Interesting thread. Especially on ground ownership by Xmas. I was surprised how critical Marc was of the 3G pitch after the game.  Whilst I am convinced it has helped win us a few points over the last couple of seasons, player welfare must come first and it does seem to produce more serious injuries than the grass.  I think hybrid might be the way forward - like Woking's immaculate surface.  It provides a good surface plus can take more games than grass - including community football.  But a 3G pitch at Westhumble would be ideal.

Pitch redevelopment would suck up pretty much all of the money raised so far though.  I heard that it is more likely to be used to provide a sustainable income stream for the long term - a sensible option - but I would like to hear a bit more from the club on this. 

In other news, Joe Cook was at least in the stand watching on Saturday, so maybe he has come in from the cold?  We will need some defensive reinforcements this season I think, but nice to see Calum Kennedy get on the pitch at last on Saturday.  

Interesting that the idea of Wrexham and Notts leaving is having an effect on attendance in the league. I know over here Messi has increased awareness and attendance for the MLS. Has there actually been a drop in attendance across all the teams, or is it only certain clubs? I genuinely would love to analyze the data of attendance. 

How does the ground grow? Like how does it actually, physically grow the stadium to increase capacity? I get that the Away section could use more amenity to it, but how much can they really build out from the current location? Also, if the club focuses on creating a better fan away experience in terms of seating would that actually encourage more away fans to attend? 

The attendance one is interesting. Aldershot's message board currently has a long thread on their 'poor' turn out against Chesterfield - around 1,800 home fans, with many stating a whole raft of different reasons including cost of living, train strikes, last week's defeat at Eastleigh and poor facilities putting many off.

That 1,800 figure makes some of our attendances more impressive I would say - given we are a much smaller and younger club, without the history and larger catchment to call on (though you could argue we are - and will - pick up from Guildford area as time goes on).

Catchment is also interesting - I'm from near Guildford myself, and for 20 years followed the Shots until my son persuaded me to join him at Dorking. It's a much better experience all round tbh. Both Shots and Dorking are around 20 mins away, Dorking possibly closer, but it feels like 'my' club in a way Aldershot never really did.

Maybe need a separate thread on this!

I think it may be a condition of the ground purchase that the community facility must continue.

Ade, I have periodically read Shotsweb just out of interest for their fans takes on this league, how their club is run etc

Whilst it comes across as quite a moany forum, I guess that is natural from fans who have supported the same club for 30, 40 or more years.

In their eyes the club was a mainstay of the EFL until 1992 and in the late 70's they were very briefly in the 2nd division (now known as the Championship)

While I see their ground as a classic, with features like the atmosphere enhancing barrel roof, the concrete terracing, the wooden stand, the classic floodlight pylons etc, many on there just see a lack of investment and somewhere that new young fans will find outdated and old fashioned. I remember when they hadn't mon a home game in months, one or two of their fans were actually willing a midweek attendance with minimal away support to be sub-1000 in the hope it'd be a wake up call to their owner, which is a really sad state of affairs that fans would actually want something bad to happen to their club like that!

The list of reasons they give for their 'poor' 1800 attendance could all be cited at Dorking - train strike (yes), cost of living (yes - and we just put the prices up this season), poor results (1 win in 6 prior to Saturday), poor facilities (arguable - but people could say it's not a great view when people stand along the front rail blocking the Park end goal for example, most of the seats are reserved etc)

What we do have, our USP if you like is Marc. He is box office. His communication is frequent, open and honest. Often very frank. When you go to a game, you really want to hear his post match comments on it, to see if you agree with his opinions and take on it! You wonder if he will have a rant about something, and if he will thank the fans (usually yes to both!). It's the X factor of non league managers - in reality it's having a park level manager with sometimes brutal honesty! I hope that doesn't change for a very long time!

I do think marketing is key. The online socials is huge for this club - Woking's forum was moaning the other day that our socials have bigger reach than theirs (they probably rightly consider themselves a bigger club in all other respects). But is our marketing largely limited to twitter, instagram and posters on lampposts? Could we have those posters in a few High Street shop windows if businesses are club sponsors, like Tikka Nation or Lime Designs for example? Are our marketing efforts largely being spent on attracting and retaining club sponsors? Can we repeat the schools ticketing offers for example? 

Of course with a non league community club, if you suggest something the response is usually 'can you do that for the club yourself as a volunteer?' And this club has grown stupendously over the last 5 years. Ridiculously this club probably needs to grow the same amount again over the next 5 years to be in with a should of progressing higher. And I back the club to do what it takes! 

We have fans wearing merch, the website is excellent, online ticketing, and superb social media reach.

I suspect the Shares issue has absolutely knackered everyone behind the scenes, it was a vast campaign generating hundreds of new contacts, queries and emails to answer! It probably will be a ton of work for months to come fulfilling all the 'perks'. Hundreds of hospitality places will have to be filled, stacks of merch issued and someone will have to stay on top of managing lots of people now entitled to extra VIP services like table bookings and complimentary tickets.

As I said previously, I think it's just the school hols and our numbers will grow again, but we mustn't be complacent. Hopefully we get some bigger crowds before we play Aldershot here at the end of October, which is likely to be the first 'biggie' of the season here!