It wont be a sell out, not even close. All of the West is closed, not sold out. Blocks 123/124 were held for Season ticket holders, even with those opening up it suggest we have a few hundred ST holders at best for the year. Not ideal.

All in, hoping a lot of the community tickets that appear to have been given away turn up and we have a decent start crowd wise for the season.

2,182 for the opener at our new home......anything less than that has to be seen as failure....doesn't it?
As for ST holders? No comment from the club since 2008 IIRC so it's fair to say that year on year we've dropped in numbers. Depressingly the remaining 250 or few wrap Hughes and Loubser in a fuzzy blanket that makes them imune to accepting criticism.

Naked Chips are apparently attending on Friday evening. Their chips are actually pretty good quality and I say that as somebody who is pretty so/so on Chips. Like everything in Wimbledon they aren't cheap. I think around a fiver for medium plus extra for toppings such as Grated Cheese. If you fancy a cone of Chips I'd recommend them.

Their service is very efficient if you follow the process. One queue to order, then join the second queue to collect. If everybody follows that process your Chips with the correct toppings are handed over. If you don't than it becomes a bit messy as the server tries to identify who they are for (typically somebody has jumped ahead in the second queue from what I've seen)

My recent contributions to this forum have been around beer and food, which says a lot about me perhaps. From the match preview it looks like an AFC Wimbledon regular La Posta may be present with their Argentinian Steak Sandwiches. They are pretty good (perhaps a bit too much salt) and popular with my family. Beef Empandas are excellent. Personally was less keen on the Cheese and Ham, nothing wrong, just my preference. Didn't have the Veggie one to try when I last tried.

And will MyPie return? Pies get a mention but will it be the brilliant MyPie?

A little investigation suggests My Pie are at the match tonight.

Cherry Red Records Stadium - Broncos
Friday 23rd February

MENU
Beef Pie: Steak & Mushroom
Chicken Pie: Chicken, Smoked Ham & Leek
Veg Pie: Sweet Potato, Green chilli & Feta
Guest Pie: Mexican Pork & Black Beans
Sausage Roll: Pork & Herb
Sides: Mash, Peas & Gravy

This is a QUALITY meal. Pie, mash, peas and loads of gravy. The guy totally knows how to cook. £10 at the football so probably the same this evening, but excellent value. Normally, but not always, has a choice of garden peas or mushy peas.

Veg gravy available also. The Chilli & Feta is enticing me to the Veg Pie as you will be able to properly taste both ingredients.

Tried his Steak & Green Peppercorn and his Steak, Marmite & Cheese recently and no mistaking the flavours. There was clearly peppercorns in the first and marmite and cheese in the second. Not a Marmite fan but had to try it and is was excellent.

Well London did get people through the door. Huge credit there. I think announced at just over 5,000. Probably not quite that many but certainly comfortably over 4,000. Hospitality level was very well populated and packed in at the South Stand End. Hard to find space in By the Horns (not a huge space in fairness). A couple of weeks ago AFC Wimbledon Women had a crowd of 1,410. I was worried for London in comparison.

However they got the numbers in, it is a great achievement from where things have been. The only closed area was most (not all) of he lower Main Stand, so around 3,000 unavailable seats.

What a shame IMG decided that London as an area wasn't part of their strategy. They've made sure that there is no Southern presence in their future Super League.

It was certainly a decent crowd though I agree probably not quite as big as claimed. IMG and the RFL might think the rating system is having the desired effect as for the first time in a long time (perhaps in Hughes sole tenure) an effort had clearly been made to get people through the gate. Good to see the better range of food outlets which seemed to be doing decent business.

The key now is to sustain that effort and improve the product on the pitch. Let's not forget that the most ranking points are awarded for performance.

The positives - bumper crowd. Club clearly targeted RU and Rl clubs and various other organisations and got a good number of people in of varying ages. This seems to me to be a sensible approach. Fan zone was good- lots of food options. Atmosphere in ground decent although pretty cold and for obvious reasons energy maybe not as good as some less attended matches.
The team never stopped trying all through the game and worked very hard in defence.
The bad - nilled at home. Score flattered us. We could have played another 80 minutes and not scored. They were, literally in a different league to us. Very quick, fullback dealt with everything. Some very, very big players who we struggled to hold back. They ate up the ground. We barely made 20 metres before kicking. Abdull looks like he’s eaten a horse and then started on the cart but his kicking is absolutely lethal.
We’re clearly in a very tricky situation and there’s no need to write the season off just yet but I do fear our squad to the surprise of no one may not be up to the task and is too small. I just don’t think we are as creative as last year which bodes ill for drawing crowds in. Storey and Williams didn’t seem to play long minutes- did they pick up knocks? Kershaw is a very willing runner. Lots of hard work from Parata, Lovell amongst others but not a game for players to shine. I did not enjoy that game at all. Really not sure where we are this season.

Will that many return to watch another mismatch- next time against Wigan? Which the pessimist in me feels could be even worse.
Maybe the numbers will be made up by Wigan fans?

This is the problem. It was 20 mins before there was anything to get the crowd going (I think it was a big hit from Sid that forced a knock on).

Despite the obvious (at least to the initiated) effort from our team it was dull because it was so one sided. Where was Waine ? He might have generated a bit of excitement.

Good that we had a good turnout- hopefully some will return despite tonight’s loss.
Last season we were very much a mid table Championship side until we got some quality players in, namely Norman and Whare.
I’m not writing off the season yet ( and I recall from last season that our worst performances came in wet conditions) but without another quality player or two then pastings at home could become the norm. Admittedly we are missing a few key players but even so we are miles behind the top SL teams, unsurprisingly.
We’re going to have to hope we can get better results against the mid and lower table opposition I reckon.
Small matter of Wigan next home game……

Waine was handing out those clapper things in fan zone. Eccles in the online programme said he’s taken a knock and they are waiting to hear how bad it is. Walker seems close to returning.

It's a pity those TRY signs never got used

Can’t argue with that. Feels just like 2022 season get big crowd in, team not up to it. Obviously Catalans are very good and our team is very much better than the team we put out at start of 2022 against Widnes and Whitehaven but, yet again, the concern is we have missed our one chance to impress and grow crowds. As an aside considering how difficult we have found to recruit FT in the Super League, gawd knows how we will get a squad together for next year. Anyway that’s a problem for a later date.