‘What do you, as the community, want from a football club?’  

A Curzon Ashton director has urged the people of Tameside to show their support for the highest ranked football club in the borough. 

Oliver Newall, who is also the club’s stadium announcer, recently took to Facebook to share his concerns following subpar attendances at the Tameside Stadium over the past few weeks. 

In a series of posts spread across various community groups, Newall received over 500 responses to the question: ‘What do you, as the community, want from a football club?’  

“I had the idea to make the post off the back of the first game of the season,” Newall told the Reporter.  

“We had a crowd of only 236 and even though we won the game, I just left feeling really deflated. 

“We had a massive campaign last year and made the play-offs for the first time in our history, so I just got home and thought- what more can we do?” 

Many local people and industry experts offered their advice, which he and the club were extremely grateful for: 

“The feedback was great, it allowed us to see where we were going wrong,” said Newall. 

“After looking through the responses, we realised our general advertising has not been good enough. 

“One particular person said they never see anything related to Curzon when they drive through Ashton- we do a lot on social media but we could perhaps do more in and around the town.” 

One Facebook user suggested the club should reduce their ticket prices, but director Oliver Newall says this would be potentially detrimental to the club: 

“It’s a really difficult one, it’s almost like two worlds colliding when it comes to this- it's people in the non-league football world who understand the costs involved, and it's the average football fan who maybe isn’t so aware. 

“To them, the price might seem way too much, and I fully understand that. 

“But we’ve always had fantastic offers on, and we’ve not always had the uptake, so there comes a point where we have to change something. 

“We’re not getting the support from the local community, but we might have 600 Chester fans coming down when we play them for example, so if we can raise the prices by a couple of pounds it will make a massive difference to us- it's about finding that balance. 

“Something we still have in place though is our membership offer, where members pay just £10 a match, which is unheard of at this level. 

“We also have some other great offers in the pipeline that will be announced very soon.” 

Another way the club are looking at increasing attendances is by focusing on the younger generation, which director Oliver Newall says could be key going forward: 

“We really suffer because we don’t have that generational support that almost every other club in the area has- no one's grandad is a Curzon Ashton fan. 

“If we can get some youngsters to come down for the first time then I really believe they’ll stick around- it's just getting them through the door that’s the problem. 

As well as advertising, and focusing on the younger generation, Newall believes changing people’s perception of the club could also make a big difference: 

“I think some people just think of us as a big field in the middle of nowhere with a couple of goalposts but we’re so much more than that, we’ve got tremendous facilities. 

“We just want to try and get the message across and help people to realise they’ve got a very good football club on their doorstep- we are the best chance Tameside has of having a club in the EFL. 

Curzon currently operate in the National League North, the 6th tier of English football, and have managed to stay in the division since their promotion in 2014, which Newall believes the club don’t get enough credit for: 

“People don’t appreciate how hard it is to stay in this division, other clubs have tried and failed and for us to do it on our budget against massive full-time clubs is just amazing- I don’t think enough people in Tameside know or understand that.” 

Despite having one of the lowest budgets in the league, Curzon have punched well above their weight time and time again, especially over the past few seasons. 

As mentioned, the club clinched a play-off spot for the first time in their history last campaign- narrowly missing out on a play-off semi final after losing on penalties to Chorley.  

“We’re essentially a semi-professional club in a professional league,” Newall told the Reporter. 

“Scunthorpe United visit us on Tuesday, and we’ve had huge clubs like Stockport County and York City visit us in the past.  

“It almost makes me laugh sometimes; we were away to Scunthorpe last year, a team who train every day and play in front of 4000 fans, and we go there and beat them 1-0- it's just unbelievable at times.” 

Following the success of last season, Newall admits expectations among those within the club have increased: 

“Some people have the mindset that just staying up is success, which it is, but if you don’t have the belief that you can get promoted then there’s no point being involved. 

“There was a real shift last year and we truly believed we had something special- we came so close to achieving our goal and I really do believe that if we beat Chorley, we would have gone up. 

“The aim for us this season is to go again and try and make the play-offs, and we believe we’ve got the squad to do that.” 

The Nash sit second in the National League North table after six games, following their perfect start to the season, where they took maximum points from their first three matches. 

Craig Mahon’s side welcome league leaders Scunthorpe United to the Tameside Stadium tonight (kick off 7:45pm), and the club are running a special ticket offer for season ticket holders of Premier League and EFL clubs. 

To find out more, click the link below: 

https://www.curzon-ashton.co.uk/news/an-offer-you-cant-refuse-2869029.html