THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

How would you describe your enthusiasm for following the Dons during this BCD season compared to a normal year?

Binary-coded decimal?

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

No option for a lot more than usual?

Personally, I think the football were playing is, at times, as good as anything we’ve seen since 2003, and I was saying that even during that first eight games! It’s the kind of football I’ve always wanted to see implemented and I feel with Russ, Luke and Liam at the helm, I have more trust in them than anyone we’ve ever had at the helm, including Robbo*. I’m certainly more engaged despite the fact I’ve barely seen Russ’s MK Dons in the flesh this season.

Getting plaudits for the way we play, seeing the recruitment team get it right, seeing that we can still produce youngsters who will break through in to the first team and seeing the way the club has handled everything in terms of media output, ticket refund policy, new ST pricing for next season etc. has actually increased my bond.

*I was always a big Robbo fan, still am in fact, but you always knew he was one incident away from blowing up over something and it being to the detriment of the team at times.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Camdenite, but I'll add to it with a few points from my end personally

- I moved back to England August 2019 and the start of that season was the first time I saw a Tisdale team in the flesh. It was bloody miserable, but I wanted to do as many away games as possible to make up for missing the previous 18 months or so. When Russ came in it really gave me optimism, maybe I've supported him blindly since, but coming back to MK and watching what he was trying to do really helped me reconnect to the club.

- I've pretty much worked 2 jobs since leaving Uni in 2015 until 2019, I would often work after home games but would only make 4 or 5 away games a year. This season I've watched every match except Portsmouth away due to a friends Birthday, I've never watched us play so much in a season. It has been bloody wonderful

- Not going to games and having very few social distractions means I have spent more time on here debating (rarely discussing ) our performances, watching interviews, looking at extended highlights, scrolling on Twitter etc. Whilst of course nothing beats a match day experience then a few beers after but in certain ways it has helped me feel quite connected to the club. This has helped by the social media team smashing it with their content this season and us having players with a decent personalities that come through on camera making me actually want to watch interviews.

Does anyone know how many people watch the games in player compared to actual attendances?

The enthusiasm of people on here, who are naturally committed fans, is clearly strong. My gut feel is that amongst the average person who goes to the games at the stadium, most are pretty uninterested unless they can watch games live.

Just gut feel, nothing else.

I've asked this a few times, but never got an answer. I did ask for it to be asked at the last forum, but it was ignored. I'm wondering why the secrecy ?

I can imagine our viewing figures are pretty poor hence a reluctance to go public with them. It is well known that a lot of our match-goers see Dons as their second team, particularly those above the age of 30, so with every Premier League game now televised paying an extra £10 to sit at home without your mates probably isn't all that interesting. I'd also suggest that the demographics of our fan base will mean that purchasing figures are low, we have a huge amount of families who go to games so whilst 4 of them will be in attendance at the stadium it will only contribute to 1 match day pass.

I suspect it’s simpler than that. People like watching live football. But if the only football available is on TV and top level football is at the same price as L1 football, that’s what they’ll watch.

"A little bit less" for me - but that is no reflection at all on Martin, tge team and the football which is clearly the best it has been for years.

Rather, its just a reflection of missing going every weekend with the kids and my mates. Watching it on iFollow, and catching up with stuff on here, just doesn't compare. I stopped paying the £10 per game months ago, as the kids weren't interested.

So while the results and the players have been a real improvement - it just feels a bit "abstract" right now until we can het back into SMK and be part of it. But all our STs are renewed for next season, so onwards and upwards!

Oh agreed, all clubs viewing figures will be down on match day attendance. But the demographics of our fan base and the day out/second team aspect of watching Dons probably leads to a significantly lower viewership relative to attendance compared to many other clubs in the league.