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Is 3pm on a Saturday Becoming Illogical?


Ludo*1

  

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I recently turned down an interview for a better paid job simply because they wanted me to work rotational Saturdays. Call me stupid, but the money would have to be very good for me to give up going to quite a few games. I used to work Saturdays and missing out on games really sucked.

I actually quite like an early ko/ Friday night at home every few months, but it shouldn't be the norm.

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Evidence from crowds would seem to indicate fairly solidly that Saturday afternoon remains the optimal time for football games in Scotland - and within that it is unlikely that moving away from 3pm to something like 2pm / 2:30pm / 3:30pm (which was the time up to WWI) / 4pm would make enough of a difference to be worth the hassle.

Evening matches - particularly Friday evenings - are tough for away fans to get to, poor for public transport (as are Sundays) and plenty people go out. SPL and SFL experimented with Friday games, but after an initial novelty factor they didn't seem to get better crowds than Saturdays - and sometimes worse. They're still used for TV matches but it's been a couple of seasons since clubs chose to move a Saturday game to Friday night, IIRC.

Sunday afternoon games seem to get worse crowds than Saturday afternoon games. Admittedly a lot of them are on TV but games which aren't, such as those moved due to EL matches or the other big club in the city being at home, also seem to reflect this.

Lunchtime is probably the worst of all times. Monday evenings are probably the worst of all days.

Plus if you moved away from Saturday afternoons you'd clash with live EPL games.

I have always wondered why Sky/BT don't put the live Scottish game on a Sunday evening circa 6-6.30pm. Seems like a better time than 12:15 and doesn't clash with English matches.

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To offer a little bit of analysis, I compared our three games against United at Tannadice last season in which there's a range of factors to include so thus isn't very scientific but thought I'd show it up anyways:

Our first game at Tannadice this season in the LC on a Wednesday night (3 days after the first Derby of the season at Dens): 13,041

Second Derby on New Year's Day at lunchtime: 12,964

Third Derby on last day of the season, which was a Sunday lunchtime: 10,812.

Obviously there's other things to take into account like the fact the Wed night game was still at a fresh time for a Derby and that the last Derby, United fans weren't turning out in force as much and the league had been settled for us, we were 6th and that was that. Just thought it was worth sharing though.

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To offer a little bit of analysis, I compared our three games against United at Tannadice last season in which there's a range of factors to include so thus isn't very scientific but thought I'd show it up anyways:

Our first game at Tannadice this season in the LC on a Wednesday night (3 days after the first Derby of the season at Dens): 13,041

Second Derby on New Year's Day at lunchtime: 12,964

Who at BT Sport thought that was a good idea?

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Loads of people work Saturdays now and it will increase in the future ,however for the time being Saturday afternoons are still the best time to have football matches in the UK.

Which part of 'more people actually worked Saturdays in the past' do you not comprehend? The crowd at grounds such as Cappielow frequently came straight from the shipyards or other industries (including the occasional 'spare' rivet to be launched in a particularly ill-tempered match). Saturday working is now largely restricted to unskilled service sector skivvies - hence Ludo's tear-stained breakdown about it.

On the other issue of a time change, 2pm kickoffs would make sense, especially in winter. But that wouldn't attract a huge clamour on its own merit and so won't happen.

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Which part of 'more people actually worked Saturdays in the past' do you not comprehend? The crowd at grounds such as Cappielow frequently came straight from the shipyards or other industries (including the occasional 'spare' rivet to be launched in a particularly ill-tempered match). Saturday working is now largely restricted to unskilled service sector skivvies - hence Ludo's tear-stained breakdown about it.

On the other issue of a time change, 2pm kickoffs would make sense, especially in winter. But that wouldn't attract a huge clamour on its own merit and so won't happen.

In touch and as up to date as ever... :rolleyes: .

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I support Friday night games only on the basis that either the two clubs are relatively near one another or the smaller side is at home to Celtic/Rangers (like Raith v Rangers last season for example), as those two will always attract a decent away support due to their presence all over the country.

There were a decent amount of local games covered by BT/Sky last season, yet we still had stupid games such as Aberdeen v Motherwell (twice), Dundee United having to travel to Kilmarnock and Motherwell, as well as St Johnstone being at home against Aberdeen and Motherwell. Due to such distances between the sides, it makes it extremely difficult for away fans to get to these types of games. I empathised with Motherwell in particular as when we were in the Premiership, our game at Aberdeen was moved to a Friday as well.

Saturdays at 3pm is still by far my favoured choice.

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aberdeen have to travel an hour to play anyone so you can kinda make an exception for them, the point remains tho keep non traditional ko times to teams close to each other , at the very least dont have teams at opposite ends of the country playing on fridays, (or 12 noon games either. also maybe look at 2pm starts for saturday games in december and january, lets people get away from the stadium in daylight

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To offer a little bit of analysis, I compared our three games against United at Tannadice last season in which there's a range of factors to include so thus isn't very scientific but thought I'd show it up anyways:

Our first game at Tannadice this season in the LC on a Wednesday night (3 days after the first Derby of the season at Dens): 13,041

Second Derby on New Year's Day at lunchtime: 12,964

Third Derby on last day of the season, which was a Sunday lunchtime: 10,812.

Obviously there's other things to take into account like the fact the Wed night game was still at a fresh time for a Derby and that the last Derby, United fans weren't turning out in force as much and the league had been settled for us, we were 6th and that was that. Just thought it was worth sharing though.

The League Cup one was the only one that wasn't on TV, right?

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I assume your working on(and close to)a cure for cancer <_<

I won't be working on Saturdays anyway, that's already a NAP. A small privilege for most but clearly the cause of much seethe and eye-gougingly dreadful 'analysis' for the lesser among us.

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I'd hate to go back to working weekends. This whole every weekend off and working 8-4 during the week has been the best 2 years of my life.

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