The fire damping properties of a pee soaked (wooden) Threepenny stand at the Boulavard, either a slash at the back or run the golden shower to the bogs underneath...lol
We've gone all soft, hot water, soap and paper towels...ladee fecking dah

That cant be right, can it? Wasn't everything better in the old days? Surely? Attendances are plummeting. Its a fact. People on here say so. The game is dying. Im sure you must have misread that number. *cough* *cough*

Less than 6k attendance at "top of the table" Shuddersfield. Shocking. And dare I say it? But I watched the Italy -v- Ireland RU match today and it was far more entertaining than last night's boring Whinos-v-Wigan RL match. I agree - RL is in the worst state I can remember

If we're going to take comfort from observations that the game has been in worse states, then we're in a pessimistic mindset. Any backward step is bad news, whatever the starting point. I'm glad there's plenty people starting to see the direction of travel ( backwards ) because the sooner its spotted, the better. Once again, we get a list of excuses as to why the top side attracts such a poor, well, disgracefully poor, crowd. These things feed on themselves...who wants to take new fans to rattle around in an empty stadium with no atmosphere?

That Huddersfield attendance should shock us into a commitment to find out what the heck is going on. Making excuses for it is pointless.

Another one the game is better off without? What a great idea. Get rid of anyone who doesn't think that every single RL match is greater than any other sporting contest and that the RFL are the pinnacle of sports management. Then you and Smokey can have a stand each at Huddersfield, all to youselves.

The attendance at Huddersfield has nothing to do with the 'state of the game' though, and everything to do with a number of Huddersfield specific issues. It has diddly squat to do with the sport being well/poorly run or disillusionment with the weekly rounds or Nigel Wood's cholesterol levels.

Yep the 70's were indeed grim.

But if you weren't around then, he has a point ?

In this case, yes.

We might have lower attendances than this time last year, for one reason or another....but looking at the numbers so far, I just don't buy this "what the heck is going on" mentality. The fact that the attendances are not (in my opinion) drastically different from the last few years leads me to think that there are currently far bigger problems in the sport that need addressing. I just don't buy into these attendance panic stations that so many on here seem to do. Sorry.

The league is made up of clubs, so a club specific issue is an issue for all of us ( even if diluted by 14 to 1). Besides, there is never a single issue when it comes to attendances. There's are reasons people don't watch Huddersfield, just like there are reasons people don't watch London and Salford. They are complex and multi-faceted, but no way are they only due to specifc issues at those clubs.

Fair enough, but if its a drop of 10% or more ( maybe it won't be, but my money's on something slightly more than 10) that's a pretty serious drop in one season. If you were running a business and couldn't see an obvious explanation ( ice cream van in a wet summer, say) then I reckon you'd be pretty keen to find out what was going on. I think you DO need to react quickly ( call it panic if you like ) because crowds are a lot easier to lose than to win back. Much rather we over react than under react.

I'm only young but I wouldn't say the game now is in a worse state than it was in the late 90's. We have 14 full-time professional clubs operating with full staff and squads of 25 in front of an average crowd of around 10,000. We certainly aren't worse off than 48k at the '98 GF and a disastrous 2000 WC.

In house, we aren't doing a bad job. I do feel, however, that the games profile outside it's fan base is probably as low as ever. I live with 6 Uni students all from different corners of England and the names they know are Sean Long and Keith Senior. Their prime was 8 years ago.

I feel a lot hinges on the World Cup this year. We'll get some sort of spotlight for the first time in a long time and there needs to be some sort of strategy in keeping the interest alive and keeping those fans who get a bit interested, involved. Big challenge.

Let's see if we have a 10% drop over the WHOLE season before we drop the flags to half mast shall we?

And anyway, do you know that the clubs and the RFL aren't working in the background to try and improve crowds or find out why they are down so far? Just because they don't come out with announcements pandering to the doom mongers doesn't mean they aren't working across the board to improve things.