Your matchday experience v Wigan | Page 4 | PASOTI
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Your matchday experience v Wigan

Your matchday experience v Wigan

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  • Total voters
    49
May 8, 2011
5,788
793
The tannoy in the Devonport end is uncomfortably loud lately, I'm not sure why as it's not always been the same level.

At the Wycombe game it was fine with the dance mini-mix etc, anything with high frequencies like a guitar solo, white stripes, whatever that is they play at the start of the second-half is horrible.

People around me are bringing it up constantly, stopping conversations halfway through as there's no competing with it and are getting quite fed up with it.

Someone must do some sort of sound check once every now and then surely?

As for getting in, not sure why Lyndhurst taking so long, the stewards at the Devonport end do a pretty good job and a 'wanding' takes less than five seconds with people being verbally directed to less busy turnstiles, but as I've said to my two sons who started watching when we were under Sheridan, the more successful we get the more detached we will get from the club and the less enjoyable things non-football related are likely to be.

As for the crowd trouble if the Argyle fans wanted to get into the Wigan end then they would've, at one point there was one steward stood in their way.
The issue with the Lyndhurst is that there aren’t enough turnstiles. The Devonport end has 8 turnstiles for 5 blocks. The Lyndhurst has 11 turnstiles for 14 blocks.
As the Club encourages people to use the nearest turnstile to their block you have people for Blocks 6,7,8 and 9 all believing they need to use turnstile 9. 4 into 1 won’t go, which is why the queue at the narrowest part of the concourse is always so long.
 
Sep 15, 2010
420
349
Plympton
Surprisingly few have said anything about parking arrangements and getting to the ground. I live within the city boundary and left home at just after twelve to make sure I could park. Drove round main car park and gave up after finding no spaces at 1230. Parked in the Life Centre car park, along with others of a similar mind. I realise I have no God given right to park in the main area but one thing is extremely annoying. The spaces that are hived off in the top car park. Now I accept that these are for those with access requirements and some corporate parking. However, Argyle's old car park next the Mayflower needs a simple tidy up and that could be used for those spaces. I contacted Argyle but they seem not to want discuss it beyond saying it that PCC have told the club they can section off the Milehouse Park & Ride car park for that purpose. As for the buses that used to come from Plympton and Plymstock and I think Crownhill, well that was a great loss!
 
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Oct 19, 2013
39
29
It’d be interesting to hear the clubs view on the queues. It just isn’t viable to wand everyone with the amount of people currently attending and the staff they have available, no-one expects to have to queue for 30-40 mins to get in and that is clearly not acceptable. It’s lots more staff, or stop searching everyone. Appreciate I might have missed why it’s happening in first place - keep thinking it’s going to be better next time but yesterday was the worst yet. The area served by turnstile 14 was half empty at kick off!
 
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ArgyleOfficial

Plymouth Argyle Football Club
May 13, 2020
339
1,255
Hi All.

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback on yesterday. Some excellent posts with points I will take away. I am unable to comment too much on the disorder at the end of the game as an investigation is already underway.

Searching - I’m sure everyone is aware that the UK terror threat has recently been heightened to amber. While there is no specific threat to Argyle we have also reviewed our own procedures and searching is naturally part of those. I do absolutely agree that it can be extremely frustrating and there’s some work for us to do in speeding things up. Ultimately our safety officer has responsibility for the supporters and I will review with him this week and look to implement some changes that will speed this process up. We are extremely disappointed a flare got into the away end and will review CCTV to see how this happened.

Queuing - Queues were generally well controlled in the Mayflower and Devonport end, wait times were less than 5 minutes on average. We did however not get organised quickly enough on the Lyndhurst side and will deploy additional resource for future matches from the start to ensure this improved. As another poster has mentioned, the Devonport is well equipped with ample turnstiles, way above capacity limits. The Lyndhurst ideally needs more access points, and a project is being looked at however not something we can address during the season. We are also seeing a larger number of supporters bringing bags that have to be searched and with the colder weather additional layers of clothing. We will be looking into transparent bags for supporters who need to bring one however ask that you do not bring a bag unless absolutely necessary. We will find a new home for the bins!

We also understand that in order to get supporters to arrive early the facilities have to be available. Last week we installed Sky back onto the concourse TV’s to show the early kick off, we’ve put live music in the Mayflower fan zone and put a discount of 25% off all products to the concessions for 45 minutes after turnstiles open. We will continue to implement anything (better/more toilets, more concessions, shelving etc) we feel will attract supporters early and in time improve the content in the stadium via the big screen.

Catering - understand the frustrations with the internal catering. We are compromised on the concourses due to width and flow. This ultimately means we are limited to measures we can put in for queuing. This ends up being driven by people rather than barriers etc because we have to maintain flow of people and space. That said, it can absolutely be better and should be. To achieve that we have to be innovative and utilise all space. We are discussing this with the brewery for the inside and also working on how we can improve outside. Alongside this we are reviewing the offer.

With all of the above every week we plan resource for managing queues at H/T however we are increasingly having to draw on that resource to deal with issues under the Devonport End and yesterday with disorder. While stewarding can always be improved and the club will no doubt take learnings from yesterday, I emphasise that we need supporters to abide by ground regulations and be respectful of others and what we are trying to do. Ultimately we now require more resource which has a knock on impact to costs for the club.

I always to try to be as transparent as possible and this regular thread has given us valuable feedback on improvements over the last few games. Please do feel free to email me (Christian.kent@pafc.co.uk) and I’ll always feedback the comments across the wider team.

Thanks again, Christian
 

ArgyleOfficial

Plymouth Argyle Football Club
May 13, 2020
339
1,255
Surprisingly few have said anything about parking arrangements and getting to the ground. I live within the city boundary and left home at just after twelve to make sure I could park. Drove round main car park and gave up after finding no spaces at 1230. Parked in the Life Centre car park, along with others of a similar mind. I realise I have no God given right to park in the main area but one thing is extremely annoying. The spaces that are hived off in the top car park. Now I accept that these are for those with access requirements and some corporate parking. However, Argyle's old car park next the Mayflower needs a simple tidy up and that could be used for those spaces. I contacted Argyle but they seem not to want discuss it beyond saying it that PCC have told the club they can section off the Milehouse Park & Ride car park for that purpose. As for the buses that used to come from Plympton and Plymstock and I think Crownhill, well that was a great loss!
We have just submitted a planning application for the redevelopment of our “staff” car park. This will free up spaces once completed 👍
 

The Doctor

🏆 Callum Wright 23/24
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Sep 15, 2003
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Plymouth
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Queuing - Queues were generally well controlled in the Mayflower and Devonport end, wait times were less than 5 minutes on average. We did however not get organised quickly enough on the Lyndhurst side and will deploy additional resource for future matches from the start to ensure this improved. As another poster has mentioned, the Devonport is well equipped with ample turnstiles, way above capacity limits. The Lyndhurst ideally needs more access points, and a project is being looked at however not something we can address during the season. We are also seeing a larger number of supporters bringing bags that have to be searched and with the colder weather additional layers of clothing. We will be looking into transparent bags for supporters who need to bring one however ask that you do not bring a bag unless absolutely necessary. We will find a new home for the bins!

Thanks again, Christian
I suspect that ’We did not get organised quickly enough on the Lyndhurst side’ is the key phrase.

After Tuesday’s game I posted here about how much better the queues were and that I thought the key was to manage the queues before/as they start to form. I’m pretty sure that once well-defined queues are in place they stay in place and things proceed fairly smoothly but if things start off in a haphazard manner it Is practically impossible to change.

I did feel that there were noticeably more stewards outside the Lyndhurst on Tuesday compared to yesterday and it was very clear that there were far more people just pushing into queues wherever they felt like doing so yesterday. Most people don’t want any kind of confrontation but there are others that take advantage of this and just do whatever they like.

Personally I don’t find the searches obtrusive or to take very long but then I now only take my wallet, keys and phone and hold these in my hands ready for the wand search which then takes just seconds.
 
Jan 10, 2015
317
74
58
Plymouth
Get there early as advised by the club....no que at turnstiles or the kiosk's... Sit in seat ..watch game, then go home.
How hard is that?
The problem with this is like many many others Argyle is only part of my saturday esp after Covid lockdown, in the past id arrive in the pub at 12.30 to watch the early game, a few drinks with mates, maybe a meal plus the early KO would build the excitement for the Argyle game, leave pub 14.15 catch one of several buses, jump off at milehouse 14.25 grab a pasty on route arrive at ground 14.30 ten min wait at most to get in and seated by 14.50, now leave pub at 13.45 wait for a bus which now tends to leave late due to loads getting on, arrive milehouse 14.20 up to ground ive given up on the pasty, to join a que and get in the same time I would have when I used to leave at 14.15, If I was to arrive earlier ie say 13.30 what would I do kicking around inside the ground im really not into watching the warm up, All im trying to say is that for a lot possibly majority of us Argyle forms part of the whole day and if asked to give up on part of the day just because of some over the top security searches which have been brought in because of a high security level but actually failed to find explosives (flares) is rather annoying. My other concern is as mentioned by Cobi and myself is that regulars may decide to stay in the pub if this continues and the situation may or has totally put off the non regulars, I just feel the searching can be reduced in respect to how many and who is being searched in order to speed up entry.
 
Dec 22, 2010
504
30
north devon
I am 79 years old and have been going to Argyle since 1956. Being seached to go to a football match for me is totaly humiliating . I trael 60 miles each way and decided enough is enough and will watch my beloved team on Argyle tv at home even if its the next day. Sad days.
 
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The Doctor

🏆 Callum Wright 23/24
✨Pasoti Donor✨
Sep 15, 2003
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Plymouth
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I am 79 years old and have been going to Argyle since 1956. Being seached to go to a football match for me is totaly humiliating . I trael 60 miles each way and decided enough is enough and will watch my beloved team on Argyle tv at home even if its the next day. Sad days.
I don’t understand what is humiliating about being searched. It’s a mild inconvenience at most surely - certainly not sufficiently to prevent you doing something you enjoy doing.
 
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🏆 Callum Wright 23/24
Jade Berrow 23/24
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🌟Sparksy Mural🌟
Oct 31, 2010
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I am 79 years old and have been going to Argyle since 1956. Being seached to go to a football match for me is totaly humiliating . I trael 60 miles each way and decided enough is enough and will watch my beloved team on Argyle tv at home even if its the next day. Sad days.

That is so sad. I can understand your point, but hopefully you'll reconsider and return.
 
Feb 23, 2008
1,640
78
I am 79 years old and have been going to Argyle since 1956. Being seached to go to a football match for me is totaly humiliating . I trael 60 miles each way and decided enough is enough and will watch my beloved team on Argyle tv at home even if its the next day. Sad days.
Proof that the club will never win whatever they do then, seems a strange thing to get offended over?
 
Aug 4, 2011
2,689
1,929
I’ve been searched only once all season. Probably only been “wanded” 2 or 3 times and then it’s a case of, “what’s in your pocket” - “keys” - in yo go. Every other game I’ve gone straight in