Fair play, he's commented and given a reasonable explanation of where we are at. But, the constant reference to COVID makes me wonder if he's just using that as a cover for poor management and planning - how have other clubs have rode the stormy seas and we haven't. As far as I know we are the only club to go part time. I still remain sceptical of this bargain basement operation and have no faith they would use my money wisely, so my view hasn't changed, keep my brass in pocket, pop down for a game/social, and that's your lot.

I hope the "please bring a friend" is not the full extent of our marketing

Clearly written for him by someone else!!

For me, I like to see how the attendances hold up if we don't win at least 50% of our first 6 home games. We have the following
1) Widens :- 50/50 on how this will go
2) Haven :- Hopefully tight win
3) York :- 50 / 50
4) Bradford :- Heavy loss
5)Dewsbury :- 50/50

I think we need to win at least 3 of those home games to keep any early fans interested. Losing to widnes would not be an issue, but if we lost the first three home games, I think we might struggle to keep attendances on par, and start to ship fans again

Good luck with that.

When Hughes took over we were averaging over 4,000 and the talk was of how to get to 5,000. Now the average is 300 and the talk is of how we get to 5,000. Unbelievable.

The ramblings of an insane man. 5000 fans WAS the target when I told him it was, back in 2009. He ignored it then and now it's too late.....as for banging on about covid, EVERY sporting club on the planet got hit, but not all of them decided to alienate their fans and move grounds in the middle of it.
As for the corporate hospo malarky....the club didn't even fill trailfinders facilities FFS......
...as I say. The ramblings of a wealthy man throwing more good money down the drain.....he's hire a coach with no track record of success and patted himself on the back for doing so and apparently because we've got a few logos on the shirt, the commercial blokes ego gets a massage too......lol.....
Circling the wagons there David....I'd suggest you stay away from internet forums because you seem a bit insecure.

Yes I thought it was a reasonable effort which gave some context.

I too am not convinced that COVID can be entirely to blame for the poor crowds.

I also note the specific references to poor performances. The assumption has to be that there will be more understanding by senior management this year if results go badly ( the losses last season seem to have taken management by surprise and badly received). There seems to be an acceptance that that there will be games where we are beaten. So that frankness is appreciated although the concern remains that if you are looking for 5k crowds the on field product is an important part of driving that and that will be a challenge.

I didn’t read too much into this it’s a cheap and cheerful thing to say. The problem is you only get one shot at it. Remember the drive to get people to attend the TO game. There was definitely some response to that but what happened...an absolute hammering. People don’t really enjoy that type of thing. So I suggest bring a friend to a game you think we might win or will be close. That might get a few coming back.

When I think back to times when people were more likely to bring a friend we had:
A decent team
A decent atmosphere
More going on than the game itself

The first 2 look unlikely, I wonder if the club have any plans for the third ?

How wrong can you be?
This was a plan for 25 years ago.....this was a plan that was too late 5 years ago....this is a plan that will fail.

DH says this is not a project for today, it is a project for tomorrow. That is difficult to reconcile with his target for 5000 fans in 3 years which is a very aggressive (some would say unachievable) target that requires immediate action.

While this is the right target, it is agressive because crowds are starting from a such a diabolical base (less than 400 average) and have been trending down for the duration of DH's charge. The only recent positive was the doubling we saw in average for the 2019 season in SL.

Achieving 5000 in 3 years would require crowds to grow by more than the level they did when we returned to SL but for 3 consecutive years and without the realistic prospect of actually getting SL promotion (and the boost of away fans that brings). For example, if they were to treble to 1,200 for next season, double to 2,400 in 2023 and double again for 2024 we would get to 4,800 so pretty close to the target. Obviously that is not a level of growth that anyone sane could imagine by simply doing the things the club has done in the past.

DH's solution is asking for current season tickets holders to bring a friend. In reality, they are going to have to bring quite a few friends and those friends are going to have to keep coming back. Is any incentive being given for this ? Perhaps if someone was to introduce 4 new ST holders they should be getting their own for free !

DH wants lapsed fans to return but has moved the club (which always seems to have lost us fans) and assembled the least attractive squad since the SL era. I doubt that will be a winning formula for many although some may go and see a couple of games out of curiosity. A couple of free tickets should be offered to all lapsed fans for a game at the start of the season so they at least they have the incentive to check things out.

DH thinks Wimbledon gives us the best chance of hitting the target. Wimbledon are averaging around 7,500 in league games this season. That's not bad, so what percentage of those is DH expecting to attract to watch RL ? 10% in the first season would be pretty useful but it would have to grow from that since we are targetting getting to 2/3 of the size of the football crowd. The club should have data on how many Quins, Charlton, Brentford and Ealing fans we attracted over the years but, of course, it was no where near that many. How is the club planning to attract Dons fans in the sort of numbers required ?

So what does this all mean ? The club is going to have to put in a huge and creative effort to hit its crowd target when historically we lost fans..It is going to require a very different approach. In other words, it very much has to be a project for today. Tomorrow will be too late.

The only way he will get close to 5000 will be if we get promoted next year, so we have fans from Leeds \ pies \ wire etc making the journey down, plus Pies \ Leeds are a much bigger attraction than Leigh \ Fev (top champ attractions are). Even then I don't see 5k, although in SL I could see us hitting 3-3.5K on some games if marketed right.

But we have a squad more likely to facing WWR \ Skolars \ Cornwall \ Midlands in 2023 not Pies \ Wire \ Leeds. So I don't see how we get close to 2.4K mentioned above in 2023, in fact if we are averaging 1K by the end of this season I will be surprised. We will probably be between 1-1.5K first few games, but if the squad gets hammered more often than not (and lets be honest our squad is one of the weakest in the division), I don't see those attendances holding, they will shrink, once the novelty factor has worn off for the Dons fans.

Quote: crashmon "But we have a squad more likely to facing WWR \ Skolars \ Cornwall \ Midlands in 2023 not Pies \ Wire \ Leeds. So I don't see how we get close to 2.4K mentioned above in 2023, in fact if we are averaging 1K by the end of this season I will be surprised. We will probably be between 1-1.5K first few games, but if the squad gets hammered more often than not (and lets be honest our squad is one of the weakest in the division), I don't see those attendances holding, they will shrink, once the novelty factor has worn off for the Dons fans.'" Yep, my suggestions for crowds over next 3 seasons was more to illustrate the size of the task. I agree, the only way to get near the needed numbers is to be promoted to SL. That reqires major investment in the squad. Instead DH has invested in the facilities (now paying to use 3 of them) which probably has marginal (and perhaps negative) impact on crowds. His argument is that there is no future playing in a 2nd or 3rd tier rugby ground but neither is there in assembling a L1 squad. As pointed out in an earlier post, Ealing may not be a 2nd tier ground for long and had already been adequate for SL. The new training facilities look fantastic, especially compared to Rosslyn Park. www.ealingtrailfinders.com/news/ ... -opened-at

Quote: crashmon "But we have a squad more likely to facing WWR \ Skolars \ Cornwall \ Midlands in 2023 not Pies \ Wire \ Leeds. So I don't see how we get close to 2.4K mentioned above in 2023, in fact if we are averaging 1K by the end of this season I will be surprised. We will probably be between 1-1.5K first few games, but if the squad gets hammered more often than not (and lets be honest our squad is one of the weakest in the division), I don't see those attendances holding, they will shrink, once the novelty factor has worn off for the Dons fans.'" Yep, my suggestions for crowds over next 3 seasons was more to illustrate the size of the task. I agree, the only way to get near the needed numbers is to be promoted to SL. That reqires major investment in the squad. Instead DH has invested in the facilities (now paying to use 3 of them) which probably has marginal (and perhaps negative) impact on crowds. His argument is that there is no future playing in a 2nd or 3rd tier rugby ground but neither is there in assembling a L1 squad. As pointed out in an earlier post, Ealing may not be a 2nd tier ground for long and had already been adequate for SL. The new training facilities look fantastic, especially compared to Rosslyn Park. www.ealingtrailfinders.com/news/ ... -opened-at