Personally I always felt the club never put enough effort behind re-engaing the lost thousands of older supporters who were lost to the club when they moved from Thrum Hall and the advent of SL. Still stuns me how many still feel betrayed by the club the once followed in droves all over the country, irrespective of the division they were in.

Its alright targetting youth, but when parents and grandparents really dont want to go they will make any excuse not to. I was dragged there by my Dad as a kid and through his enthusiasm became hooked. Not sure what the answer is to getting them back, but I still feel its a critical component thats missing when it comes to raising Fax's profile.

All I'll say to that is, yes, they ran like scared rabbits the last time we were in SL, while some of us hung around.
Didn't the Bulls cup-tie speak volumes to you ? the turnout was dire in all honesty.


The people of Halifax have had three big finals to enjoy in the most recent of consecutive seasons, for only 3K to go for a day/weekend at the Blackpool final in my opinion is rubbish. I was talking to a chap at the gym I use the other day and he was telling me that his party have purchased 50 tix for the NRC final, only 8 of those are regular supporters, so if other groups are in similar percentage situations, the take up really isn't that good is it ?
I should imagine the Ivy house will again be running a trip that has non-regulars amongst it's party too, and if you think about what's in front of the amateur game clubs like Halifax & Leigh will suffer spectator wise when the NCL changes to summer rugby, because lads won't be able to be involved with RL all weekend if they have families. The RFL have a lot to answer for.

Easy , start beating Leeds and Bradford on a regular basis , and they will come back , unfortunatly that option is no longer available to you , so you have to look elsewhere for your future

How many times have you seen certain posters on the VT post ' its a local game for local people ' in an attempt to insult so called anti expansionists ? , when in fact what they post is exactly what we need to be doing , as far as clubs like ours are concerned , we are a local sport for local people , that should be our main focus

Yes , that is my main fear as well , I pointed it out when the changeover was first mentioned , were at the moment your average fan can get one day a weekend to go and watch a game all year round , when they move to summer you will have the amateurs playing Saturday with a £ 2 entrance fee and cheap beer and then the local semi pro club on a sunday , which option will many fans take ?

As you say , sometimes they dont actually think these things through properly

I have got to agree with you on this one ,I think it`s time that we distanced ourselves from the RFL expantionist model and embraced and celebrated our individualisam as a local sport.
As all other fans that have been around for years I know dozens and dozens of people who have stopped going to the matches because of things that the RFL have imposed on us. One of them being the stoping of promotion and relegation and while we cannot do anything about that I do think we should be "selling the club" on ideals that are important to our own town and it`s people and stop bothering about the "buying in "of RFL claptrap.
I like you hope whoever wins the fancy dress tickets chucks them on the floor and refuses to take them because will they be doing the same at the Challenge Cup final and offering 2 tickets to next years Blackpool final for the Championship ? No you bet your life they won`t.

Time to start celebrating the flatcap and not the expantionist model it`s not right for our town.

Featherstone wear flat caps!

Too true Johnny me-boy. Too many things in this world get tarnished by low lifes, jumping on a symbol of good honest hard work.

we are in i tell ya!!!!!! innnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

i heard another rumour last night from someone i trust to be on the ball.

Nobby is preparing us for SL.

We had all this in 2008. Steve O'Connor had spent over £1M on the club so surely he must know we're in. He offered a £1/2M bond as security and we still got overlooked. If I was a betting man (and I am) it will be 14 teams with Wakefield dropping out.

Nobby is preparing for SL but likelihood is it will be with Cas or Hull KR sadly. Throw into the mix Bradford/Leeds for next season as dischord is rife at these clubs currently. We have been overlooked again I'm afraid and I'm pretty certain we are not SL bound as much as I think we should be.

I think Halifax are a great club, and I must say that they deserve to be in SL as much as Widnes. But I don't think they'll come in, but I do think they have a better argument if they win next Sunday, btw, thank you for letting us use your ground, much appreciated.

I love it when folk talk about deserving to be in SL - small men in smoke filled rooms deciding who the worthy should be, forcing the applicants to sign documents refusing them the right to question the decisions. Sounds like Russia circa 1936.
Stop the charade now, bring back P&R with minimum standards and keep RL alive.