By Chris Mac
February 22 2005

Ok here's one for you, slaughter me if you like. Maybe instead of trying to recover our history and our past we should be changing tact and trying to re-invent our selves. We all argue that we are the same fans with the same history then were trying to appeal to a new generation of supporters. So a new thought path is required?

Who are we trying to attract to games?
As has always been with the beautiful game it is the working close family we need to get through the gates. Our competition as we all know every team in Scotland competes with the blighted two how do we beat them? We can’t, they have bottled up the religious bigoted glory hunter side of things so we need to find some other way of appealing to arm chair fans that are happy to sit and spend their hard earned cash on Sky and Cable TV? How do you get them off their arses and what incentive can you give to get them to the ground? We get them through their kids, see below.
Where are we just now?
Apart from having a board and team than are approachable I don’t think we have moved on very far from that fateful day in May. The club have no presence in the town the stadium is to far out of the way the first can be easily remedied but the stadium there is nothing we can do there.
Many people have suggested letting kids and schools in for nothing? Apart from getting the kids talking about us there is very little short term benefit to the club. We don’t get any money from pies or crisps or anything along those lines so no financial benefit. How ever if we went down the lines of bringing in under 13 football teams, primary schools, boys brigade, cubs, brownies and announce a competition between the groups. Send an invite out to every group in the local and out lying area and invite them to submit a team. It could be a penalty competition or a seven aside football match for 15 minutes. Getting use of the pitch will be another hurdle to over come.
What other groups could we appeal to?
At Airdrie we have our fair share of women who attend the games; it would be interesting to find out what the split is? The Supporters Trust held a ladies night last year and another one is to be held in March no effort has been made through this to encourage those at the event to attend games. Last years event probably saw over 60% of the attendees being from a non Airdrie/ non football supporting back ground just women out for a fun night out can this be developed in to a recruiting campaign? Should it be?
Getting to the ground?
Could a shuttle bus be set up to bring people to games? A bus to go in to the town center and collect any one needing a lift to the match 50p a head buses starting at 2:00p.m and the last run is at 2:45p.m. Would this work? Could advertising be put on the bus as it drives through Airdrie advertising the fixture?

These are just some of the thoughts that could be developed in to working projects if the already existing fans are willing to put there heads together and work towards a common goal. The development and improvement of Airdrie football club