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Quote from: Ian Harwood (Hale Alty) on Yesterday at 05:02:08 PM

Maybe remember why you were able to bring your own sandwiches, not have to travel far to away games, stand where you want and have all that fun?

It was because we had two horrid seasons, double relegations, dropped to our lowest level in living memory, protests against the chairman, crap crowds, poisonous atmosphere, manager after manager, losing runs. That's what it took and I never want to see that again.

I seem to remember a poisonous atmosphere when we didn't change a manager as well a few years before that. Rowley got a lot of stick for that too (despite probably being correct on that occasion). But I agree there are plenty of positives at the moment. The thing is to make the changes required to progress whilst taking as many of our longstanding fans with us as possible, and it is always worth discussing what we can do better. I for one wouldn't necessarily consider it progress if we were getting bigger crowds (like MK Dons) but lost many of the supporters we were getting in previous years, and I hope and believe that will not happen. It can't be emphasised enough how important it is to have a long standing supporter who understands the club as chairman.

Anyway, looks like it won't be long until fence standing and the fan zone return, and that will help massively. I only regret that it looks like the old programmes shop won't be returning.

I stood by the CSH at the end of the first half yesterday and went straight in at half time but still barely had time to finish my drink before the second half started. We badly need facilities to return to the "fan zone" corner if we are going to get these sort of crowds regularly.

Certainly things to be learnt from King's Court and Costello's. And there are the people who did up the Gardner's Arms who came in with a reputation for turning places around (as I remember). These are the sort of people we want to be speaking to.

These new plans for the Fan Zone make me absolutely despair. Of course it makes sense on one level for the club to maximise revenue but if the intention is just to replicate the very poor beer selection from the CSH, that will backfire massively. It's so short-sighted not to see what value Libero and other independent food outlets could add to the matchday experience. More than that though, Libero seems to have done more than the club itself to at least try and get the Fan Zone up and running. So for us to boot them out now is really shoddy. Incredibly disappointing.

Don't Dulwich Hamlet do something of the sort with good quality independent food and drink at Champion Hill? There was even a suggestion that some people come there more for this than the football. Certainly they have been getting the crowds in so they must be doing something right! Worth learning from?

I suspect they wouldn't have been too many at Halifax!

Am I right in thinking that the Huddersfield cup match (1990), when it was quite packed on the steep Chequers End terracing, is the only time (at least since 1990) that perimeter fencing has collapsed at ML? And is the current fencing structurally significantly different to the fencing we had previously? And will the current capacity (5,000?) be increased once the fencing issue is sorted?

(See interview).

Let's hope things are back to normal next season. "Oh Ryan Colclough I think we should pay you some more".

That reminds me, who plays at Flixton these day? I'm sure I read something about it recently but I forget who it was.

And do they still sell Lancashire hotpot there?

After being told everyday the countdown to the pre season etc, I find it strange that the website has no news of todays games or teams etc.

If it wasn’t for the folk on the forum no information would be forthcoming on todays fixtures.

Pre season rant over.

A report on both games on the Alty Files site.

I would say though that it would be worth making a recording of the ever informative (apart from on a few of those trialists!) Radio Robins commentary available online, if indeed this hasn't already been done.

Speaking of trialists, the West supporters had a song for one of their trialists (there was singing at all three NWCL friendlies I've seen this preseason) - and a song about celery!