I don't think there is a problem with ticket prices, kickoff times, weather too hot, too cold, too windy, too sunny, too cloudy, too humid, too dry... all of these are generally thrown around as excuses but they are pretty minor things really.
If people are going to say 5:30 kickoff is interrupting my Saturday activities of (insert boring crap here) as a reason NOT to go to a game then the problem lies elsewhere. People should rather be at the football, watching their team win/lose/draw, than anywhere else.
It just seems the passion for most people isn't there. We have a good little core crowd building now, and we have quite a few fence-sitters (or fairweather fans) who will go to the big games, but we need more people feeling like it is their duty to be at every game cheering their team on, no matter what. How? .... uhhhhmmmmmmm...
That's exactly the point I was trying to make with my inelegant "Harden the f**k up" comment. I don't back away from that comment though - we DO need to get to a point where we have a bigger hard core support that would crawl over broken glass to get to a game. We need to build that sort of loyalty\attitude.
Loyalty can be built in a number of ways:
Loyalty to the Club through promoting the 'Mariners' brand
Loyalty to the region through promoting the 'Central Coast' brand
Loyalty to the team and players eg. through promoting our individual players, especially 'stars' so that they are seen as true celebrities
Loyalty to the football code through promoting to players and officials from other areas of football community, eg. grass roots, local comps, etc.
Loyalty to the fellow fans that attend games, eg. support for each other inside the stadium
I'm sure the Club to some degree has all these covered, and some additional angles have been suggested already in this thread, but I'm sure there are other angles\ideas yet to be tapped.
A couple more points.
Media
Central Coast has a big twin obstacle in being 1) wedged between the bigger cities of Sydney and Newcastle, cities that have their own major media outlets, and 2) being just north of the worst promoted Club in the A-League - Sydney - who attract pitiful crowd numbers. That is a big impediment that will mainly lessen as the internet medium reaches it's fuller potential through generational change, and the anti-football print medium becomes less relevant.
Excess humility
The Central Coast also, probably more so than other places, has the 'tall poppy' mentality. That can be a negative as well as a positive. We pride ourselves on being the underdog, flying below the radar, having a 'no dickheads' player policy, being a 'workmanlike' squad, punching above our weight, etc. All good stuff, but not something that bankable in a marketing sense when trying to convert\attract new followers. Let's face it - we are a magnificent Club, with some real stars, and a very good coaching staff, sitting on top of the table.
Ground atmosphere
While I can understand the ground announcer is trying their hardest to generate some noise and involvement from the grandstands with their "Let's cheer for your team", I groan when I think that we've sunk to that level. All you get is a half-hearted one second 'Yeah' and all falls silent again (apart from Bay 16).
I'll pre-empt my next point by saying that I think the Yellow Army is absolutely fantastic in it's passion and wit (TIFO), and its engine for singing the entire match, and the new repertoire of 'Euro chants'.
But, I also think that things have dipped slightly when it comes to engaging the whole stadium. In the Marinator days there was always a few simple chants that would get the other bays rocking, and there were visual displays that were more visible beyond the bay. Not talking here about the pre-game banner of course, that's superb. I mean flags and mini- banners. They've nearly vanished.
While the TIFO is fantastic and I hope it continues (I've never laughed so much as after the Jets one last weekend), it's a damned lot of work for a sixty second airtime, never to be seen again. It would be nice to see plenty of colour and motion again at various other times in the match. And I don't mean ripping flares.
Experience should tell us that you will never get the other bays singing along to the more complicated Yellow Army tunes, nor witty offensive songs, good as they may be. While "Mariners, Mariners, Mariners" is a simple chant and some hate it, its strength is in getting the less musically inclined involved. There was a hint of that in the last match. Nothing like the whole stadium chanting in unison to get the spine tingling. The Yellow Army getting the timing right to engage the other bays and replacing the ground announcer's plea is what I would like to see. Maybe there are other super-simple chants that we can use?
Sponsor tie-ins
One of the biggest and best potential community promotional tie-ins has got to be our sponsorship with 'Soccer5's'. If this enterprise succeeds as it should, as it does world-wide, it is a massive win-win for football at the grass roots and A-league level. We see the 'Soccer5's' staff and logo everywhere on match day. Do we see the Mariners brand being pumped heavily at 'Soccer5s' venue? I hope so. Considering they are our major sponsors, maybe it's worth a pinned topic under the Central Coast football section on this site? Could cover tournaments, teams, leagues, promos, etc., or just general banter.
Finally, a little humour in regards to the issue of club\player loyalty. We Aussies are mostly way behind in that department when compared to overseas. I spotted this in Amsterdam:
It is a shrine for football fans to pray and light a candle for their favourite deceased player or coach. Now that's loyalty!
