OK.......
Bradford, until Saturday, were one of only 4 teams to average a gate of 4,000+ v London/Quins since 2000.
As it is, they have now dropped to a sub 4,000 average and I was wondering, apart from the fact that they have had a bad season, why we managed our 3rd worse gate of the season (only bettered by the welsh and the french). 4,016 was there average crowd, so where were the 900 or so missing fans?

Did the "dance off" not produce? Was the game promoted properly? Did the BBC game kicking off impact on the game?

When this fixture was re-scheduled, it must have been obvious to anyone witth a brain that the BBC would schedule a Saturday afternoon KO, so why didn't we bounce our game to a 5pm KO? Seriously......why?
3,112 is a disgrace and over all, the Summer campaign of four games has produced:
Less than average crowds for the games against The Bulls, Leeds and Saints with a better than average crowd against Huddersfield.
On the pitch, we have managed to gain 0 from 8 points and it has to be said that if any newbies had been tempted to try Quins RL, Watching us ship 166 points and only reply with 72 isn't going to make the season ticket hotline melt...

3 of these fixtures were against teams in 1,2,3 positions and it has to be said, it was pretty predictable that we would lose all 3 and it then beggars the question, why target these games? As it is, with Salford up next (average 2,670 v London) and our current season average 5% down on last year, I can see a crowd of less than 2,300 on Saturday.

The solution, as I see it? Don't know! I have posted for years on what I would do, but to be honest, it's not MY club and therefore, I have no inside knowledge of what funds (if any are available). I do get the impression that the Radio tie in with Capital failed and haven't seen much activity other than that. There was going to be a leaflet drop, but I doon't live in Twickenham so don't know if it happened.
If I were pressed for a solution, then I would fill the West Stand with freebies from local businesses for the Castleford game.
With 3 weeks to plan and execute a campaign, the club would need to pull out all the stops, but if GSK/SKY TV/Gillette/British Airways and other large companies were offered 250+ tickets for their staff, we would probably get some up-take. These companies are all feeling the pinch and for them to be able to "treat" their staff to a day out, may well prove attractive to them.
Castleford may well be a dead game (if we lose either of our next two it will be), so we will need to do something to attract people to the game.

I've always thought we have a great product and that if we get people along to games a fair few will come back. However, I suspect, that's just not the case right now. Saturday's game was over as a meaningful contest after 20 mins and totally devoid of atmosphere. Who would want to come back for more of that ?

go on lets start the fight
lets play on sundays next year see what the difference is

Lets not.

Might not be a bad idea. If Harlequins Rugby League declare that Sunday is the official fixture day for all games except SLY TV ones (or when the union boys whine) then I believe this would be another positive step forward. Saturdays are great, but we seem to be missing out on amateur/kids RL players coming to games, as well as those soccer fans from divs 1 & 2 whose teams rarely play any other day other than Saturday.
3pm Sundays, set in stone.
Next up, open the West Stand for Home fans other than on TV days. Allocate an East Stand seat to all ST holders for those days when the cameras are there, but otherwise, return to the West Stand.
Away fans. I don't like them in the north as 50 of them singing sounds like 2,000 due to the tin roof. I would stick them in the East stand.
Bars. Tricky one this. Except when we expect 4k+, I would only open the Kings for post match entertainment. To deal with 3,000 odd punters in the west, 3 beer wagons would be needed....1 each either side of the west and 1 between the south and the East. I would close the west stand bar as the second half kicks off and transfer them to the Kings bar which should open at full time.
Entertainment???? No more dancers/urban atheletes....
Elvis at half time is a laugh, as were the Blues Brothers, but 20 kids, with 20 mates watching isn't the audience we are going to retain.

All of the things above or any that the club are going to look at should be in the planning stage NOW.......not January next year. PB needs to consult the ST holders by letter/email and ask their opnions on various initiatives to be rolled out next year. Then, before ST's go on sale, the logistics put in place and everyone made aware of what is happening.

It would be refreshing for the club to ba able to announce these things now, well ahead of the end of the season. Also, if we are getting a new design of shirt for next year, then get it rolled out by November.....in time for christmas shopping and the festive day.

We are a small club, with 20 back room staff, players and 2,000 regular fans. Getting things organised on such a small scale shouldn't prove hard....should it?

I know this has been done to death in the past but why do people keep pretending that this is a factor? Its a load of rubbish, they didn't come and they won't come, simple as that.

And adjusting our kick off times for half hearted supporters such as Chris Brown is a joke. Start with keeping your CURRENT fan base happy rather than alienating them in the hope of attracting a few soccer fans. The world doesn't revolve around football - there are thousands of other sports fans who have no interest in football so why we have to panda to a minoirty who choose football over RL is beyond me. No other teams do it so I don't know why we should start.

Problem is, our CURRENT base don't seem to be happy and it would appear that some are considering not buying ST's next year. Regardless of if this is because of the East Stand/KO Days/KO Times......blah blah blah, the club need to change their attitude to the fans we have AND how to attract new ones.
As for the bit in red, alas, the world does revolve around wendy ball and for those of us who have no interest in it, only a couple of thousand seem to either be aware or inclined to watch League. These "sports" fans are our target audience.
Lastly, as for the amateur/kids....I agree. We tried it before and for some reason, it didn't work. That said, I would still try it again and again and again and again rather than end the 2010 season with a 3,500 average AGAIN!
I don't care if the club were to use any of my ideas or just their own, but they have to do something and pretty sharpish. The 2010 season is about 20 weeks away.....that's only 100 working days and let's face it, the back office staff are overstretched as it is.
But, as usual, the club will leave it all to the last minute

After last Sat I am now in total agreement with this. Had the team been coming off near where I was sitting I would have been able to give them the booing they deserved. It would have been a first time ever for me.

Our current fan base aren't happy according to who? I've noticed a few people on here whining about the Stands but other than that nothing. I have noticed nobody complaining about playing on a Saturday. This is what was voted for and the best day for the majority (IMO). Surely you must agree that keeping CURRENT supporters happy is more important than trying to attract new ones who might not even come back?



Yes, and as I just posted, there are plenty of other sports fans who don't give a monkeys about football. I think you might find that a large proportion of RL fans have an active dislike towards football. Our sport very much goes against the concept of football and thats why people follow it. Changing our kick off time and day to allow for a few people to do both stinks.



Waste of time and money. Why would you rather try ideas that don't work just incase they might work? Shall we try another community day, and do it again and again and again, hoping that it works one time? Its a terrible idea for reasons discussed before and should not even be considered.

Ha, good point. Although I had evacuated my seat not to return by half time

See...that's what has happened in the past. The club have tried something, it didn't work and the club decided against marketing at all!
I agree that Paul Browns initiative to give amateur players ST's didn't work, but rather than dismiss it out of hand, why not investigate why it failed? I am sure that any advertiser would investigate why their campaign didn't work rather than just keep on trying different things until they get lucky. I can just see the global marketing team at P&G sitting around a list of ideas, blindfolded with a pin



The RFL showed the club how it should be done for the Manly game, but no lessons were learnt. This points to the almost arrogant answer given at the fans forum about "no money worries" and "everything being in hand"...we were fed a line at the time and a 5% drop in gates with lower gates against the so called big 4 than the average gates in the past point to nothing being done...well nothing that worked anyway.

I am like you listy, in that I will sit in the East, west, north or south as long as I get to see the team. I don't mind too much if away fans sit in allocated seats as long as those people who have been allocated them aren't at the game. I go for the game for the game, not leech or some nobody of BGT, but the club need to look at the entire package and find a solution.
Oh, by the way, the community day was the only one of the 4 "summer at the stoop" days that actually got us a result. 100+ Kids playing rugby on the pitch with their parents, siblings and mates in attendance seemed to do the trick.......maybe we should promote the community team to do the marketing job as well

Sorry, I actually meant the dancing day or whatever it was.