County Show

The Sky cameras will follow the Addicks to the tidy surroundings of Meadow Lane, where the only certainty in an unpredictable season will be the terrible state of the pitch.

Man City almost became a cropper on it before £27m striker Edin Dzeko spared their blushes.

As Charlton fans know from the London Broncos days, sharing a pitch with a rugby team is not conducive to lush surfaces, and Colin Powell must be delighted he doesn't have to deal with such issues on his immaculate Valley turf.

However it's not clear the quality of the pitch is doing Charlton many favours at home, playing instead into the hands of opposition teams more technically accomplished on the ball.

Chris Powell's lengthy Evening Standard interview tonight made it clear that he favoured a passing approach, although there's precious little sign of it yet. Friday evening may not be the time to start however.

Having generated some considerable debate on this blog after the undeserved Peterborough result made it four wins in a row, two bad defeats against Hartlepool and Exeter provided some unwanted justification for my views.

If it was clear to me that no progress had been made after those four games, then I suspect my views would not have changed after the last two, even if I'd seen them.

The question is whether it's reasonable to have expected some improvement in performances by now, if Powell is potentially going to be a very good manager.

Given the addition of two accomplished forwards and having played four home games out of six, I'm tempted to suggest 'possibly' although I may be being unduly harsh.

His calm personality probably suggests he was never cut out to be an 'impact manager', so if he does turn out to be successful it's more likely to be a Curbishley-esque slow burn.

The crowd for the Exeter game was terrific, and at least puts to bed the idea that we've lost some of the missing 10,000 or so fans post-Premiership for good.

The £5 tickets were obviously a big attraction, but it still requires an effort to carve out a few free hours in busy lives, and to get to and from the stadium.

I suspect there weren't many first-time visitors, instead the usual 5,000 or so matchday home ticket sales are a rotating subset of fans (like me) from a pool of 15,000 or so who are only occasional attendees.

My own reasons for attending sporadically are family and travel-oriented, but the main conclusion from Saturday must be learning just how many of those occasional fans are unable to attend more often for financial reasons.

Thus if the Board just give themselves a pat on the back and forget about this conclusion, they are potentially missing a big trick (and one I've discussed previously on this blog).

In short, the club needs to find ways to increase the number of different season ticket price points, both at the upper and lower ends of the scale (in the hope that fans attracted to the former can pay for the latter).

If 8,000 or so extra fans were willing to attend the Exeter game because it was a fiver, then how many of those might be willing to attend every game if it was also a fiver?

It would require some imagination to offer season tickets for £115, but so long as the seats chosen are limited in number, and blighted in some way (eg. too close to the pitch; in the corner quadrants etc.) then you are turning seats that are probably empty for every match into occupied ones.

These seats can also be available for a fiver on a match-by-match basis too.

The key issue is that a fan who currently attends say seven matches per season at £17.50 each (the cheapest matchday price for a total spend of a roughly equivalent £122.50), will only be present seven times per season to spend money on other ancillary things (programmes, beer, hot dogs, merchandise etc.).

That same fan who attends every game might not generate any additional ticket revenue, but he/she is likely to generate considerably more revenue in other areas (as well as contributing to the atmosphere and 'sense of occasion').

Conversely, it seems perverse that the highest price a season ticket holder can pay will now be £375, or just £16.30 per game.

There must be a few hundred or so fans who are able and willing to pay considerably more than that (the tipping point is probably not reached until £650 or so), so long as they receive something small in return.

Other than obviously being given the best seats, perhaps simply a free programme, a comfortable lounge facility to have a pre or post-match drink, and a cushioned seat will probably do the trick.

Anyone who has been to the Emirates will know how successful the 'Club Level' concept has been. Something similar at The Valley can be achieved on a much smaller scale to offset the lost revenue from cheap tickets.

If something like this existed at The Valley, then I'd rush to buy not one but two or three tickets, attractive for inviting neutral friends/clients/acquaintances knowing that they will at least watch the game in comfort, even if the onfield product is lousy.

This type of temptation is visible across an entire swathe of industries that we see every day.

Pizza Express offers customers the chance to show they're willing to spend a further £1.50 on a 'Romana' base. Last time I was there I ordered it and I've still no idea what it was.

My daily train service tempts me with the comfortable first class carriages, whilst I join the vast majority cramming into the hot standard class carriages. I'm close to chomping on that carrot too.

As the Board clearly knows, low crowds can become a self-fulfilling prophecy especially in a stadium which is clearly currently too large for League One.

Watching football in a half-empty stadium can be dispiriting for even the most loyal supporter, and lead more to drift away.

They have begun to move in the right direction, but some more 'out-of-the-box' thinking is required to optimise the ticketing policy, the goal being to maximise both crowd numbers and revenue.

Returning to matters on the pitch, Notts County are an 'all or nothing' proposition at home, registering just one League draw at Meadow Lane (against Walsall).

Eight home wins is the best record in the lower half of League One however, the goals of Craig Westcarr and Lee Hughes providing the foundation for a reasonable first season post-promotion.

Our last two trips to the ground saw us battle out 3-3 draws in the mid-1990s, a result Powell would probably settle for again.