griff1998 wrote:
True - but you need to target them properly so that potential new customers know they're available.
It`s a hard one to call really , I suppose you have to hope some people get bitten by the "rugby bug" and carry on coming back to pay full price.I would say these people are now few and far between as there are plenty of things to do on a match day that do not cost the earth unless you capture the kids who drive the families leisure time.We found that when we had a pub , the amount of ex Fax fans that came in on Sundays instead of going to the match was unbelievable I`d ask them all why they stopped coming to matches and there were a variety of differant excuses and they were quite happy going walking and lunch out rather than coming with us to the match.
I think the Club could have made more of the fact the Club is 140 yrs old this year , they could have tried Thrum Hall reunions at matches to try to get ex fans back plus invited all old Fax players back , fans wearing oldest shirt , memorabelia night , things like that. Plus get themselves out on the streets of Halifax geting the players talking to kids for a few weekends persuading them to try it.
I was lucky when I was a kid I lived in the district the players lived , I only had to walk on the end of Francis St to see players playing rugby with the local kids they were part of the community the club was woven into the thread of the Town . I`d only be 6/7 when one of the players got me to go up and watch and that`s 60 yrs since but things arn`t like that any more people have far more choice of what to spend their money on so you just have to go out there and persuade them to give us a try.Plus it`s no good doing things once and saying it didn`t work you have to do it time and again to get any benifit from it.
After saying all this I suppose it`s down to money and if the RFL would allow extra money to the clubs for promotion of the game it may make a differance but I find the empty spaces on the terraces alarming .
