Ive been meaning to share my personal story for a little while but probably now is a better time than any..
I grew up in the city of Sheffield to a house full of Sheffield Wednesday supporters. In the mid 90's Wednesday were the pride of the city playing in the Premiership at the historic Hillsborough with the lines of Benito Carbone and Paolo Di Canio on their books.
However as some of you would know their are two pro clubs in Sheffield, the other being Sheffield United who at that point of time were struggling to make a blip on the radar or compete with the fanfare of Wednesday. Anyways around 1997 Sheffield united started sending a couple of players to 1 school a week before home games. Not just to talk about football and promote Sheffield United but to give away 500 double passes (1 adult ticket and 1 child ticket) for free to the school - so 1000 tickets in total. I was fortunate to be able to get 1 of the double passes and went to watch Sheffield United play and was instantly hooked.
From then on any pocket money, birthday cash, xmas cas etc went on buying tickets to watch Sheffield United. During that season it was interesting to watch the croud grow slowly each week as about 5-10% of the kids who got free tickets from each previous school continued to attend games while 1000 new attendees came along. From then on in the football started to improve with a lively croud behind them and Sheffield United made it into the premiership.
Now almost 20 years on Sheffield United still get over 20,000 supporters to their home games as those kids have grown up and still continued to support the team depsite being in League 1 (2 leagues down from the Premiership) - including myself!
I wonder if the Phoenix could do something like this, obviously its not going to bring in any money but I dont think thats the aim right now. Any supporters who have already paid for season tickets my see it as being unfair on them but as they say the cause is greater than the effect and hopefully should be pretty understanding all things considered
Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors. -- Frank Gifford