What sort of crowd could Barrow realisitically expect to attract?

1billionty fans, would be more if they got away support.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workington_TownYep[/url......massive as they were last time



"When the Super League was set up, it was proposed that Workington merge with Barrow, Carlisle and Whitehaven to form a Cumbrian super club. This was, however, resisted and an unmerged Workington took part in Super League but would record only two wins all season. They finished bottom of the table and were relegated to the Northern Ford Premiership with significant debts".

Lucky old Celtic Crusaders eh

They will do better next year with Briers ...................

If you're talking about us as a mid-table SL team, then I'd say we'd better crowds of 4 or 5 current SL clubs. If we were to stay in SL and sustain reasonable success then the club has a big enough catchment for 8,000-10,000 crowds (as we attracted on and off in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's).

Sleeping Giant comes to mind....with a bit more finance for the ground and players they could hold there own.
Wonder if James Graham would be interested in playing for a cumbrian superleague team.

Wouldn't that be nice. It would be great if we made it and we could 'bring the boys back home' - locals like Ade Gardner, Matt Gardner, Peter Lupton, Ben Harrison and Ollie Wilkes - not to mention other young locals signed on at SL clubs playing in their academy's.

What's so funny ???

Barrow have a much bigger catchment than a lot of SL teams and given a competitive team in SL I think 8K-10K would certainly be achieveable.

The problem is that an RL fan under 30 will probably only remember Barrow as a struggling lower league team.

Anyone 40 or over should be able to remember a club with very good crowds who regularly graced the top division and played in major cup finals. We were certainly every bit as big a club as Cas, Wakey, Leigh, Salford and a few others to-boot. In the early 80's we were the 4th/5th best supported club in the land.

Had Murdock and SL arrived 10 years earlier our path could easily have followed that of many current SL teams.

The biggest hurdle is our stadium. We own it lock, stock and barrel, but it needs major development. However, plans are afoot.

Watch this space.

I admire your optimisim SRC but you cant even get 2,000 now even though your playing very well. Even Leigh get more.

Now now no need for that

We are averaging more than Leigh this season (2,200) and are only 200 lower on average than Halifax. Fax have been boosted by a couple of live matches as well. Barrow only get 1 home televised match this season and that isn't until July !! Our fan base is growing quickly and is up over 50% on last season - that's pretty good IMO.

You have to remember that this is our first season back at the higher level. The likes of Widnes, Fax, Leigh and Haven have never played lower than 2nd tier rugby and a lot of those clubs have spent several years in SL.

What crowds do you think Hudds, Celtics, Wakey etc would be getting if they had just spent the last 20 years in the doldrums ??? I remember when Hudds dropped out of SL they were averaging barely 2,000 in the NFP. Look at them now (the same goes for HKR as well).

Give us the chance and we'll prove it !