Reintroduction of Football Specials?

[djb]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?

(09/09/2016 14:46)Dentonian Wrote:  Both the Etihad and Old Trafford are "well located", but that's not quite the same as being well served. Obviously, there is the sheer volume with capacities of 55,000 and 76,000 respectively close to being met for Premiership matches at least. Despite City's much higher profile in recent years, they still have a higher proportion of locally based fans than United, so the demand for local transport solutions is more even than the total attendance figures would suggest. As mentioned, Old Trafford is served by a long standing Metrolink service, a mainline station and 22 "service" buses an hour from/to the city centre, as well as matchday 256 shorts. That also means Stretford, Sale and Altrincham are directly served.
The Etihad has the tram, and 8 direct buses an hour from Manchester, as well as matchday 216 shorts. There is also the 76 less than a mile away serving Newton Heath (ironically), Failsworth and Oldham every 10 minutes.
Both grounds are also served by the 53 crossing all corridors to the south, east and NE of the city. However, this is a notoriously unpunctual route, which only runs every 30 minutes (with B7RLEs), whereas as recently as GMBN days it ran every 10 minutes with 'deckers.
As far as United is concerned, their catchment area is too widespread to justify much in addition to the thousands of seats an hour from the city centre itself. The other problem for both clubs - and this applies to almost the same extent to Liverpool, and slightly less to Everton - is that out of 19 home Premiership matches per season, probably four will be 1500 Saturday Kick Offs, with the rest spread across BT/Sky's varied calender, but mostly Evenings/Sundays.
For City, the increase in attendances (though, don't forget they regularly exceeded 30,000 at Maine Road) has contrasted with the decline of bus services serving the Etihad. Yes, Metrolink serves it, but the 216 has been drastically reduced from the Droylsden/Ashton end; the 231 has just been halved on Saturdays and the 53 has already been discussed. Additionally, the few football specials that served Maine Road from such as Denton/Haughton Green and Hattersley/Hyde were scrapped even before 2003. This is/was City's heartland - United fans' jibes about City fans all coming from Stockport is believed to be partially derived from the tens of thousands of east Manchester families scattered to Overspill Estates in the 1960s, some of which are in Stockport, whilst others are actually nowhere near Stockport (eg Hattersley), but have SK postcodes. An independant study just before City moved from Maine Road found the highest concentratuon of City Season ticket holders was actually in M34 (Denton).

Like so many other "markets" (including Employment & Tertiary Health access), there is a strong argument to say that the eastern quartlie of the conurbation (and by implication City more than United in this context) has lost the most strategically important bus services in the last 20 years, but unlike the other markets, there can be no justification for any tax-payers involvement in addressing the problem, given the Premiership in general and the Media side of it in particular, has so much money and power.

Incidentally, I'm not aware of any Matchday specials from Stockport or environs to the Etihad, unless these are private contracts will such as Bullocks. Bullocks inherited Finglands contracted coaching work, and Finglands were always very closely tied with City, so that would make sense. Certainly for the general public in City's heartland, its "Heathrow Syndrome"; You have to travel into Manchester, and come back out again - so a 2-3 mile journey in the car might be 8-10 miles by bus/tram.

The Stockport based services are Bullocks. Originally registered as the 957 when the etihad opened. They still run, but i think now as pre-pay services (although the service is still registered). There used to be 3 (heald green, bramhall and cheadle, routing via the heatons). Another bullocks decker runs from Northenden although i think this may be a private service.