan will not only focus on those things that might encourage new people to attend matches but will also seek to identify those aspects of the typical match day that might, unwittingly, exclude them.  One barrier to regular attendance that we have identified on several assessment visits is the range of drinks that you offer.  At one recent assessment, our visitor had the choice of four drinks on tap: two lagers and two ciders (one fruit-flavoured).  Consider that choice from the female perspective.

Then consider the impact of offering a wider range of soft drinks, gin or cocktails and prosecco (and promoting that to the local community).  My own personal view is that the best sign of a healthy club is a thriving club house so, by undertaking a small exercise to identify any barriers, you’ll not only improve the fan experience but also open your matches up to the whole community too.

So, what are your match day improvement plans for next season? Let me know via mark@fanexperienceco.com and, if you have any questions about how you could improve your club’s match day touch points or if you would like your FA Accredited club to receive a fan experience assessment in the coming season, please get in touch.