Reintroduction of Football Specials?

[Barney]

Reintroduction of Football Specials?
LFC is about to play its first home game of the season with the opening of the new main stand and concern has already been expressed that, with this additional capacity, fans should use public transport to get to Anfield as car parking facilities are insufficient. The only problem though is that, with the exception of the 917/9 from the city centre, there are no additional bus routes or buses to serve Anfield or Goodison Park on match days. And, unless you live close to a Merseyrail station, the Soccerbus from Sandhills is not really an option.

Isn't it about time that Merseytravel and the bus operators considered drawing up plans for a comprehensive Football Specials service on match days from across Merseyside? One was in place prior to Deregulation and worked extremely well.

Also, I would be interested to learn what transport arrangements are in place for the two Manchester clubs when they have home games?

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?
Are you expecting something along the lines of this?

http://www.bwfc.co.uk/documents/1196-bwf...212881.pdf

[Barney]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?

(09/09/2016 10:12)T42 PVM Wrote:  Are you expecting something along the lines of this?

http://www.bwfc.co.uk/documents/1196-bwf...212881.pdf

Thanks for the link, that's exactly what I mean. If a club like Bolton can arrange such services why can't the two Merseyside clubs? Because there is no return service, and none at all on Sundays and evening matches, I drive my car as close as I can and then walk two miles to the stadium. Prior to Deregulation there was a frequent bus route.

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?
I understand where your coming from, As a Bolton supporter myself i find the matchday Buses excellent

[djb]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?

(09/09/2016 09:59)Barney Wrote:  LFC is about to play its first home game of the season with the opening of the new main stand and concern has already been expressed that, with this additional capacity, fans should use public transport to get to Anfield as car parking facilities are insufficient. The only problem though is that, with the exception of the 917/9 from the city centre, there are no additional bus routes or buses to serve Anfield or Goodison Park on match days. And, unless you live close to a Merseyrail station, the Soccerbus from Sandhills is not really an option.

Isn't it about time that Merseytravel and the bus operators considered drawing up plans for a comprehensive Football Specials service on match days from across Merseyside? One was in place prior to Deregulation and worked extremely well.

Also, I would be interested to learn what transport arrangements are in place for the two Manchester clubs when they have home games?

Both manchester grounds are fairly well located for public transport anyway.

MCFC is near the metrolink, a train station (albeit with limited service) and a few bus routes. Matchday special buses run from the city centre, along with a handful of other special services (mostly from the stockport area)

MUFC is again near the metrolink, and bus routes. Again matchday special buses run, and northern rail run matchday special trains to the MUFC halt - if i remember rightly these come from the crewe&stoke lines via piccadilly.

Both stadiums have additional metrolink capacity on matchdays.

[iMarkeh]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?
I deffo think more sporting shuttles are needed. You just need the companies to be willing to run them as football specials can be very rowdy and for that reason, some companies wont allow it. Also some people sneaking alcohol onto the buses. Stuff like that.

Manchester United needs mega improvements to transport as it does have the buses and trams but the road floods with people for over 45 minutes after the match. They need a mega subway or something to stop traffic being blocked. Was on a X50 and ride took 2 hours because of match day people blocking roads. I think a lot of companies run coaches but they are not directly associated with the football clubs therefore not directly advertised. Look at the coach park and there are loads of coaches but no advertisement.

[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.

[Neukit]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?

(09/09/2016 15:27)Dentonian Wrote:  Naughty! Unless at least 50% of capacity is available to passengers to pay as they board, then surely, they are defrauding the DfT by falsely claiming the stupidly named BSOG. Timely revelation if it is the case, given the forthcoming EasyBus services 5 & 56.

Just because as service is registered doesn't mean that it is eligible for BSOG. There are many examples of such ineligible services all over the country.

[M60lad]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?
Being a City fan himself Mike Dunstan (Bluebird) used to run various matchday services to/from Etihad Stadium from Chadderton and Moston areas as extensions to his various other services, I'm sure they were registered 77 and 112 (or similar) and used to follow parts of their common route before actually ending up at the ground.

[Owl]

RE: Reintroduction of Football Specials?

(10/09/2016 05:15)M60lad Wrote:  Being a City fan himself Mike Dunstan (Bluebird) used to run various matchday services to/from Etihad Stadium from Chadderton and Moston areas as extensions to his various other services, I'm sure they were registered 77 and 112 (or similar) and used to follow parts of their common route before actually ending up at the ground.

As you say, Bluebird used to run a service from Middleton Bus Station to City's home games. More recently First use service number 80 for a football special from the centre of Manchester to FC Uniteds home games at Broadhurst Park.