Supporting Gillingham can be difficult at times. Going to matches is no problem - I always look forward to going to watch the Gills. Sadly it's the 90 minutes when I'm in the ground that often tends to go downhill.
The last couple of seasons were particularly difficult to watch. Uncommitted players, poor organisation and our tendency to concede shocking goals on an alarmingly regular basis all combined to make watching the Gills a pretty stressful experience.
So you have to spare a thought for the Gillingham FC marketing team, who have got the unenviable job of attracting fans back to Priestfield following one of the most depressing seasons in recent memory.
Their policy of targeting the fans of the future by offering cut-price season tickets for youngsters is a massive step in the right direction, and hopefully one that will result in more young fans filling seats at Priestfield this season. However, the small drop in adult season ticket prices didn't really equate to the drop in divisions, so that was a bit of a disappointment, but books have to be balanced and hopefully the arrival of a new CEO will help the club return to a more stable footing, both on and off the pitch.
Along with the season ticket prices, we were told about the latest promotion for season ticket holders.
Dubbed "The Manager's Challenge", for every second home league game Gillingham lose, each season ticket holder will receive two free match tickets to a future Gillingham league match. A nice gesture, for sure, but it has limited benefits for a season ticket holder - and in some cases, virtually none at all.
By definition, a season ticket holder already has a ticket for every league game that season, so they personally don't need any additional tickets.
But, of course, we can act as football evangelists and give our free tickets to family and friends to encourage them to start coming to watch the Gills.
A decent enough idea, but the criteria for handing out the tickets is fundamentally flawed.
If you're looking to recruit people for any kind of event, you'd look to sell the benefits and, if you're looking medium-long term, you'd consider a loss-leading strategy to get people on board while the going's good, then build a relationship between the club and its new fans.
It's easy; offer free tickets when we're winning and you'll get a good take up. Offer freebies when we're losing and the take up will be markedly less. Plus there's the hugely important aspect of repeat business. Which scenario is most likely to get the fans coming back for more? Not rocket science, is it?
But what Gillingham are proposing is virtually the opposite.
Instead of giving tickets away early in the season when optimism is high and the playing field is level, we're waiting until we start losing games before giving them out. It doesn't make sense. Let me give an example of why.
Last season we gave away free tickets towards the end of the campaign and, despite having a number of football-mad mates, it proved nigh-on impossible to get them to give up their Saturday afternoons and watch a team that were, more likely than not, going to lose. Even when I did persuade them, usually though a combination of lies and deceit about the team's chances of winning, my mates had to sit ten rows away.
On one lucky occasion, a couple of season ticket holders didn't show, so we were able to all sit together, but under normal circumstances, that wouldn't have been possible. That's not the club's fault, that's a by-product of having an all-seater stadium and allocated seating, but it's another obstacle to getting friends and family to tag along for a game.
Unfortunately, even if people do come along with their free tickets and enjoy their day at the game, the pay-on-the-day ticket prices set by the club are more likely to deter than encourage repeat visits. They're simply way too high - and will undo a lot of the work that the free tickets (and the season ticket holders who had them) have done to get people into the stadium in the first place. It seems the bigger picture has been missed and the combination of the ticket promotion and the expensive pay-on-the-day prices is likely to put people off. After all, we're talking about League Two football with average players, not Premier League football with world-class stars.
Give out a few freebies when we're on a good run, and drop the pay-on-the-day prices to a sensible level and we'll stand a far better chance of attracting more fans to Priestfield and - crucially - encouraging them to come back regularly. But instead of saying, "We're on the up, and we'd love you to come along and be a part of it," our offer reads more like, "We're struggling, and we really need your support, please come."
It's great to see the club looking to try new things to improve the situation at Gillingham and I really hope they are successful in their endeavours. But on this particular occasion, I think the club have got it wrong.