Quote ste_ody="ste_ody"the sinking ship will be saved providing we get an average on 1800 minimum. The club have budgeted for the league games anything extra is a bonus. Already the fax/Leeds game must have made us a few quid.'"
The flip side being 4,000 Leigh fans turned up knowing the team would be beat.
Admitedly trying to market the Championship is difficult as the league is viewed as unattractive and ambitions cannot be realised as at the moment Promotion and Relgation doesn't happen - I'm not sure that will remain in place as the game looks to be at another crossroads.
The amount of people who live within 15-20 mins drive of Leigh is huge - its a huge area to tap into.
The club needs to be in the schools selling sport as the social benefit it is - heck we have a state of the art RL stadium second to none and yet I'd imagine the kids still hang around on corners - get the schools to buy into a community and the youngsters are the future fans, not many swop clubs down the line.
This season Leigh has been forced to turn a corner but every new initiative put in place MUST have a 5 year lifespan, way too many boom & bust ideas not given time to gell have occured at Leigh.
Lets allocate a certain type of objective to a person - if thats a volunteer fine , equally if its a professional then fine - its needs a accountable trail.
For instance if programme sales are down I would approach Alan and ask him why and then sit down and go through what we are doing wrong - what could be improved (do we sell it in Town centre shops for example, do schools, collegues get any etc, etc)*Using Alan as a example - NOT saying sales are down BTW.
I actually feel Leigh are pointing in the right direction but have a long way to go off the field but for the first time in years I actually think the club has realised its 'sat on its hands' for years and with quite a bit of on field success have achieved very little off field.
We need to make Leigh the best club in our league and the place to be on matchday - ALL parties have to pull together or back off, argueing is healthy but if it drags on it achieves nothing.
1,800 is a realistic aim now (thats getting on double what a lot of clubs get in this league), however lets use that as a minimum and start to aim high - the potential is huge , we just need to realise it.