Analysis by John Lloyd
With 914 respondents, the Close Season Survey continues to be the largest independently sourced sample of the Green Army’s views on all things Argyle, with a 10% increase in participation this year – and it has revealed some fascinating insights into how the club is perceived by its fans as it prepares for another campaign in the Skybet Football League.
As Derek Adams builds his Argyle team, hoping to go one better than his predecessor John Sheridan, he will be pleased to hear that his new club’s supporters are very optimistic about their chances with more than three quarters of Argyle fans thinking that PAFC will be in the top positions next season – in fact, one in four believe that automatic promotion is in sight. Not one respondent suggested that relegation was a fear.
Looking back on last season, the emotional “disconnect” between Sheridan and the Green Army is revealed, as the question on first team management performance shows a big drop in those who judged the management performance as “good”, falling from nearly 60% overall to just over 44%, mirrored by an increase in those who judged it “poor” from 12.5% to 26.4%, despite Argyle ending the season in the playoff positions.
The sense that the team might have achieved more under a different management style is reaffirmed by the responses to the related question on first team performances, where perversely there is an increase in those who rated the first team’s performances as “good” from 49% to 55%, back to 2013 levels. This paradoxical pair of results implies that the Green Army may have thought that their team was better than the manager that led it.
As the first team continues to score better results year on year after administration, the off-field operation is also showing signs of improvements too, with higher satisfaction ratings in many areas, but still with some gnawing issues that have not been adequately addressed.
Beyond the cost of match tickets, perennially considered to be too high by some, the greatest bugbear for Argyle fans is the cost and quality of food and drink at Home Park, as well as the time taken in queuing for it.
There has been a small improvement recorded, with a more than 5% increase in those who are “satisfied” and nearly a 10% drop in those who are not – but the bare figures are not pretty reading, with less than a quarter being happy and more than 40% being “dissatisfied”.
Half of all respondents are “dissatisfied” with the time it takes to get served and only 15% are content with the queues.
Ticket prices are an ongoing issue, with £15-20 being considered the “right” price to pay by most. There is still strong support for occasional ticket offers with more than 75% of respondents approving and only 8% registering disapproval, consistent over the years this survey has been running.
A significant 80% agree that there should be a supporters bar in the ground, with 14% neutral on the idea.
In recent times, supporter forums and social media comments have raised concerns on a number of issues – kit selections, communication from the club, the club shop and the official website have all been openly criticised. The results of related questions suggest that these concerns have merit, but not always quite as much as some would suggest.
On the topic of away kit choices, very nearly half of all respondents are dissatisfied with the selections made, a little more than a quarter are “satisfied”, with the remainder undecided. Given the revenues potentially lost to the club from unpopular kit choices, this is an important issue for the club to carefully consider.
Around 60% say that the kits should only change every two years, while more than 40% say they are “satisfied” with all kit consultations, a quarter are unhappy and a third have no strong opinion.
For those who have criticised the club’s communications with the fans, the results from this question are intriguing. A third of respondents rank this aspect as “good”, compared with just one in four last year. The numbers of those who rank it as “poor” have declined from 46% to 37%, year on year, a notable improvement.
More positive improvements can be seen with the programme, with 60% being satisfied with it – more than 6% up on last year and from just under half in 2013. Looking at it the other way, those who are dissatisfied with it have dropped from 9.4% to just 2.6% this year.
Another area where recent forum posts have suggested there is fan discontent is the club’s use of its official website. This is not supported by the results of the survey, which shows that more than 56% are satisfied with the club’s OS, up just under 7% from 2014 and 16% above the 2013 mark. Just over a fifth are unhappy with the website, well down from more than a third in 2013.
The club’s use of social media seems to be getting more support, with over 40% satisfied and just over 17% unhappy, compared to one in four for each option last year.
There are consistently high levels of positive opinion about the various supporters groups, with the Green Taverners maintaining their place as the most popular and with the AFT maintaining it’s 90% + name recognition score and improving it’s approval score to above 60% over the last 12 months. It’s also good to see much lower numbers of those who have negative opinions about any of the supporters groups, particularly when compared to 2013.
Following the end of the PASB experiment with supporter engagement, there has been a slight drop in supporter interest this area, with 58% asking for “more” involvement for supporters groups within the club compared to 62% in 2014, but fewer than 5% want there to be “less” involvement. The message is clear – the Green Army wants supporter group representation at their club, in one form or another.
Finally, in this fast moving, socially interactive, shiny and modern world, some old traditions sustain. Just under two thirds believe that Semper Fidelis must be played in full as the teams come out, with a fifth saying an edited version is acceptable and one in ten who say that it isn’t important to them.
You can click here to download and view a full PDF of the results.
For the Club’s comments on the survey, click here.
Bob Foale. AFT Chairman said “The Argyle Fans’ Trust would like to thank John Lloyd for the work he has put into compiling this information. We are pleased to see the club engaging with the process in such a collegiate way, even when it is being held it up for some criticism. The comment that this is a definitive benchmark of opinion is refreshing to hear. The AFT looks forward to addressing the issues raised by this survey in our monthly meetings with the CEO during the coming season.”
[A note on the demographics: 95% of respondents were male; the two biggest age groups are 46-55 and 56-65 (42.3%); less than 30% have children living at home; more than 50% claim to have supported Argyle for more than 30 years; 70% come from Plymouth, Devon or Cornwall with about one in ten from the South East.]
