Canterbury United

Well this confirms it, but also a HUGE signing to get Messenger back. He was great last season! Canterbury Re-sign Messenger

From The Press this morning Daniel Thoms (Western) added to the Dragon's squad with Hamish Foy (Universities) now making himself unavaliable. (Story in the In Brief section so not link provided) 

Now that first team is taking shape, anyone know when youth squad will be announced?

Pre Season games. October 9th Tasman United play Southern United at English Park.

Canterbury play Southern in Timaru on the 15th.

Are these game's for the Youth or SS Prem squads. Cheers

Maybe for both but my info is for SS Prem teams at least.

Have Canterbury United got a game v ACFC this year?

Southern United get a lot of stick but the web based info from them is the best in the league by a long way.

From the Nelson Mail: Coach George Campbell retires - several ex Dragons players mentioned:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/sport/84703533/...

George was a great servant to Nelson football, I loved going to his academy and he really was a very good youth coach. He's leaving a massive gap in Nelson Football development and he will be missed very much.

Yes George had a huge part in turning / developing plenty of great players for the Nelson region.

The Press mentioned a friendly vs. Auckland City on Saturday October 8 at English Park.

Then vs. Southern in Timaru on Saturday October 15:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/84013408/Thr...

"Canterbury have pre-season games against Auckland City at English Park on October 8 and Southern in Timaru on October 15."

Canterbury United confirm on Facebook that the Auckland City friendly is on Saturday at 1.30 pm English Park

(though they seem confused about days of the week - their post says "Sunday 8 October" - note that 8 October is actually Saturday....)

https://www.facebook.com/events/1790419011171476/

One job. 

Speaking of which, let's do the math.  
2015/16 season - 7 games (including one that meant we could get into Phoenix) was $50.  
2016/17 season - 9 games (no Phoenix) and it's $90 with a scarf.  Might as well just pay a tenner on the gate.

Except it won't be a tenner on the gate this season.

I'm guessing it'll be $15.

7 games at $50 was $7 and 14 cents per game.

This year's 9 games for $90 is $10 each

The difference of $2.and 86 cents doesn't bother me much.

Last season's season ticket was one of those "too good to be true moments" which had no precedent and probably won't be repeated in our lifetimes. They probably got given the Phoenix tickets for free for promotional purposes.

A friend living in England tells me his local non-league (seventh tier) club charges ten pounds per game ($20)

All except two English National League (formerly known as the Conference - or 5th tier) clubs charge 200 pounds or more for a season ticket - and some charge up to 300 pounds or $600 for a season ticket. Admittedly that's for 23 home games though.

Standard entry fee in UK for below Conference North/South (Step 7/8 etc) is $20 or a tenner. 

Reckon NZ should be $10 tbh - makes it easier and you don't need to break a note or get change.

From The Press: Batty back at the Dragons

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/84902031/for...

Thanks for the comparison with another country, a different league, and a season that is 46 games long...

My point is it is hard enough to get people to come along for $10 a game, let alone anything more. We should be having incentives to get people in the gate, not putting barriers up to not going. I reckon $5 a game, kids free. And every registered Mainland player (who already pays a Canterbury Utd levy) gets one free ticket to use at a game over the year.

The Canty website and Facebook posts all say $10 an adult. Nelson are free, Southern used to be free, interesting how other teams do it.

Scarf will be very useful in a Summer league....  

How about adequate toilets?  So the players don't have to vault the hoadings and pee against the fence.

Agree anymore than $10 will put people off.

Tasman playing Southern United at English Park on Sunday at Midday

How much to watch?

From The Press: Dan Terris Interview

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/84991570/dan...

From The Press: Review Dragons verse Auckland City pre-season

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/85088841/can...

Brock Messenger showed me his photos with Argentina's Copa America team after the Auckland City friendly last weekend.

Brock played the full 90 for his American club side against Argentina's Copa America first choice team with Messi, Aguero etc. in Argentina's last hit-out before the Copa in June. He showed me the photos with him and Messi, Aguero etc. on the weekend. By the way, they only lost 3-1. Played behind close doors, no cameras or mobile phones allowed - photos allowed after the game.

I agree, the cheaper the better in order to boost crowd numbers - biggest crowds in the league last season.

But I imagine that Canterbury United need the money to sustain the team.

$10 seems reasonable.

The entry fee for the league is fairly steep and they have to provide for the many out of town players they've brought in (and they have to bring in players  - a team based only on local players would be pretty mediocre).

The other teams in the league are generally charging $10 or more.

Auckland City has been $15 the last two seasons and have been happy with their crowds.

Team Wellington charged $15 last season I think.

Southern were a gold coin donation last season but $15 and $10 the two seasons before that.

Nelson are free in their first season due to substantial sponsorship from Nelson Pine Industries but it's unlikely they'll maintain that.

There's some discussion on ticket prices here:

https://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/asb-premi...

Supporters in Auckland wish they could pay as little as $10 in their dreams:

 https://in-the-back-of-the.net/2016/03/29/supporti...

Thanks for reading that Pete, I enjoyed writing it. $10 means its a single note, no change etc. Just a nice round number.

Team Wellington was $10 last season. season ticket is $60 for 9 games this season

Canty Utd last year was $10, and $50 for 7 games.  This year $10 and $90 for 9 games.  

Go figure.

Wow, TW are going apeshark on social media and offering cheap season tickets and even replica shirts for $65.

You do get a scarf [would've been good having it last Sunday in the Steve Sumner stand] for the $90 but have to recycle your old team shirts or pay for a new T Shirt.

Pay the $90 and get a park on the grass by the gate. Seeing as the crowd will be sooo huge we can't park for miles around or walk the 100 mts.

Yet Canterbury Dragons...with Youth team starting this weekend and seniors in a week.

Twitter: posts on 4 days of the last 18 days, one of which has nothing to do with Canterbury Dragons: including SS photoshoot, Batty signing, Mainland Football schools promotion by Annalie Longo and match commentary of game v ACFC.

Facebook: pretty much as above but not the Longo Mainland promo, plus pics of first team shirt presentation (no player names)

Website: inactive, with a link to a 2110/2011 ASBP page on the NZF website

Players Clearances to SS Premiership: none (youth or senior) as of Thursday night on the Mainland Football Clearance page

Youth team announcement: nothing - season starts this weekend

So, Team Welly killing it from marketing perspective (player signings, team announcements, replica shirt sales, open trainings for fans to meet players, call for individual player sponsorship and goodness know what else); whereas Canterbury, well, NOT.SO.MUCH.

Who is doing the marketing at Mainland-Canterbury-Pride-Dragons-United now?

pretty poor. no excuse for the lack of digital information from any of the franchises

waitak are silent as usual. kick them out if they can't start promoting the game properly

piss poor from hamilton wanderers given they are new to the league, they're just re-posting stuff articles on facebook. apparently they have some problems with their domain, no excuses. do they have problems with facebook and twitter too?

eastern suburbs official page is terrible, but at least they have one and their promotion through player signings is cool

tasman are doing well but need their own website. i would have thought this would have been one of the first things any new franchise would do, but they are doing well

TW and ACFC kicking butt

Tasman have a lovely site and a supporters contact - the ACFC lot have arranged an away day to Tasman with his help...

http://www.tasmanunited.nz/

i'd rather teams not be on twitter than picking up players from all over the world

as a neutral (pretty much) what is the issue with the Suburbs page, just curious as I am helping them out with comms so keen to see if there is any areas that can be improved easily. 

Mainland a bit slow on some things but Tom Batty clearance was requested on the 21/9 and granted by Dunedin Tech according to Southern website. No other requests spotted from Dragons to MPL clubs etc.

Southern much better than the Dragons and Mainland at keeping fans informed.

http://footballsouthnz.co.nz/      And     http://footballsouthnz.co.nz/     Two sites to follow.

Is there a team in the league without imports??

yes, that is a good site, had no idea it existed, thanks balbi!

hi chopah, IMO mainly the poor design and navigation, but also there is a real shortage of SS prem info and it's difficult to find

for example here is the page titled 'ss premiership' http://www.easternsuburbs.org.nz/sspremiership2016... empty

do some tests, try pretending you don't know who the first team coach is and use the web site to try to find out. try to find out who's on the playing roster or who's signed this week. try to find out where and when the first games is. i'm sure it's all there but high priority info needs to be thrust in front of visitors

football club web sites are not easy because they have to develop community, information, profile and news. people will come mainly for information  but if you can get them engaging through the website (news) and checking back regularly, the web site becomes more effective

this is a great example of how a club's web site could be effective http://www.arsenal.com/home. granted they are mainly concerned with the EPL team, but everything is there and easy to find