Very true. It's unrealistic and unsustainable to base all your hopes on having a winning team. All 14 clubs want a winning team - at least half are going to be disapointed. Look at Wakefield, second bottom, been in administration, relegation looming, yet doing quite well.

That sounds a bit half-hearted though to me. Whilst my suggestion would require much more effort (and some investment) it would surely yield much better results.

Amateurs will come if they want to, but playing the game in the South East does take up a large part of your weekend, no matter which club you play for, coming to watch the London side is quite a commitment and means your weekend is wiped out. I would target one match a season, maybe a challenge cup game or any weekend when there is no league games for them, they are all given matchday tickets and more than encouraged to come down, something nailed in the diary at the start of the year that gives no excuses and puts a few hundred extra on the gate.

My suggestion is give all the kids season tickets and give adults who help out with their kids matchday tickets for matches that we want them to attend as loyalty bonuses and discounts for having a league playing kid.

There has been a winding down of the matchday experience for adults, ie half-time entertainment, cheerleaders, full-time entertainment not what it was, etc but kids need a bit more than buck and dusty; face-painting, bouncy castles, kicking at small goals, running with the ball against elastic, the same thing kids have enjoyed around rugby grounds for years.

Kids bugging parents to go to the games, and we get the parents interested too.

So why isn't any of these things ever tried? I realise they take effort and money - but I gather the chairman is putting loads of his own money in just to keep the club afloat. Surely a bit more to try to actually grow the business and make it sustainable would be more sensible then just hoping for it to happen. He's just pouring his money away currently.

Last year at the Leeds game there was a junior festival on in the morning with loads of lids playing at or very close to the Stoop.They and their parents were all given free tickets. Once their games were finished their parents bundled them into their cars and left - result a handful of kids stayed. What can you do until RL is the psyche which may not be until those kids are parents themselves.