Personally I think too much gets made of leaving early. I often leave games a few minutes early for whatever reason and couldn't care less what some uberfan thinks of me.

People are perfectly entitled to leave whenever they like and it's nobody's business but theirs.

I'd like to see more of it in the workplace, no docking of wages, just Directors hanging out of windows shouting "We can see you, we can see you ..."

A lot of people were leaving with a lot more than ten mins left. Sort of makes the whole leaving to avoid the queue thing redundant. IT got to the point where it would be more efficient to stay and hope for a pie comeback.

My friend who was supposed to be giving me a lift text me when there was about 15 mins left saying he was leaving. He didn't manage to get out for 5-10 mins cause the queues for the exit were so long.

And people keep saying its a game of 80 minutes

Quote: 1905 "Are we the best away fans in SL? Serious question; Who has the biggest away following? Must be us.'" Difficult to judge accurately, obviously. But if you go purely off numbers, then the following is a guide, we are second to Leeds: www.slstats.org/ViewRound/Year_2 ... /Away.html Only a guide, as I say. For one thing, that isn't actually a measure of just away fans it's home fans too which can vary for lots of reasons other than just who is playing, but still.

Quote: 1905 "Are we the best away fans in SL? Serious question; Who has the biggest away following? Must be us.'" Difficult to judge accurately, obviously. But if you go purely off numbers, then the following is a guide, we are second to Leeds: www.slstats.org/ViewRound/Year_2 ... /Away.html Only a guide, as I say. For one thing, that isn't actually a measure of just away fans it's home fans too which can vary for lots of reasons other than just who is playing, but still.

Im not going to criticise them for leaving early, it added to the whole atmosphere tbh!! Theres no better sight than seeing them all leave early!

i got that drunk last year against Saints that i left the game early thinking it was over. I then argued with a taxi driver taking me home because i could not understand how the game was on the radio while i was in his cab when i had been sure i had heard the hooter and left the ground. Does that make me less loyal or too ancient to be drinking 6 hours before a match kicks off?

Wire dont bring the biggest following to London- that usually goes to Wigan -Dissapointingly

They did for Wembley.

Warrington the best away following? Sure we might take good away followings now we are good, like Bradford did during the Elliott and Noble days. It's not too long ago that you would go to Knowsley Road and find about 100 Wire fans. I guess the rest of the loyal supporters got put off by the distance.

As for being loyal, Wigan's average gate last year when they were champions, was 15181. Their average gate in 2006 when they were in a relegation fight was 14458. Thats a 5% increase on gates from being champions over being in a relegation fight.
Compare this to us, when we were in a relegation fight in 2002 we averaged 6189. Last year when we were back to back Challenge Cup winners was 10738. That's a 73.5% increase for us. Now I know that is not a like for like comparison as ours is over a longer time period and we moved to a new stadium, and I would rather have the big growth figure than the small one. But that 5% for Wigan says two things:
1. The fans who are watching them now, are basically the same ones who were watching them at the bottom of the league under Millward
2. There mustn't be much growth potential in Wigan if they can't get more than 15000 now. To put it in context, during their glory days in the late 80s and early 90s they averaged 14000-14500. So I think with Wigan you have the same set of supporters who watch them however they are doing, they don't seem able to attract newcomers from outside. We have obviously got more of a bandwagon effect.

The problem with that argument that you can use statistics in various different ways that will sound positive. Maybe we should stick to enjoying the magnificent sight of the Wigan Walk and hope that we see it a bit more often in the coming months. It is a great tradition and long may it continue. I was told that the 18th man left after 65 minutes.

Because of their long period of dominance, Wigan have got a 'brand' in rugby league which everyone has heard of, like Liverpool. In football everybody talks about Liverpool even when they aren't doing well, everyone knows how long it is since their last title. Nobody talks about how long is it since Blackburn's last title even though its more recent than Liverpool, because Blackburn weren't at the top long enough to establish a brand. Wiganers know that Wigan RL is what their town is famous for so it guarantees a bigger long term fan base.

We don't have that brand established, we're just a team currently on the up. But this is an advantage in terms of being able to market ourselves to a new audience. A lot of people in the areas around Warrington will have vaguely been aware that Warrington has an RL team and they are usually rubbish. I bet there were Warringtonians who were say into football, who had never been to a Wire match in their life, but would have had some basic knowledge about Warrington because they had seen the Warrington Guardian or listened to the radio so they probably knew Van de Velde was our coach and then Cullen, and would have heard of a few players like Langer and Briers. But then when they start picking up the idea that we are Challenge Cup winners and trophy contenders they might think hang on I might give this a go.

At the moment we're not established enough yet to be safe, if say Smith left and we made a bad appointment as coach, Briers, Morley and co retired, and we started going back to the days of 8th/9th in the league, our gates would tumble and it would be the same lot who were watching in 2002. We have to have a bit of long term success to start securing long term supporters. But the signs are good.

Two very good,in depth and interesting posts there sally. I would say away support is quite difficult to gage tbh,our away support unless locally i would say is pretty poor,there looked to be only approx 150 at bradford and even less at the kc stadium.Although we had a decent turnout at the stoop even though it was a friday,strange really