Whilst I generally applaud the club for trying to look forwards and introduce something a little different, the latest survey sent to fans makes me think that no one at the club actually understands football fans !
Saints fans recently found a survey from Saints drop into their e mail accounts, but most of the questions were somewhat bewildering and some seemed to indicate to fans that the club were testing the water to see if fans would stomach a season ticket rise.
I usually stick up for the club when they try to connect with the supporter base, but I found the whole tone of the survey strange to say the least and my feeling that whoever had compiled it had never been a football fan and was totally out of touch with what the majority of football supporters actually want as was illustrated recently when the Dell supporters bar was converted into an overpriced upmarket burger bar.
Phil Gatrell is a season ticket holder and lifelong fan spoke to the Daily Echo to say that the survey was ill-timed given the poor start to the season.
Gatrell said:
"It felt a bit like a cold sales pitch which was devoid of any football related questions to balance it out.
"On face value, it appears there is a great deal happening to boost what our hospitality currently offers, instead of improving what is happening on the pitch.
"It would have gone down a lot better if they said they would use the extra money from the proposed changes to do something like building a dedicated train station outside the ground.”
This was the general feeling amongst the supporters that I spoke to and again although they seem to have had good intentions the Club has shot itself in the foot due to a complete lack of understanding about how football supporters and Saints fans in particular feel about things at the moment.
The fans need a feelgood factor at the moment, indeed the club should be looking at ways to reduce season ticket prices at present and rewarding those who have stuck by the club through thick and thin.
All it needs is someone within the club that truly understands the football fan culture, at present it seems that those in the marketing department and indeed in the boardroom are looking purely at balance sheets and not the reality, which is that without the fans the club is nothing.
Saints did backtrack and issue the following statement to the Daily Echo.
"A number of fans who have attended events at St Mary’s were approached to provide their views on a range of ideas for consideration, in order to make sure any new products introduced in the future are based on input from our supporters.
"Our sole aim is to continue to understand the views and expectations of our supporters and identify which potential changes to the St Mary’s experience they would most value and enjoy."
Again this perhaps shows how out of touch the marketing department seems to be, most Saints fans do not attend "events" at the club, the core support of the club are people who can barely afford the overpriced cost of watching Premier League football let alone attend "events"
By question those who have attended said events, the club is not getting a broad spectrum of views, it is getting a small percentage of the fan base given that many who attend non footballing events are probably not Saints supporters or even football fans for that matter.
Saints are making progress in creating the Saints Voice and hopefully that will develop into something that can give the fans a voice, but it's early days yet for this group and to be fair most Saints fans are unaware of it's existence and that has to change.
Southampton Football Club should be aware that it is in a very precarious position with regard to it's relationship with it's supporters, I would say that it is at an all time low, even worse than the Branfoot days or even the Rupert Lowe era, the difference then was that the gripe was only with the club, now many are becoming disillusioned with football in general, Saints doing badly is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Premier League is all about greed, the greed of the TV companies, the greed of the players and the greed of the football clubs, those that start to take their fan bases for granted might just get a short sharp shock.