Considering I got 2 tickets for the Wigan V Blackburn game randomly through the post i wonder how many of the 18000 average attendance are actually paying customers and not freebies to make the stadium look half full.

No doubting that Fred, but now they are there Whelan is using every tool in the book to build up a generation of football fans that will follow W!gan Athletic rather than Man U / City / Bolton etc.
They are probably only just starting on the father > son passing on the team he supported as for many years Latics (effectively in many eyes) didn't exist.

At Leigh our problems attracting fans are massive, this year will see another drop as more and more children(and adults) in Leigh will follow Wire, W!gan and Saints.
Tough times ahead for lower league clubs and for Leigh, we [ireally[/i need to massively target the youth (and also get some lucky results ! )otherise the generation gaps become too big to bridge.

Exactly far easier to attract the image concious youth of today if your in the top flight of the sport, not so easy if your not, freebies or no.
We will soon see next thursday when a 'shedload' of freeby tickets have been given out via The local amateur clubs and some schools.

Who cares? Why the obsession with everything Wigan. Target 1 for Leigh is to get their average crowd about 2000. And then above 2500. It hurts to say this, but Leigh can't claim to be a RL town until more people show up at the LSV. Wrexham looks like a better bet for another franchise at this rate.

It doesn't work Jenky, trust me. All it has done has devalued the price of match/season tickets and p1ssed off season ticket holders. If Leigh go down the road of dishing out thousands of freebies with no follow-up then we're in big trouble.

I agree.
You need a follow up / proper plan, just handing out of freebies in its own right never works long term.
Have a target and goal of what realistically you are trying to achieve and have a plan of how to achieve it.
Targetting schools and the child pound is vital IMO.

In terms of the diehards, no need to offer them incentives to get in the ground, just a definate need to make them feel part of it and 'reward' them for there loyalty (be it a free Pie & Drink as per Blackpool or a discount card for the club shop or even a season ticket news letter or pin badge).
Isolating them by not involving them in what you are trying to achieve is a good way of gaining 1 supporter but also losing 1 (pretty much what the RFL have done with the handling of the franchising and recent decisions IMO, Lost 1 fan in Halifax, but gained 1 in Bridgend, we want to keep the 1 in Halifax [iand[/i gain the 1 in Bridgend to move forward)