Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sat Sep 05, 2015 4:20 pm  

Have to say it looked less than that to me. Suspect a few non attending season ticket holders were included. Little evidence of Londoners buying into the event where I was. Hopefully it worked well enough for Wigan to return or I fear we have seen the last ever Superleague game in London.

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sat Sep 05, 2015 4:24 pm  

Halfdan of t'wide embrace wrote:

Have to say it looked less than that to me. Suspect a few non attending season ticket holders were included. Little evidence of Londoners buying into the event where I was. Hopefully it worked well enough for Wigan to return or I fear we have seen the last ever Superleague game in London.

Sadly you may be right.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying matters but a decent team with a decent coach, youngsters coming through the ranks, a stable home base and some money spent on promotion/ marketing/ engagement with the London public was what London needed. Hardly rocket science but yet Mr Hughes .......

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:00 pm  

No way was there 8;000 in the ground.

Looked like the sort of crowd Broncos got at The Stoop.

The Den worked well as a venue though.

Wonder if St David of Hughes ruled it out because of his Charlton connections?

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:45 am  

A Wigan friend thought it was accurate? remember The Den holds 20,106

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:55 am  

The Cold Blow Lane End was pretty full but every where else was sparsely populated.

My guess is circa 5,000 bums on seats.

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:03 am  

The top tier at both ends were closed. One end lower tier was sparsely populated, the other was fuller. The Dockers stand was quiet, especially upstairs. Barry Kitchener stand lower was reasonably populated in the centre but empty on the ends. I couldn't see the top tier but I gave no indication of being rammed.

I spent ten years in South London and have watched football there often enough to be highly suspicious of the declared gate. Even if I hadn't been before I'd say it was nowhere near heading towards half full sadly. I texted a friends saying 4-5k, probably nearer the lower figure, before the gate was announced. A family of Wigan fans next to me burst out laughing when it was.

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:47 pm  

Yes indeed that`s disastrous really for Wigan playing all those miles from home and only getting 5000 turn up in London to watch them if infact it was that low in the first place.
Why on earth did Ian L not seek advice from Hughes to guarantee a sell out.

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Sun Sep 06, 2015 11:04 pm  

pronto wrote:

Why on earth did Ian L not seek advice from Hughes to guarantee a sell out.

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Mon Sep 07, 2015 6:00 am  

Paddock Punter wrote:

You going EW?

Good to meet up with you again Paddock . Glad to see you still hold Union in such high regard lol .

Might catch you at the England oops. (sorry) New Zealand match in November lol .

Regards , EW

Re: Wigan bring Catalan to London : Mon Sep 07, 2015 6:40 am  

pronto wrote:

Yes indeed that`s disastrous really for Wigan playing all those miles from home and only getting 5000 turn up in London to watch them.

Actually it is possibly disastrous. Not for Wigan, this match was never about bums on seats for them. This was about corporate schmoozing and we have no idea how that worked. However if a known name like Wigan, with decent press, PR and marketing struggle to get southerners through the door what exactly is the message to anyone interested in "investing" in southern RL?

There was a serious attempt to put a consortium together to take on Broncos within the past 18 months or so. It didn't get off the ground, there was no formal bid. If Wigan decide not to return that will send a huge message out to anyone approached now. I have no idea whether the main man behind the consortium is even interested now but with London out of Superleague, gates down to 250 -350 and the clock ticking on David reducing his financial input it's fast approaching now or never.

I know a bloke who works for Millwall and will be able to put in a more accurate guesstimate of the crowd than most of us. I have some photos of the crowd on my phone. I should see him next weekend. If he reckons it looks like an 8k crowd I'll post that as it's only fair on Wigan.