Quote: getdownmonkeyman "I would say that is open to debate, the West Stand was about a third full indicating a crowd of about 1200. When I looked across I thought the away crowd was quite sp relative to usual Cas following. Add to that, they had come off a bit of a spanking on Good Friday. That said, away crowds should have no bearing on the overall attendance, as your core support should be more than enough to overcome any small attendance from away supporters. Commercially, we are fighting for a slice of a shrinking pie, it is unfortunate that we sweeping through with a new broom in such difficult times.'" I'm not so sure the pie is shrinking. The RFL are consistently telling us that SL attendances are increasing year on year though. The facts also state that the average attendance for the regular season in 2008 was 10,338 (a Super League record) this was up from 9,855 in 2007 which was previously the record. In terms of aggregate attendances in 2008 this was 1,674,809 up from 1,537,326 for 2007. This is the seventh consequetive year since 2001 that the the regular season average attendance and aggregate attendance had increased from the previous year. Obviously we are only part way through 2009 (and the much discussed economic conditions) and we can only judge at the end of the season. However the RFL are boasting a record attendance for the 4th round of the 2009 Challenge Cup here. www.therfl.co.uk/home/news_item_top.php?id=13617 Simply put, I remain concerned at the drop off in support and believe, if it is unchecked, will start to have a significant impact on the finances of the club.

Quote: getdownmonkeyman "I would say that is open to debate, the West Stand was about a third full indicating a crowd of about 1200. When I looked across I thought the away crowd was quite sp relative to usual Cas following. Add to that, they had come off a bit of a spanking on Good Friday. That said, away crowds should have no bearing on the overall attendance, as your core support should be more than enough to overcome any small attendance from away supporters. Commercially, we are fighting for a slice of a shrinking pie, it is unfortunate that we sweeping through with a new broom in such difficult times.'" I'm not so sure the pie is shrinking. The RFL are consistently telling us that SL attendances are increasing year on year though. The facts also state that the average attendance for the regular season in 2008 was 10,338 (a Super League record) this was up from 9,855 in 2007 which was previously the record. In terms of aggregate attendances in 2008 this was 1,674,809 up from 1,537,326 for 2007. This is the seventh consequetive year since 2001 that the the regular season average attendance and aggregate attendance had increased from the previous year. Obviously we are only part way through 2009 (and the much discussed economic conditions) and we can only judge at the end of the season. However the RFL are boasting a record attendance for the 4th round of the 2009 Challenge Cup here. www.therfl.co.uk/home/news_item_top.php?id=13617 Simply put, I remain concerned at the drop off in support and believe, if it is unchecked, will start to have a significant impact on the finances of the club.

OK my posts were related just to attendances. I thought you were countering that you imagined the Castleford attendance yesterday to be lower than 2007 and that economic conditions in general affecting ticket sales could be used to explain the difference of a 15% drop compared with 2 years earlier.

On the season ticket issue, I would suggest if SL attendances are indeed increasing year on year and each season a record aggregate attendance is broken, it would be reasonable to assume that season tickets across the sport would be increasing in proportion.

I would suggest that commerical sponsorship revenue is hit more in a recession rather than attendance revenue.

Either way, it's not good news and that was my point.

Totally agree. What I will add to the attendance comment though, is the amount of people who have given up on buying a ticket due to the games being switched from Sunday. Was it something like eight home games played on a Sunday last season?

The club has one less person on the commercial team (having gone to media). Hopefully they have found someone else as it is going to get harder to get sponsorship from the traditional places.

Look like the south stand is up for sponsorship again soon too.

With this attatude, ur not going to get any better either, did you forget that we beat you at your own ground last year too, and that was while we WAS at the bottom of SL. This year year where are not. Its clear you have no respect for teams that did not finish above you last year.
Get a grip. This years going to be a battle, and your team needs your SUPPORT

I don't know what your worried about. We haven't got a nice new ground. We have just lost probably the most successful coach in the history of Super League. Other teams are signing some of our better players, Talau, Fozzard, Anderson. We've already lost at home this season and Wigan are even keeping the score down. Depressing times all right, we may have to bring the likes of Moore and Smith back at the end of their loans. What's more were still in the Challenge Cup, just think how thats going to tire our weakened squad. Oh well, never mind. Now next year !!

There's nothing else we can do, there's no point blowing cash chasing instant signings of average but available players to try and make us finish 9th rather than 11th.

I think supporters will respond to a genuine strategy of using the season for development, if a core of players is identified and begins to emerge under Smith and in the second half of the season we have some good committed team performances, that will give the crowds something to appreciate rather than the false dawns we've been fed in the past.

The problem with the crowds at the moment is that there's a lot of people who have just given up on the club and can't be bothered any more. Going back to 2000 when we brought Langer, Gee and Nikau, we've had a lot of false dawns where the excitement levels have been raised in the town only for us to be left deflated. We were excited when Gleeson and Fa'afili heralded the new age in the new stadium, we were excited when Johns came in at the end of 2005 (the one time in recent years when I actually started thinking we had a sniff of winning Super League), every year we had a crop of international signings coming in and the board talked of silverware and Wembley, and when it didn't materialise we said it was because of injuries to the first teamers, we had to play the kids, if the first teamers had been there we would have won something.....then there would be more big names coming in to raise expectation for the next year. The cynics amongst us started to recognise this cycle in about late 2006 but lots of the more optimistic fans were swept along in the tide of belief for two more years after that.

The reason things are different now is the expectation appears to have been scratched, I doubt anybody will mention silverware for a while at Warrington now because our tails are firmly between our legs. Yet now we've got a far better set of personnel running the on field show (people like Smith, Bastian, Farrell) than we did during the years of living the false dream. Smith will bring some integrity to the club which the supporters will respond to, the crowds this season will drop off but I with the right (not necessarily the most exciting) signings for next year and careful development of the players who do have talent already at the club we will be a competitive team under Smith which is disciplined in defence and offloads and supports like Smith teams do.

Look at the effect Nathan Brown is having on Huddersfield, if Warrington start doing that next season which is easily achievable by Smith, I can guarantee Warrington will have strong crowds because it will be what they have been waiting for.

I feel much better about Warrington now Smith's here than I have for the past few years, I've been predicting this recession for a while whereas now I feel like I can predict the recovery.