Towards the end of last season, the Leyton Orientear published an article by LOFT chair Doug Harper about encouraging more people - and in particular children - to support Leyton Orient. The article is reproduced below in full, as the issues remain live ones for the club.

The young ones (shouldn't be afraid)

An often asked question is, “How can we get more people to watch Leyton Orient?”

To me, the actual question could be seen as part of the problem. The Question should be “How can we get more people to watch Leyton Orient and turn them into fans?”

At first glance, it looks like the Orient fan base is older than when I first regularly came as a schoolboy, although that may be a factor affecting football as a whole, rather than just Orient. We are certainly not the only club in the lower leagues whose attendances are poor.

We shouldn’t knock the Club for what it does do in continuing the distribution of free tickets to local schools and encouraging children to come in that fashion. But we have to ask whether that is enough to secure the fan base of the future from the local community.

What kids need is a way of identifying with the club I know that players do on occasions visit schools, but it is on the actual match day when they need to feel a part of the set up and feel involved in their local Football Club. It’s making kids feel involved with the Club as a whole which will keep them coming back for more.

Several ideas could be possible; going behind the scenes on match days, maybe a competition for two kids to be mascots, a welcome to the school or class in the match day programme and on the PA, a goody bag.

None of us want to interfere in the team’s match-day preparations, but these ideas should be achievable and would involve the kids with the match they were watching. But this has to be a continued effort and not just a one off.

I also feel that the club should target older school kids that can go to matches on their own, as younger ones would have the added disadvantage of having to continue to find an often reluctant parent to take them.

If the Club are going to target younger kids, they need to be aware that football – especially London football - is ever more unaffordable, and come up with incentives to enable younger kids and their parents to come back to Orient.

The big problem with the younger potential fans, is that they have been brought up on a diet of Premiership football. The Premiership is extensively covered in the media, to saturation point, and some kids may feel that supporting a club from the lower leagues will make them seem more than a little strange in front of their friends.

We have to, as fans and as a Club, try and show those kids that watching Premiership football on the telly is nothing like the atmosphere that can be created by watching football live (even in the pouring rain, and even when the performance is less than thrilling). We all know, because we go to football, that nothing beats it, so why can’t we convince the kids that the Premiership isn’t the only answer?

There are ways around this one way could be to brand Football at Orient as ‘The Real Deal’. Something along the lines of “Instead of sitting on the sofa, come to LOFC and experience a REAL game of football without Advert Breaks or Andy Gray!”

Millwall have been advertising on the Underground this season, at Zone 1 stations; maybe Orient should do the same at Liverpool Street? “Come and watch real football, just four stops down the Central Line from here!”. Or along the lines of the old kids’ TV programme “Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go out and do something more interesting instead?”. The angle has so much mileage

The residents of Waltham Forest should be told that this is their club (whether they like it or not). There should be billboards, advertising not just fixtures (as used to happen in local shops) but the very existence of the club. A great big billboard with a picture of the fans at the end of the Oxford game, and some smart comment like ‘Feel a part of Leyton’ or some such thing. Maybe there should be a sign at Leyton Station saying Welcome to Leyton, Home of LOFC?

To this end, local businesses should be encouraged to identify themselves with the club (and I am not just talking about ASDA here). Walking towards a lot of away grounds, there is a sense of shared identity between the clubs and local businesses, a lot of which are named around the team or nickname or even having pubs with a connected name. That has broken down in Leyton in recent years, and I think even the Orient School of Motoring has closed down.

With a bit of encouragement there could be any number of shops with an Orient connection and a picture of the team in their windows.

If the club is serious about trying to get the local community involved, I really think that there should be some kind of survey conducted in Waltham Forest (and then the surrounding areas). This could take place either, in conjunction with the council, by mail-shot, or in the local press. The Club would even ask the shops throughout the Borough to display surveys. The survey could have a prize as an incentive to complete it. The Club could then find out why the there is not greater attendance from the local area at games and what might increase that attendance.

With permission gievn by those that complete the survey, a database could be formed and emails/mail shots sent off to those who MAY be persuaded to attend and become a fan at our football club.

That suggestion would obviously take time, and therefore manpower. However, again, that could be overcome. Certainly LOFT have been willing in the past, and would be in the future, to support on-going efforts by the Club to reach out to the community. LOFT has told the Club this, and I hope, as LOFT Chair, that those who need to know do know that they could call on us for assistance.

As a final thought; we all know that issues in relation to ticket prices are always going to affect the number of fans who attend matches. That concern isn’t exclusive to Orient, but has been shown in the number of Premiership sides who’ve recently reduced ticket prices. There isn’t a simple answer to that question, and, no doubt, the Club will have to respond in some way if more Premiership clubs reduce ticket prices. However, simple economics would tell us that there’s a point at which an increase in attendance would match a reduction in ticket pricing. Certainly the club should be applauded for the recent initiative offering free tickets to under-16s.

The task of getting new fans into the ground (and returning) is not an easy one. For example: the recent issue of WFM (Waltham Forest Magazine) had a full page spread about LOFT and Leyton Orient. I have not had one response from the article that is sent to every house in the Borough)

Sure, it would be a long term project to turn apathetic residents into fans of the club that we love, but I am sure that it would reap dividends if it was attempted.

Doug Harper
LOFT Chair