Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 8:46 am  

Think it's been stated £20/25 depending if in advance or on the gate

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 8:54 am  

northernbloke wrote:

Think it's been stated £20/25 depending if in advance or on the gate

No doubt discounts will become available.

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:35 pm  

£25 on the gate for a part time championship team? And this is growing attendances how?.

A full time SL team with a squad who will get into the playoffs I can see £25. Part time champ team is smoking kool aid...

Are they after a sub 500 gate next year?

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:46 pm  

I might be wrong, but for adults this season I think it is £17.50 in advance, £20 online on the day and is it £25 cash at the ticket office?

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 5:29 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

Hughes took over sole control from Lenegan in Dec 2007. In the 2007 season, our crowds were small by SL standards but we averaged 3,400 at The Stoop. Lenegan had said that 5,000 was needed to be sustainable. That felt about right and seemed achievable given historic crowds at The Stoop and the tie in with Harlequins. Crowds held pretty firm until Hughes appointed the legend that is Gus Mackay. The man who was quoted as saying 'Success is not rocket science' set about his business (included severing the Quins relationship) and knocked 1,000 off the Stoop gate in 3 years.

This was followed by the desperate spell at The Hive where Hughes's new man Jason Loubser took over and the rot really set in. That move halved our average attendance in season 1 to 1,300 (with only a single SL win being recorded) and pretty much halved it again to just over 600 in season 2 as we adjusted to our new life in the Championship.

Another move to Trailfinders for 2016. This was seen by Hughes as the perfect venue allowing us to bring all aspects of the club including junior sides together in one place. Over the next 3 seasons, we saw some consolidation. We were a competitive Championship side, each time finishing 2nd in the regular season and making the Super 8's. Crowds were averaging around the 1,000 mark by 2018. Hughes's best appointment of Danny Ward (assisted by Jamie Langley) even got us back into SL for 2019 (with a team that was way more than the sum of its parts) and seeing the average blip back up to 1,900. Unfortunately back in the Championship, the last 2 seasons at Trailfinders were COVID disrupted and we emerged with an average of around 400.

It was time for another move, this time to Wimbledon and the Cherry Red Records stadium. Hughes hailed this switch as the best opportunity for long term survival targeting 5,000 fans in 3 years. You would have though he would want to get out of the blocks quickly to address this challenge but the preparation for the 2022 season was were where the genius of the management was displayed in all its glory. Having lost Danny Ward and replacing him with the untested Coleman (who sadly was never going to cut it) we assembled what was undoubtedly the worst squad in our history. Unsurprisingly this failed to make a good first impression. Fitness man Eccles came in and he along with a few better players saved us from relegation and possible demise. Not sure we learnt much from that ahead of 2023 as the initial squad again looked pretty weak. After a poor start we again brought in better players mid season (and importantly a coach in Lovegrove) with a distinct improvement leading to a play off spot.

So looking at that photo we see where we are. A few hundred fans in a 9,000 capacity stadium. Announcing the move to Cherry Red, Hughes said there will be occasions when it may appear to not be working. I guess we will see when the IMG grading is announced since that can be the only rational explanation for being at the Cherry Red. However, Hughes also said this is not a project for today it is a project for tomorrow. It seems like he is just playing a waiting game. But without fans there is no tomorrow whatever the administrators may decide.

You forgot to mention The T-shirt merchant who needed an alcohol lock on his PC given some of the rants it posted when toasted. Alienating the LSBA, banning people from the ground or the clubs social media (sic) and generally blaming everyone for the abject failure of the Wimbledon move. Also, Hughes implication that it was up to the fans to make it work when ho touted his 5,000 target.
As for it seeming like its not working, I can only assume his idea was to go scorched earth and rebuild from scratch, but that takes expertise and money, one of which is clearly lacking at the club whilst to other seems in very short supply until mid season.

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 8:31 pm  

orangeman wrote:

You forgot to mention The T-shirt merchant who needed an alcohol lock on his PC given some of the rants it posted when toasted. Alienating the LSBA, banning people from the ground or the clubs social media (sic) and generally blaming everyone for the abject failure of the Wimbledon move.

At least that mistake was fairly quickly rectified. Loubser has been CEO for best part of 10 years and was the bean counter before that.

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 9:15 pm  

Yep this season early bird was 17.50 then up to 20 then 25 at the ticket office on the day so that bit has not changed

Re: Keighley : Thu Sep 28, 2023 11:01 pm  

[quote][/quote][quote="The Curtism"]Here's the view from the Broncos Bar after Keighley's first try...[/quote]
600 in that picture.I’m sad enough to count them.Plus another 125 in the Cappagh stand.Felt like the biggest crowd of the season until The Keighley fans moved in the second half.
I thought there were 700 against Swinton until I watched the highlights and realised I may have been out by a zero.

Re: Keighley : Fri Sep 29, 2023 4:35 pm  

I’ve enjoyed this flurry of home games although I think if the home games were spread out across the season more evenly and particularly during the football closed season that would be smarter. These last few games the atmosphere, which really is key to spectators rather than gate receipts, has been good and left me thinking there were quite a few in the ground but the pictures don’t lie it’s been mid and high hundreds not four figures which is a bit of a shame. No easy answers here but a concerted effort to gain attention at the start of the season and a winning team on the pitch could get our average up to 1000+ (big deal I know but it is what it is). I do think they could do more in the local area Wimbledon as Tooting. I know only too well how much posters in bus stops and tube stations cost but that does feel the right type of thing to do even if returns aren’t immediate. I also agree with the approach of asking local shops to put posters up ( in the style of the travelling circus). It’s tinpot but has to be done. I do wonder though if our average gates have gone up since year. If all will recall the Widnes gate last year was a whopper and that may mean we struggled to meet the average of 2022 which when you think of the rubbish served up last year and how we have performed this is a bit sad. You really don’t get many chances to make a first impression and we really xxxxed it up last year. Did we poison the well? I guess in this final year of the three year we will see.