I’ve said it before, The Shay is simply too big for us and could potentially be a mill-stone round our neck if we do buy it. The fact town is looking elsewhere tells you all you need to know. I think a sensible option would be to move to King Cross Park, Siddal or Halifax Rugby Union. All have decent facilities for hospitality.

In an ideal situation any of those 3 would be good options but none of those clubs would get in to bed with Fax. The reality is that at the moment we bring nothing to the table other than the ability to not pay our bills where ever we play/train. Clubs are going to be sceptical with the saga over the Shay rent and also the ladies getting booted from OSCA as well. I can see the council going down the route of selling the Shay and putting a small amount of the proceeds in to the funding of a tiny stadium for both teams. Town are going nowhere fast and we are a million miles from ever needing a stadium with more than 3k capacity so I can see that making sense for the council.

I thought something had been signed /agreed that the shay had to be used has a sporting venue.

Like has been said the shay is too big and the only thing that was rumoured was turning the skircoat stand into a hotel /casino to bring in constant revenue.

The only way it works is by the shay being more than a sporting venue but that would require third party investment like a Marshall’s or a hotel group etc .

I'm sure we all know someone who stopped watching Fax after the move to the Shay. I've said all along it's too big and not really a RL ground. I think the best option is for the Council to sell it for housing, etc where they should get a nice sum, using the proceeds to give Fax and Town to develop their own stadium(s). Effectively the Council's share of the sale would be significant future business rates and/or council tax from the new development plus of course savings on not running the Shay.

Yes I agree with you completely on other clubs fear to allow us to play at their grounds. I think Fax really need to be thinking ahead as Town could very easily be playing a complete bluff saying they don’t want The Shay and then swoop in, buy it and kick us out. Certainly more chance of that happening to us than us doing it to Town.

Without our own ground and source of revenue from it we will continue to be reliant on people pouring money into the club which won’t last forever.

The land that National Grid own at the bottom of town adjacent to Matalan and opposite the Wool Merchants would be a good plot to have.

Also in all this owning our own ground gets us more points with IMG, which obviously isn’t the end of the world but helps if this is what we are locked into for the next ten years.

After the disappointment of this season which could end with us been in League One the club needs a long term plan which I’m sure they have, hopefully!

Hopefully this could be an option

Ewll the thread does cause you to reflect on the current position. .Despite the best efforts of countless individuals the thing that doesnt work without substantial central funding is the business model at the shay.everyone just keeps going around the same circle of how to pay the rent costs with no self owned bar revenue. Maybe en davey he sees a business opportunity because its a known fact that the shay has the same footprint as old trafford. It has just been totally under utilised. The council now want rid so maybe its pastures new .

Based on how many are going if you look round all the Championship grounds most if not all are too big, with hardly anyone down the full length of one touchline and behind both posts, it’s a dying sport on it’s last legs especially at this level.

As I've said before, the main reason for dwindling attendances is the cost. 20 quid for championship rugby is ridiculous and there's no way new fans will be attracted. But the clubs just think that if the team plays well then folk will just start rocking up. Wrong. Some clubs have decided not to publish the attendance, fev against Toulouse for example. No idea why. Embarassed?

Yes on finance admission is a lot of money and a real conundrum to solve, if you keep prices at there current levels then you put people off but when you cut them you risk an even bigger shortfall if the numbers don’t increase.
Without digging too deep last year Batley received a lot of praise for doing this but just a year later the prices are back up again with no concessions which would seem to indicate it didn’t work.

On interest in the game, admission prices are just one part of the problem where for example because of the way the game is being run especially outside Super League even die hard fans are being turned off in droves so if the hard core are losing interest no wonder the soft core are being affected the same way.

On the ground issue the size is determined by the pitch and then the amount of infra structure around it and then onto how you use that as close to it’s maximum potential to cover both the game and beyond with some sort of income / return over a full year and not just a couple of dozen out of the 52.
The number of clubs with ground and attendance issues past and present would again seem to indicate that it’s another hard nut to crack.

It's hard to compare because Batley don't appear to announce their attendances even though looking at highlights the ground appears empty. I remember reading something that the Batley season ticket holders were cheesed off about last season's match day discount because they were effectively shafted paying an average higher match entrance than the "less loyal" fair weather fans. Fax did a "season ticket holder bring a friend for a tenner" a couple of seasons back which, as a then season ticket holder myself, was quite annoying because my non season ticket holder mate got in for a tenner whilst my average cost was £17 !!

The clubs have to be smarter than that. I've suggested before that mini season tickets might be a good idea for those fans who don't want to commit to full season tickets (holiday commitments). A good example, using me as a yardstick, would have been a £50 triple ticket for Wakey/Dewsbury/Bradford as my attendance for the Dewsbury match depends on what side of bed I get out of whereas the triple match ticket would have definitely got me going - so a tenner made for the club.

Incidentally I didn't get a season ticket this time because of the stingy discount and also influenced by that bring a friend thingy.

Its fairly simple, if the council were to sell the shay for housing then the amount gained would be nowhere near enough to buy some other land and build a stadium.

I for one appreciate the challenge the club is facing and the attempts at some of their initiatives and did buy season tickets at the full price when I could have had a discount and have brought a friend or two paying the full price for them as well.

Likewise in the past (and I know others) that have taken advantage for example of both early bird season ticket and mini season ticket offers.

I look at it this way, it’s not me and them, it’s my club and I’ll support it for as long as I can, how I can.

On the bigger picture you could have a hundred people in a room with a hundred different brilliant ideas on what they should do.

Just look at the state of things in the sport and the numerous different attempts at getting it right, there’s probably already been a hundred and more great ideas talked about, thrown out or tried and then thrown out again with no progress apart from taking the game backwards.

On getting the pricing right and people through the gate it’s a challenge every club is facing and if there was an easy one fix for all then all would be doing it so it seems no one is being smart enough.

I agree, it is a hell of a job getting it right and I sympathise the club (like all the others) is in between a rock and a hard place. It's just that the current option being taken of holding admission at 20 quid and hoping crowds will get better is not working and one by one clubs will fall off a cliff.

It's been another crap championship as Wakey has trashed the competition, we all should have signed amateur players, saved tons of brass, and waited for them to go back to SL. Not sure there'll be respite next season either. London took the part time route after knowing they'd be relegated before a ball was kicked (so daft it beggars belief) so they might still have lots of their SL money left thus cornering next season's championship best talent.

Probably the only positive with London coming down is that most of their squad has signed elsewhere for next season which means they will have to rebuild. Money has never been a problem for them with David Hughes pumping it in and in recent years he has been cutting back so I don't reckon they will be coming down and been anything much better than a decent side.

On the crowds issue, I think it said it all on Sunday which will be the biggest attendance of our season but looked like it had the fewest Fax fans that have been at a game in a while. I don't know how that will change because what we serve up is pretty dire, but that's not just Fax its the game at the top level in general. There are plenty of good amateur games over the weekends that you can get your rugby fix at and it be more entertaining.