Just 18156 turned up for the win over a Bristol City, however was this inevitable because if the opposition or even the weather?
Leeds escaped from the worst of the "beast from the east" last Friday, Bristol arguably bore the brunt and somewhere inbetween was I in the East Midlands. Having heard of horror stories on Friday night of one work colleague who endured a four hours eight mile journey home, I made sure I was up with the lark to clear the snow and assess the roads locally.
Luckily I live about two miles from the A42 which links nicely onto the M1/M621 all the way to Leeds. We set off an hour earlier than normal and made it into Leeds just after one.
Speaking pragmatically, Bristol City were never going to bring thousands despite the appointment of Sean O'Driscoll. Slumping to the bottom of the table, Uncle Ken's controversial West Stand ticketing prices and pay on the day wouldn't have slumbered that many more of our West Country friends up north had it been eighty degrees in the shade. It was reported they had sold around 200 tickets on Friday, just two coach loads were spotted at Elland Road and I'm sure I spotted more of them at the Burger King at Woolley Edge than at the ground! The midweek burger scare obviously not putting them off their food.
There was a rank fishy smell inside ER, maybe it was the ice which lingered in patches beneath the seats? The West Stand barely looked a quarter full. Had the snow turned to rain, we could have taken our pick of at least ten empty rows behind us in the East Stand for shelter. There were big gaps in the South Stand and the Kop there was a noticeable patch of seats.
It took me back to the nutty Professor John McKenzie's comment of turning an oil tanker round. Really GFH Capital have a similar job on their hands, to entice 6000-10000 customers back lost in the latter days of the Bates era. Fans sick to the back teeth of high prices, talent sold or allowed to leave and corporate facility building over team building.
The new owners have attempted to address the pricing argument by offering a deal for the Peterborough and Blackpool fixtures next month where adults can get in for £20 and £5 for kids, even one high-profile target of Bates in students are being wooed with £10 tickets. Existing ST holders are reassured that this deal will be reflected in our renewal pricing structure.
On the subject of which I tweeted @salempatel, on Friday I activated our four season ticket cards for the Spurs game and was shocked that lufc were charging me a quid a ticket web booking fee for doing so, even though there is no tickets to print and post! You can of course escape this charge by queuing at the ticket office! Yet another nasty little Bates stealth tax which although isn't put to shame by the likes of Ryanair could do with reviewing.
The Spurs game will be interesting as a barometer as to how far GFH have captured the hearts and minds of the Leodisan public in a short soace of time. Personally I feel that it won't be a sell out on par with the Chelsea League Cup clash. GFH used their programme notes (again Bates's legendary literary blast was notably absent, a PR exercise or maybe GFH cannot afford the post programme note legal fees?) to call for us to show the world what an amazing club we are!
However I fear the attendance next Sunday will be effected by one of the few legal battles Bates actually won, this one being the policing costs case. As a result, Spurs can now only bring 3000 supporters when realistically they could have brought 5000-6000.