Of course it is. Not everybody is a diehard fan and people do pick and choose their games. They want to see the big teams but only if there is a chance you will win. Its no fun playing your derby when its a near guaranteed defeat and an expected heavy one at that.

People often say when there is a big crowd, where are those thousands of fans week in week out? When Widnes have (had) big games thats when the likes of your sisters and everyone goes that have no real interest in Rugby apart from it being where they are from. They go because everyone in the town is going and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Are they all coming back to support their local team?

But to be fair, that was at Valley Parade. Wasn't too popular a place with Bulls fans.

So how do you explain Wigan's crowds? They haven't had much success in a while, but their crowds have been growing. In fact, they actually grew the year they were nearly relegated. Who was hunting glory that year?

Leeds didn't have a very successful year in 2006 but still managed to maintain a near-capacity crowd every week (capacity was reduced because of the stand works, so crowds will dip due to this). Where as Bradford in 2006 dropped their crowds by 2,000 despite being the reigning champions AND only one win away from the Grand Final. They were still successful, but lost a lot of fans.

A lot of your probably don’t trust messages that I get from people but my relatives at the game thought they was more than 14,554 fans. Yes it did look packed behind the sticks but from where I was standing in the first half I could do cartwheels. Second half my cousin sneaked me into the family stand where I could find a seat next to him in the apparently sold out stand. I could spot around 20 - 30 empty seats clearly in the family stand as could my cousin and he’s in the army not wearing these (my glasses) spectaculars -



Anyways this isn’t the point. If you all about brownie points then get a sex change and join them. I think the brownies have done the ladies on this site well as they aren’t as opinionated as us.

It was a healthy crowd IMO and a good game. If you want to go on about attendances then start comparing yourself to someone better than yourselves rather than someone a bit worse than you. Bully's!

Spot the difference...

err 1 has glasses .......what i win ??

Quite correct, its a source of constant amusement that some people place such a huge emphasis on crowd figures and their need to assign some sort of badge of honour to clubs who may or may not manage to maintain a core of their attendees year on year - this just means that Club A has far more geeks than Club B.

Not all clubs realise this but they are all in the entertainment business, they compete with every other form of visitor attraction that you can name, including other sporting clubs, cinemas, pubs, etc, etc, etc.

The marketing team at Club A may have worked harder during the winter to convince the general public that a season ticket is terrific value and so guarantee their core of support, on the other hand in recent years at Headingley the value of a season ticket has gradually eroded to the position where we did not get to learn of the quantity sold before the season started - a sure sign thats its less than last year then.

Its a difficult arguement to see for those who will buy a season ticket plus a new shirt for every season regardless of what happens on the field for they believe that evryone thinks like they do, in truth its not like that for the majority of people stood alongside them in the ground, and its always a surprise to them to find that not everyone goes every week, or even every month - its always a surprise to supporters on ss.com when I mention that I often "can't be @rsed" going to a Friday night game at Headingley for a variety of reasons, that I haven't had a season ticket for four seasons, and that I only attended three live matches last season (two of them were finals though - and I didn't pay for any of the three )

But thats the way it is - smart clubs will do more to attract people through the gates, dumb clubs will just rely on their hardcore of club geeks.

How many people compare the audience figures at their local cinemas ?

Now that Phil Spector has been banged up I predict that this is the face of popular music for the next decade or so.

Anyone who does not believe me has not yet heard the magnificent "Ode to Wheels" on Damo's ubiquitous YouTube site.

I didn't know that I had been assigned this task.


Don't make me laugh. For a start, everyone loves (or loved) a good relegation struggle. I can't remember now, as I wasn't paying much notice, but wasn't there something about poaching the current Great Britain coach, and buying up half the league's best players for record-breaking fees that might have had something to do with it?

Is not avoiding relegation against all odds in one sense "glory hunting", if you must use that stupid phrase?



Nice, if amazingly shallow, try, but unfortunately for you there is no simplistic, magic formula for getting in crowds. Things decline over a period of time, just as they are built up over time. There are no instant on-off switches like you seem to think, and potential attendees simply do NOT behave like programmed robots. If you would realise that it's actually an extremely complex subject, you would find what you seem to think are anomalies less baffling.

So, for example, rallying around a team which is in dire relegation straits, but suddenly goes on an unprecedented signings splurge, is actually, when you think about it, something that might well galvanise non-committed people to go watch a game or two, see the superstars signed perform, and share the drama of the battle for survival.

Whereas if Wigan, or anyone, slid into the doldrums and stayed there, then the longer it remained so, the more crowds would gradually decline, in general proportion to the standard the team was at. Each league will have its exceptions, up to a point, but if I were you I'd use a different starting point:

What is the average attendance in SL?
What is the average attendance in the Championship?
What is the average attendance in NL1?
What is the average attendance in the Pennine League?

In general terms, attendances within a league are broadly comparable.
And in a lower league they are lower, on average.
And the teams that do well tend to get the higher attendances.
Teams with a pedigree, such as Wigan, Leeds or Bradford, or in soccer teams like Leeds United, retain a higher base, for a while, because the starting point was so much higher, for so long, in the first place. But if they drop out of the League a la Luton, what would their crowds be then, do you think?

As I said - this is not rocket science.