St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright hopes tonight’s crowd up at Inverness is boosted by the home team’s ‘pay what you can’ trial although the logic of squeezing fixtures into freezing January midweeks remains lost on him.
Caley are following the lead of Albion Rovers by leaving it up to supporters what they fork out for this evening’s entertainment, and it should ensure a healthier than usual support.
How many Saints fans travel up the A9 to back their team remains to be seen though, and Wright reckons there is plenty of scope for the match to be played at a more palatable time of the year.
“Our away support is good if you take a percentage of what our gates are, but games against Inverness and Ross County are probably where we would take the least so I think that’s maybe why they’ve targeted this game,” he commented.
“The fact that it’s on a Tuesday night in the middle of January is another reason why they’ve targeted it.
“I think it’s a good initiative, I think it’s worked at Albion Rovers, but we talk about summer football and we don’t help ourselves by putting league games in midweek in the middle of January.
“This year, there’s no midweek game after the split and you play five Saturdays.
“There was always at least one midweek game and I know that can affect crowds, but playing games in the middle of January affects people attending games as well.
“There’s the travel issues, the weather’s bad, so why midweek games can’t be played at the end of March or in April I don’t know.
“Or fit extra ones in August or September.
“I know there are European games as well, but I don’t think we help ourselves by talking about summer football and then playing midweek games in the middle of winter.
“It will probably only be the diehards who go up and I fully understand that because conditions for driving aren’t great and all the Christmas bills will be coming in.
“There will be some explanation (for why games are played in midweek in January), but the season goes on to May 24 this year so there’s plenty of time to play games.
“I know the argument back will be if we play midweek games we’ll lose gates, but surely playing a midweek game in April is better than playing in the middle of January?”
Wright understands why clubs like Caley are exploring different options to bolster their attendances, and he is delighted to see Saints’ own crowd figures up from last year.
And he continued: “I think our gates are up this year, and gates in general are up, but there is more to do.
“I’d rather be up from where they were than staying the same, but they are not great.
“There’s loads of reasons why they are not great.
“The league is definitely missing teams like Hearts and Rangers in terms of attendances.
“If in general attendances are up we should make the most of that and try to build on that.
“We know they are not at the levels they might be five or 10 years ago, but gone are the days where football was the only thing people did on a Saturday.
“There are more people participating in sport, there’s other sports which have come through, and with satellite TV you can watch games from the English Premier League in the comfort of your own home at 5.30pm.”
Wright’s counterpart at Caley, John Hughes, complained last week that his side were facing seven games in January at a time when pitches are often heavy and fans are often short of cash.
Saints themselves are in the midst of playing three games in six days, with a home game against Aberdeen to come on Friday, although Wright is just getting on with things.
“We’ve done that before so I’m not complaining about that,” he concluded.
“Every club has had that and you understand you’ve got to deal with that, but I don’t think you should have to deal with it in the middle of winter.”