it was deportivo (struggling in la liga) not Real madrid or Barcelona!

just mentioning the crowd figure, not saying if it was a good one or not for the football.

was interesting to see how many turned up for a warm up game against a team of players no one would know.

the £180k would have been returned to the club as it was a bond.

it was more the fact the club saw it as not really worth playing as nothing to win rather than to do with money.

they wanted to see how it went, i think it was a success the series(barring the losses) and hope the club would take up the option next time if qualifying. Thats could be very hard this time round!

It's simpler than all the various ideas the club seem to have dismissed!

I agree that actually getting over the winning line is far from simple though!

might not do it till we reach the target of 10k fans.. bit of a catch 22 situation , some say we wont get the crowds till we win something, but we may not win anything till we get the crowds to sustain a challenge with the bigger teams

Never mind the quality, It's league position that matters.

You two have been watching too long methinks !!

Have faith bruv!!

I think I must come to the conclusion that years of failure has just left giants fans negative.
Think in this though- we've not been less successful than the team from Hull who entered SL at the same time as us Originally.

I'd be a lot more depressed if I was a Hull fan

I think you are probably right with the first part of that, there have been too many false dawns.

The second part , They did win a CC but have as you say underperformed badly just about every season.

We are similar clubs in many ways, Both play in good grounds both have wealthy chairmen,
They have a big advantage in crowds, as yet they have not capitalised on that.

don't think a lot of whats been put on here is true if it was performance i would have given up in the 70's but still turned up the biggest problem in my opinion as humans we are creatures of habit and all the swapping of playin days is one of the problems we have this again 3 different playin days my opinion for what its worth if its fridays i do other things
it doesnt help breaking off as this weekend for cup matches or anything else what the powers see fit would rather go in summer than a cold February

I honestly think your style of play is a significant reason why you don't entice/hold on to new people. Whilst it's effective it isn't good to watch. You can get away with that if your fans see you as major contenders for trophies but Huddersfield aren't that either.

Also, I wonder how much effort is actually put into the matchdays by your club? Both in terms of marketing but also matchdays activities and entertainment.

Being a Leeds fan I obviously only come to the John Smith's once or twice a year but each time I've come its seemed as if there was very little in terms of matchday activities, now this doesn't bother me as I'm there for the game but many people aren't these days. It's a leisure activity for those who aren't diehard RL fans and so competes with a myriad of other possibilities so some people, especially those with kids, look for more than just the game from a sports club these days.
May be Ive missed it the times I've been to Hudds but I've never really seen anything much happening around the ground or pre-match/half-time etc.
At Leeds, even on a day when they don't really put any effort into it, there's a "family" bar that has activities and little games for kids pre-match and matchday photographers going round taking pictures that'll go in an online album that people can access, along with some kind of pre-match singer/band and at least 8 kids amateur teams playing at half time.
That's the bare minimum at Leeds and whilst not ground breaking or anything it just helps get at least another few hundred in the ground and offers a far better chance of those returning regardless of what happens on the pitch.

I can't really comment on your clubs marketing, but I'd assume it's not great, I don't think any RL clubs is.

We do all that- kicking games outside, fire engines, bouncy castles, army vehicles, even had the bloodhound supersonic car and soldiers and guns! Bearing in mind space is limited. I've lost count of the number of times my lad has played during the half time interval. All this has been done and more- it makes little difference apart from costing money.

the biggest difference between us and Leeds, was that they have long been regarded as a top side with a big following, even through all those barren years without winning things ( before 2004 for any rhinos reading ) they were always a big club with big support, so as a club it's easy for them to attract people.

i maintain that one of our biggest problems is that we had so many years in the doldrums that there just wasn't much "bloodline" in our supporter base, all the other existing super league clubs were strong clubs who had all played in the top tier and who all had a hardcore support, most of that support had been handed down through the generations, we lacked that and i think for most part we still do.
because of the competition for leisure activities these days and everywhere been accessible on every day of the week, the younger generation aren't as "hardcore" as previous generations, whereas lads used to go the games with dads etc that's not happening anymore, but in our case i don't think it's happened for 30+ years now.

it also hasn't helped us with the changing days of the games, a lot of our support are young families, couples, older generation who have lost the commitment to attend as they don't know what days we are playing and are reluctant or unable to go to games on thursday and friday nights and have possibly found other things to do with their time and money now.

then of course, i just don't think there is the interest in the Huddersfield public, look how many people are attending the shops and leisure facilities near to the stadium on a match day... could we not work with these companies to entice some of those people to the games?