Do you as a Leeds Supporter think Lust is a good thing ?

Do you as Leeds Supporter's think LUST is a good thing ?
How would you like LUST to represent you?

 

I'm ambivalent, although Suzannah likes a bit of lust.

Are we feeling ill yet?

 

I think they should concentrate on telling Ken Bates that the current strategy he is employing is clearly not working. Fight him with his own accounts, not with demands for the team to be promoted.

Fight him on the fact that he has not built up a business where he is building the number of supporters, or customers, but is losing them. It is impossible for any business to go forward using his current model of not giving a damn about the paying customer:

a) lack of value for money in comparison to other clubs in the Championship - do some real analysis on every club's ticket prices in the Championship
b) alienation of fans/customers - why do he and his directors have to respond in such a bad manner to supporters who clearly do not feel that the strategy is right?
c) lack of fans representatives on the board
d) other accounting issues - cashflow problems, sale of season tickets for £5m facility, anonymous sale of preferential shares at 25% markup - who to?
e) loss in supporters attending matches
f) diversification and expensive new entrants into low profit-margin industries that the football club is subsidising - will the hotel be profitable? Do some market research into this
g) next two years' turnover and cashflow problems due to loss of fans at matches and having taken on further debt and plans to spend more

This financial stuff is what Bates is in the business for and what he claims he is good at. So the financial facts and the lack of business acumen being employed should be what he is countered with.

Bates's argument and his meek followers always pipe up about the PR Pete "living the dream", and demands to be promoted only feed that argument back against us. So remove that - look long term at the current strategy and argue why it is not working, rather than argue for a completely different strategy that is easy to counter

 

As often is the case, I agree with 666. I don't think having protests is the right way to go about things any more. Bates needs reasoning with.

Protests and Bates Out chants just rile Bates - but they also rile other supporters.

LUST IMO could do a lot to make the club realise that they need to offer incentives to get supporters back in the ground. If LUST came up with some good ideas, the club may eventually start listening.

 

LUFC666 Elmo: Please come along to a meeting and put those points forward.
I will put your suggestions in a folder and post them to the LUST board.

Did you say in a earlier post you are already a member of LUST?

 

I am a member Cozer, and would have been at the last meeting if there had been any bike parking at the pub. Cycled there from town, and turned round. Didn't know I could take the bike in

Happy for you to use my comments - you asked for them anyway.

But I also understand that a lot of people are only interested in Leeds being more successful on the pitch and in getting promoted and are very passionate about that. For LUST, need to be more dispassionate and more clinical and expert to take Bates and his cronies out by his financial knees

 

LUST have tried on many occasions to up open dialogue with the club.
The clubs answer is to ban the LUST board from buying tickets.
In the coming weeks you'll see LUST, SC and RMC's come together as Leeds Fans United
which the club will have to take notice of.

 

LUFC666elmo: How could I forget that?

 

In addition to Elmo's points, I'd like LUST to push on another 2 fronts:

1. Grow the membership. 5200 is impressive, but KB still refuses to talk. Increase that number to 15k, and he has to start listening, especially if most season ticket holders are members. The threat of a LUST recommendation not to renew must terrify him (too late for this season, I know, but one to work towards).
2. Encouraging our next generation of fans. Why have LUFC not encouraged schoolkids to attend (even for free! God forbid!) when a low attendance is anticipated (which will be more & more often). A large amount of space could be allocated to schools attending en masse. Would need to be carefully managed, of course, but the club must invest in the future. Currently there are thousands of empty seats at every match that could be used to invest in our future.

 

Completely agree with you about the kids on this one. Anyone with kids knows our schools in Leeds are running rampant with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and worst of all Scum fans. Why because there always on the tv and they can see them while Leeds is on less than half a dozen times a year if that and tickets are way to expensive for them to actually go to matches. We're losing out on a generation of Leeds fans here.

 

Whitejock: What really puzzles me is every supporter you talk to has the same beliefs about encouraging our youth to attend games. I personally think the only way to encourage young people to come and support LU is to slash ticket prices right across the board, make it affordable for families to come to ER.
Get bums on seats supporters will then spend money in the club shop, in the bars and at food outlets. For gods sake its just good business principles. OK the club are doing offers for kids giving free shirts away but after 2 more home matches those shirts are going to be replaced by a new strip. The only reason the club are giving these shirts away is because they haven't being able to sell them. Surely 30,000 supporters paying an average of say £16 is going to generate more cash than 18,000 paying an average 0f £25 a tickets. I know if I take my kids I'm looking at spending at least £20 at the ground on match day. The price's need to come down at season ticket renewal time, so next season is a right off there's no way of bringing prices down now. I bet we'll have at least 5 matches next season below 16,000 people will not pay the current price to watch a mid table side at a ground with no atmosphere.

 

I would prefer to see the free kids shirts sent to developing countries if I am honest and yes lower prices = asses on seats however... Kids are a fickle bunch, they are going to want to see wins and entertaining football, school is hard enough for a lot of kids wanting to fit in and going to school on a Monday morning and the others kids taking the piss out of you because your team lost AGAIN isn't fun. Until we get better performances on the pitch which means more quality through better signings through better funding it isn't going to happen.

In regards to the initial question - ANYTHING that makes a stir of discontent when things are not right is GOOD as far as I am concerned. It doesn't matter if it is just 4,000 that is more than enough to make Bates question a decision that goes against the good of the club and into his own pocket. It might not change anything yet but any group that questions his decisions when they are poor or highlights his lies and deceit is a positive thing.

On a constructive note - Websites are the way to reach thousands and the LUST website needs changing, many might not realise you need to visit the BLOG link for latest news, I would change that title to "Latest News". When reading it I find it very heavy on the eyes and I must admit, although I agree with everything it would come across as too 'one sided' to any neutral sitting on the fence and it is these neutrals who need convincing. My mate is a typical example, he thinks Grayson was at fault, Bates is a business man and your not going to change him.

I pointed out the LUST blog and he laughed and said he hasn't got time to read all that, a bit like politics, hardcore followers will take the time, others just want to see results. Pictures speak a 1000 words, break the text up with images, graphs and maybe an odd rumour of who we are looking to sign. When I turn my PC on in the morning I visit Face Book to see what my mates have been doing, I visit not606 and I visit the official Leeds site, LUST needs to be a site that attracts visits for everything Leeds related. - Just a thought could you not team up with the Leeds Vital football guys?

Hope you don't mind my thoughts on the web site but I do believe it is the best method you have of getting the news out there...

 

One point which has been digging at me for a while! Leeds united charges for kids to attend football camps, I play badminton at half 8 on a wednesday night in cleckheaton and the 3 hour long classes held before hours are free footballing ones that get hundreds of kids involved which football club do you think are running these sessions?

 

some very good suggestions on this thread, thanks to all making them

 

My Guess is Man City?

 

Huddersfield?

 

Manchester City!!!

N when you look at the classes they run they are swarming all over Yorkshire picking up talent and NOT charging the 50 quid for the sessions like bates is

 

As they say: You reap what you sow....

I just keep hoping someone Grim will reap our Kenneth

 

Agree with that.

I visited it a day or two ago looking for their vision statement and could not find it.

One would expect that to be on the front page.

 

You-Will-Beat-Kisnorbo: I think a lot of the kids football training is done through Leeds United Football in the community. LUFC won't put a penny in, Rick Passmore and Mick Ferguson ran it at one time don't know if they still do but most the coaches were ex prose all a great bunch of lads Mark Swales (Swazzy) was a really good bloke and a good coach to boot. I'm sure the PFA had something to do with running it. But as I said it had to be self financing, I bet they had to pay Bates rent