The club did not organise it - the Testimonial Committee did, as with most of the events.

Nope. There are plenty of good and bad examples, see Brown and Morgan as two positives. Theer are a few ex players who are starting to build themselves decent reputations down under that would be worth trying. They would certainly be completel upto date on modern techniques etc.

And they are both golf

That is a very important consideration Paul, we got McRae by accident when he was at a failing Gateshead side, we inherited Kear because of the circumstances, then we brought Sharp in (the one I truly don't know if we just got him too early, or pushed him too early), and then we end up with the "dream ticket" we have now.

So, when was the last coach we had that was truly up to date? Maybe it was Kearney/Swain that ran the show when we were doing well, Berrigan is maybe not the right kind of players to do it, maybe that is why we wanted Crocker, in which case, it's probably why we needed Fitzgibbons, O'Meley and Long, to make up for shortcomings in coaching ability and methods?

And, if that is the case, are we better off brining in players to do the caching, or actual coaches?

It was a dissapointing turnout, as the first post said Burrows, Crabtree, Mcrae and Thaler were very good, i felt a bit embarrased at the low numbers im sure the players would have expected a bigger crowd.
Both players stayed for photos and to chat, Burrows seems keen to get into coaching, Mcrae stayed till the end and still has a lot of feeling for Hull and im sure be tempted back.
The plus side is i won Horneys 2004 shirt in the raffle

No idea how I managed to have no idea about this event

Dont spoil it.

I think the answer is right here. A combination of lack of advertising, too many events in quick succession and the £10 entrance fee means it wasn't going to get the crowd it deserved. Add to that it's the holiday season, it was a week night and people need to get babysitters then the night wasn't going to be a success.

We really wanted to go but a combination of the above meant we couldn't, shame because it was one of the events that we'd have really enjoyed.

Only heard about it once, didnt think it was too well publicised. It sounded like a fantastic event when I read about it, but then saw the £10 price which was absolutely ridiculous for a forum, I'm not suprised is was very poorly attended. The person who stuck that price on the event is a very silly person