ACL 09 - the who, the what, the where.

[greenlion]

yes I think so, there is flames there in nearly every matches

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Where abouts is the TEDA in relation to Tianjin Railway Station??  That's about the only point of reference I know/bothered to take notice of in the city.

it's very very far to get there from the Tianjin railway Station bacause the stadium is located in the star city of tanggu, you need to get there by light rail train.

 

[FFC Mariner]

yes mariners, can you please pick me up from my house and take me to game... also dropping me home and times conveniant to me

I dont think there is any call for flippancy with regard to football ticketing in the this country TBH.

The FFA utterly f**ked up finals ticketing in the same way that they ruin Australian home games. Clarence's post is absolutely spot on. I wont drone on and on about the Newcastle semi at EAS or the GF itself as we can all remember the debacle(s).

The CCM must take some responsibility here too - their response to the Sydney GF move was disgraceful and let fans down badly in terms of transport/advice/organisation.

Being a member delivers absolutely nothing IMHO.

A 3 match home pass is an absolute minimum from CCM.

Being a community club does not necessitate an amateur back office.

(Rant over)

Are the club in anyway looking to advise/coordinate away ACL travel for members? Probably not. That will be left to individuals to do the job that they cant be arsed to do - just like ticketing for Australian games.

 

[serious14]

it's very very far to get there from the Tianjin railway Station bacause the stadium is located in the star city of tanggu, you need to get there by light rail train.

Is there a light rail stop near Tianjin Railway??  Most of us will be staying in Beijing and getting the train down on the day of the game......

Are the club in anyway looking to advise/coordinate away ACL travel for members? Probably not. That will be left to individuals to do the job that they cant be arsed to do - just like ticketing for Australian games.

I think we're doing an alright job thus far - speaking of which, check your PM's.

;D

 

[clarence]

yes mariners, can you please pick me up from my house and take me to game... also dropping me home and times conveniant to me

It's not about that at all.

It's more about providing good customer service and good prior planning.

If anyone has a membership they are putting their money where their mouth is, and the club gets the benefit of having seats pre sold long before a game is held in the usual A-League season. There should be decent rewards for people laying down the dollars and ensuring the Mariners have x number of seats pre sold. Makes them breathe a little easier knowing that there's a certain % pre sold.

Little knick nacks and logos on shopping bags barely passes grade.

A post match function is provided but that's dead as, these days.

Oh, wait, we have the fan day, where we can all cue up and hope to have our favourite Mariner player sign some merchandise. May work for kids, but maybe not for the older members. Oh, and some magazine that's as glossy as, and provides a good opportunity for all the Mariners sponsors to run ads.

No. The majority of the adults buying the season tickets only do it for the stability of getting a decent seat. They know they can just rock up to a match and the seat will be theirs. Saves time and costs a little less over the whole season.

But if they have pressure on their budget and have to assess the worth of it all, and suddenly, in the middle of this assessment there's an ACL campaign that you cannot get decent seats to, then next years season ticket will be harder to justify.

I don't care what others may think, but my continued higher level of Mariners membership hinges on how I am treated in this ACL campaign and beyond.

Given the number of games I have missed this A-League season, it would have been much cheaper to just buy a White membership (like I did in the first season) and pay for better tix on the day for the games I could get to.

That option  has certainly been mentioned by my partner more than once this season too, so renewal time next season will be the subject of much debate in our household. I am sure there are others in similar situations, and I am merely representative of that view.

If the ACL ticketing for the home games is well marketed to the existing members and some decent value shown some how, then it will be a hell of a lot easier for people in similar situations to me to get the funding approved by the household Treasurer, for next season's membership!

 

[dru]

Are the club in anyway looking to advise/coordinate away ACL travel for members? Probably not. That will be left to individuals to do the job that they cant be arsed to do - just like ticketing for Australian games.

I think we're doing an alright job thus far - speaking of which, check your PM's.

;D

TBF is it really something we expect when at most there would be 50 (and that is being generous and probably less than 20 for anything other than the first) at any one away game? We will do a bang up job of finding drinking holes etc close to the ground. would it even be viable to do this sort of thing with anything less than 20 people going.

Again I will point out that ticketing in this country is just stupid, all tickets for away fans should be handled by the visting club, which may in turn force them to organise travel deals for events like melbourne or QLD away where we have good numbers go. Would also allow them to pass on helpful information to the crazy few that do the longer trips. Would give them a fair idea to help coordinate travel to and from Sydney and Newcastle if when your talking to the clubs office you can request to be on official transport or not.

 

[greenlion]

it's very very far to get there from the Tianjin railway Station bacause the stadium is located in the star city of tanggu, you need to get there by light rail train.

Is there a light rail stop near Tianjin Railway??  Most of us will be staying in Beijing and getting the train down on the day of the game......

you got on a taxi from the railway station. it's only need 10 CNY to get to the light railway station, that is about 1.5 USD, also, if you goes to the stadium derectly by taxi, it will cost you about 100 to 150 CNY I think, the ticket for the light rail train is 5 CNY, you should step off the train at the station of the international conference&exhibition center

 

[clarence]

Are the club in anyway looking to advise/coordinate away ACL travel for members? Probably not. That will be left to individuals to do the job that they cant be arsed to do - just like ticketing for Australian games.

I think we're doing an alright job thus far - speaking of which, check your PM's.

;D

TBF is it really something we expect when at most there would be 50 (and that is being generous and probably less than 20 for anything other than the first) at any one away game? We will do a bang up job of finding drinking holes etc close to the ground. would it even be viable to do this sort of thing with anything less than 20 people going.

Again I will point out that ticketing in this country is just stupid, all tickets for away fans should be handled by the visting club, which may in turn force them to organise travel deals for events like melbourne or QLD away where we have good numbers go. Would also allow them to pass on helpful information to the crazy few that do the longer trips. Would give them a fair idea to help coordinate travel to and from Sydney and Newcastle if when your talking to the clubs office you can request to be on official transport or not.

Re: Travelling to away ACL games.

Out of the question for me, but there are probaly a decent 50mor so people who may be able to do it.

What is wrong with the club sounding out it's members and seeing if there's a demand for a group booking? I have seen no email to date from them?

Fair enough there appears to be people here who have travelled and can advise other show to get there and where to stay etc. but I am wondering how the thousands that travel to away games for the larger clubs do that? Surely the larger clubs have some exclusive travel agency they hook up with and offer packages? And they must have, at some stage, started this off very small and built it up from there. So in that context, it may be 50 Mariners fans travelling THIS ACL campaign, but who knows how many in future campaigns. It is something the club SHOULD be keeping tabs on, instead of relying upon the hardy unofficial Marinators to somehow organise something.

 

[serious14]

it's very very far to get there from the Tianjin railway Station bacause the stadium is located in the star city of tanggu, you need to get there by light rail train.

Is there a light rail stop near Tianjin Railway??  Most of us will be staying in Beijing and getting the train down on the day of the game......

you got on a taxi from the railway station. it's only need 10 CNY to get to the light railway station, that is about 1.5 USD, also, if you goes to the stadium derectly by taxi, it will cost you about 100 to 150 CNY I think, the ticket for the light rail train is 5 CNY, you should step off the train at the station of the international conference&exhibition center

Thankyou very much, you're an excellent source of information.  ;D

It is something the club SHOULD be keeping tabs on, instead of relying upon the hardy unofficial Marinators to somehow organise something.

I heartily agree, and I'm quite dismayed that we havn't seen anything from them yet - even a "watch this space" e-mail....... we've all known for quite a while that China, South Korea, and Japan are the countries that we're going to.

Having said that, we're doing a pretty bang-up job of organising the various trips ourselves thus far - I know Brett and Perm have their Japan caper going on, Druboy has his "away game-Europe-away game-Home" thing, and there's 6 or 7 of us who are confirmed for China at the moment, it's just a matter of communicating with all these people at once and organising money and that sort of thing. 

Not to say I don't like doing it, but really, every other football club in the world has this sort of thing - I seem to recall the ACL last season, Urawa took a couple of hundred fans to....... I think it was Sepahan?? 

All a learning experience for everyone involved it would seem.

 

[brett]

IMO it's a bit much to expect of the club to organise travel information for the ACL matches.

There will be a few dozen travellers at most, and for these sorts of trips, everyone will have fairly different budgets and plans. IE for the Japan game, I will probably want to stay fairly long (up to two weeks) but do it fairly cheap. Someone with more money might want to do 5 days in style. Everyone will have different budgets and itineraries.

There is certainly help the club COULD provide, I'm not contesting that. Information about places to stay, travel to and from grounds, the types of costs for various things, could be provided, and ideally meet-ups with Lawrie and the players in these countries could happen for the dedicated few that go that far. But for such a minority, that level of service would probably be above and beyond what you'd reasonably expect. If they provided this type of stuff we'd be surprised and delighted, but it's not expected.

As for our likely minor semi final with, say, Queensland Roar, that's a different story. All the clubs should be looking at ways to support their members for bulk travel and accomodation. Making it easy for your fans to get there would be a great service to offer.

 

[FFC Mariner]

One of the 1st things MAF did when he took over Fulham was organise subsidised bus travel to away games. Simple but brilliant idea to boost away support.

An away season ticket followed (assume there is a small % rake off for the club here)

Lets face facts, CCM's marketing reach is far better than on here or the Marinators club as they have the membership lists to work with.

Would it be too hard for them to organise either train/bus travel to EAS/SFS during the regular season together with tickets etc?

You could even do a NSW "away" season ticket with optional travel too.

For away semi's the club must do more (some really) and an "official" travel club would be pretty damn simple to set up. If the organisation/ease was worth it, they could even charge a membership fee to cover costs.

This stuff is running a football club 101 and it would be fascinating to know why the club dont/cant/wont do it.

 

[brett]

One of the 1st things MAF did when he took over Fulham was organise subsidised bus travel to away games. Simple but brilliant idea to boost away support.

An away season ticket followed (assume there is a small % rake off for the club here)

Lets face facts, CCM's marketing reach is far better than on here or the Marinators club as they have the membership lists to work with.

Would it be too hard for them to organise either train/bus travel to EAS/SFS during the regular season together with tickets etc?

You could even do a NSW "away" season ticket with optional travel too.

For away semi's the club must do more (some really) and an "official" travel club would be pretty damn simple to set up. If the organisation/ease was worth it, they could even charge a membership fee to cover costs.

This stuff is running a football club 101 and it would be fascinating to know why the club dont/cant/wont do it.

Totally agree with everything here.

To answer your (possibly hypothetical) question at the end...not on their list of priorities? FFA conspiracy against away fans?

Surely some system that nets them a small margin as profit, plus gets more fans there to support them, plus does a service to members/supporters, is pretty compelling, above and beyond the simple fact it would create goodwill among fans.

 

[brett]

CCM should also get some sweet buses for intra-state travel.

 

[northernspirit]

doesnt adelaide united do this for their fans?
a mariners bus would be unreal, no doubt itd be alcohol free though - sigh

 

[Mariner Girl]

doesnt adelaide united do this for their fans?
a mariners bus would be unreal, no doubt itd be alcohol free though - sigh

I heard that Bianco may be selling his share of AUFC, so this free bus might be a thing of the past for them.
Plus, can you imagine sitting there for 18 hours for a Adelaide / Gosford rad trip - NO THANK YOU!. I would kill people, before the trip was over.

 

[northernspirit]

yeah no thanks
i wonder if GCU will get chartered flights for their fans

 

[dru]

I will offer the alternative view on travel, I like organising my own, In the three seasons I have used the marinators bus once to Newcastle and would hate to think of some of the crazy things I would of missed if I was on an organised trip (be it interstate or in New Zealand). Even some of the stuff on the notorious bus trip to Qld in season one wouldn't of been allowed on an official tour.

Haven't some also been critical of the FFA's travel packages for the WCQ, we risk a similar reaction if you can only do these trip through official channels.

Druboy has his "away game-Europe-away game-Home" thing,

What can I say seeing 6 games of football in 7 weeks in 4 different countries appeals to me.

 

[Auburn Mariner]

Ah yes, the bus trip to Qld. Flags, bananas, Fire Extinguishers, 41C temps, Jetty Beach, Babylons.

Sorry to play Devil's Advocate, but I think that my membership of the Mariners is EXCELLENT value. The price per home match is RIDICULOUSLY cheap, I get the same seat each time, we have a good stadium (would be great except pitch is worse than the SCG Day 5) and we have a successful team. Note: I have the cheapest Adult Membership available.

I don't quite understand the big push for buses to the Newcastle International Sports Centre & the Sydney Football Stadium. Both are near enough to major Railway Stations, with heaps of trains, that buses are almost redundant (great fun, though!!).

Yes, I would like the Mariners to be more interactive with the fans, but I would suggest they keep us at arm's length for legal reasons (plausible deniability and all that legal jazz).

In summary, I would ask the following; do the members and/or fans here think that, in 2008-9, the Mariners have had made serious developments to ensure our viability WELL into the future? My answer would be unequivocally YES.

 

[dru]

I don't quite understand the big push for buses to the Newcastle International Sports Centre & the Sydney Football Stadium. Both are near enough to major Railway Stations, with heaps of trains, that buses are almost redundant (great fun, though!!).

I would much rather see free train travel as part of your match ticket, like it is in QLD and we saw in Sydney during the Olympics and we get for numerous big events.

 

[kevrenor]

I don't quite understand the big push for buses to the Newcastle International Sports Centre & the Sydney Football Stadium. Both are near enough to major Railway Stations, with heaps of trains, that buses are almost redundant (great fun, though!!).

I would much rather see free train travel as part of your match ticket, like it is in QLD and we saw in Sydney during the Olympics and we get for numerous big events.

Bingo ... I did not make friends at FFA over my hammering of them about that at the time of the Grand Final - when that should have happened.

A standard interstate/NZ away deal for fans (maybe members only, with tickets to game, meet-up with team if feasible, and contacts for accommodation or travel. That way you do your own thing but you feel part of the club, and sole travellers can meet up.

 

[serious14]

Druboy has his "away game-Europe-away game-Home" thing,

What can I say seeing 6 games of football in 7 weeks in 4 different countries appeals to me.

Um, dude......... that's a good thing.  You loony.