catalans and celtic [uare[/u prime examples of what can be achieved in a short space of time with the right people on board.

i love our club but i'm fed up of hearing excuses. i'm not saying their situation is identical to ours but saying its easier for them because they are in a provincial backwater and so its easier for them to attract local support is utter bunkum. we too could keep it local and go for area surrounding twickenham but we also have the benefit of 10,000,000 people (they have 10million sheep) on our doorstep if we want to widen our horizons.

brian mac is a prime example of what can be accomplished with the right people on board. our team on paper is nothing special and thats why we are always heavily tipped to finish bottom of the pile. but, because he is good at his job he squeezes everything out of them to produce top performances. we need a brian mac carbon copy off the field. sod it, give him that job too

sod that....imagine the appraisal/pay review meeting.
STAFF MEMBER: "I want more money"
BRIAN: "No.......next"

Can Toads are nasty, tough & poisonous 'critters' mostly found playing State of Origin for Queensland.

French 'frogs' aka 'grenououilles' are a unique frog type - now mainly imported from eastern Europe or China - which are best eaten fried as a starter in roadside truck cafes. or with a cream & wine sauce in town centre quality restaurants.

ARE YOU A UNION FAN?

A little plug if I may. All the above details are in the new Club Guide on the Quin's website.

The Big Bad Bingo Battle.

But that's what it is really all about, this great game of ours, don't you think? And people are not going to love a club and what it does (play rugby, help the community, whatever) in sensational numbers.

I actually think Harlequins [iare[/i in a unique position. Catalans and Celtic both have RL history to dip into. Take the Saints -v- Celtic game next weekend. So what? Well, Saints used to recruit quite regularly from south wales, with success if my RL mad Dad is to be believed. As a club we have real historical links with that part of the country. As such, there is a chance that Saints may be welcomed there a little differently from other clubs if there are people still around who remember or know of the connections. There are no doubt similar stories in the Catalans area because RL has been played there for a long time. There is a history there too. But Quins doesn't have those connections. It is a truly expansionist club and it's landed in an RU heartland in the middle of our biggest city where a plethora of sports are played and soccer is the usual obsession.

That a couple of thousand fans 'love the club' I think is very important and key to the future. A loyal fan base is what every club needs and if 100 more fans per year have been added since 2001 then I think that is a good, reliable situation. It's not glamorous but it's solid.

And you have a growing number of local lads in your team, don't you? That can only help. The more local blokes play for Quins and do so successfully the better things will be because the locals will be able to identify with the club. I know the new plans at Saints to introduce more of our local lads into the first team has brought a real buzz to the fans. It's exciting to see new faces knowing that some of them are St Helens guys, some from elsewhere in the country but have been through our club system. It's so much better than cheering for a Samoan who has gone missing because what does he care about Saints? Sod all is what he cares. But local guys, they are likely to care and fans will respond to that IMO.

Out of curiosity what have Celtic achieved? Please dont quote a 5000 crowd on the first game in SL.

You say you are sick of excuses. What excuses are they. Does it matter to you if there are 2000 or 5000 or 15000 at a game. You are only going to sit in one seat. Wire and the Pies have bigger crowds than us look where they sit in the league.

I was going to post exactly the same. Hopefully you will get a sensible reply.

I suppose you could say I come from a rugby league family. My Dad played at one time and has been an avid fan of Saints since he was 10 (he is now 73). He took me to the occasional match when I was young, took my brothers (one of whom played and subsequently became an avid fan of Saints!) and I have grown up with talk of Saints and RL and the old second half of matches on the BBC (plus the Regal Trophy, Challenge Cup when it was really exciting, etc) and watching the town empty on the rare occasions we got to Wembley. So I have absorbed a lot, including the story of the underground heating. Much was talked about it at the time but it came to nothing and I cannot remember why.


All I am aware of is that Pilkingtons at no time became sponsors. I don't know whether they asked to be considered and the board turned them down or whether they simply went establishment because they became so successful. I do think though that the Saints board may have been justifiably wary at the time in that Pilks were very influential in the town. They ran so many things and employed so many people. Would they have taken over? Required influence on the board? I don't know. I do know that pre-McMannus the board was generally pretty hopeless. It did, after all, get us into about six million debt and on the verge of administration by 2002. I believe McMannus made some stinging comments about bits of paper with figures on lying around the office when he first turned up!

Long histories are never clear but I don't think the Saints of today is a small time thinking club. But St Helens is a small northern town which still retains something of its own culture and character (in spite of the scouse invasion!) and Saints is a part of that, albeit not to the extent it once was. The club itself though is now very much a business and very outward looking. According to my Dad, it is completely unrecognisable when compared to previous decades.

1996 Valley 5,418 average and finished 4th
1997 Stoop 5,076 2nd
1998 Stoop 3,625 7th
1999 Stoop 2,935 8th
2000 Valley 3,419 11th
2001 Valley 3,177 6th

figures from Rugby League Yearbooks

Very good post.

My memories are from the mid 80's and early 90's when I used to go with my family (and one of my Dad's mates played for the Alliance team), from the time I was old enough to understand things there was always an argument that the Saints board were too small time and reluctant to lose control. You only have to look at what was happening at Wigoon and Leeds around the same time to see (yes, both are bigger towns than St Helens). It's only in the SL era that genuine professionalism started to be injected into the club.

However, I do agree with you about Pilks, the lack of sponsorship was always been a bugbear with some people, and as far as I'm aware they didn't get any control at the RFU just because they did the Pilkington Cup.

WTF went wrong that year

1997, sitting in second place in the league, following year, the crowds down by nearly 30%....
Surely the marketing/pr machine should have gone into overdrive......oh hang on, this is London Rugby League. What was I thinking

What if they didnt have the money to spend?

Its not an endless pot of cash you know!

As a prefossional in the marketing business you should know that there are many ways to "promote" without spending loads of cash. You will also know that those who do not promote, do not grow and in most cases go under (see London Broncos Ltd 2005).
Not going to get dragged into another debate on marketing, we have a thread that is sticky for that at the top of the forum.

So then....about this sponsor..............

There is NO free way to market anything!

Everything costs!
If you throw a little at it - you get a little back
You throw a lot at it - you get more back.

Thats Marketing in a nutshell.

So unless the pot gets bigger - the marketing stays small.

the excuses are many. but to name a few.

we are playing in a union heartland and a rl backwater
we are competing against the saturday football 3pm slot
we've been a nomadic club travelling around london
eddie hemmings doesn't like us


it does matter to me how many people turn up and it should matter to you too. its crucial to our survival as a super league club. its the only way to generate long term revenues. the fact is the more people we get through the turnstiles the more money the club make and the more attractive we are to sponsors whch in turn brings in more money. what i'm trying to say is that it all stems from attendances.

its a bit muppetish to compare league positions. we've only played one game

stop accepting mediocrity wire-quin. ask yourself why cant we do what catalan have done on and off the pitch and not why we can't do it

[url=http://viewtopic.php?t=381466let's move this here[/url and keep this as a sponsorship thread.

Good point EFH; though I think i can shed some better light

I was a regular spectator during this era -
1) 1997 - novelty value of moving to Stoop in 1997 pulled in extra crowds; and I suspect that they went up as the season progressed and club marched up the table. Year of Super League/NRL war - good year in general for attendances, lots of PR around this. Branson's first year of involvement (although Fosters shirt sponsor). He pumped in a sizeable marketing budget/team and also brought a lot of incidental PR. Shaun Edwards first season, loads of press around him joining up with Offiah.

2) 1998 - the club finished 7th! Need I say more?
Fickle people sports fans. Ask Bradford.....they we're pulling in 15k fans to watch them play Broncos @ Odsal during this era. How many are they bringing in now? Novelty value of Stoop over. Marketing team did leave the club mid season this year. Edwards was playing for Bradford this season....

You can't build a team & spectator base around one player - but a superstar and recognisable face helps. I've said it before, now that Henry Paul has left the club, most Londoners wouldn't know a QuinsRL player if they fell over them in the street.

What kills me most about this board is the suggestion that things are black & white. It's clear that the club could do a better job of marketing itself but sport is a strange, strange business, that doesn't follow normal dynamics. It's affected by micro socio-economic climates, politics - and sometimes of course, good fortune!

Get over your good selves and concentrate on bringing everyone you know through the turnstiles!

Remember meeting a south african lady ay the club when they were first at the stoop. I walked into the offices in the lexus stand and was redirected to the porta-cabins in the car park

as that's where they Brocos were operating from





As for bringing mates, most of us do. It's just very upsetting when you sit down an analyse the number of times that the club has dropped the ball when it comes to marketing.

As for getting over myself, I have never claimed to have the solution, just Ideas that might be a solution, so I don't see the need to get over myself. Anyway, this is a sponsorship thread.[url=http://viewtopic.php?t=381466marketing can be discuused here[/url

absolutely no idea what point you're making re portacabins - if it's that they're now in a smart office and that should make all the difference to the quality of their work, then i have to disagree. A lot of amazing businesses have grown from people's garages.....

And have you considered why the club appears to have never held onto a marketing team for more than a year or two at a time?
And when you say 'dropped the ball' - who exactly? As far as I can see, it's a different set of people every five minutes.

Also - It ceased to be a sponsorship thread a long time ago and became a conversation...people reacting to each others postings in a logical (sometimes!) fashion. If you want it to be a sponsorship thread - sticky it as such. Anyhow, sponsorship is a subset of marketing, so let's not get overly anal.

Some of you on here definitely damage the club with the things you post. You're entitled to post them, but I suspect if you thought long and hard about it, you might realise that you're not engendering anyone wandering through the internet ether to come watch games with the constant negativity and blame. This site in itself is in danger of becoming negative PR for the club!

NO......never and you damm well should know it.

I'm RL thru & thru and have little or no time for any fan who supports our game as a second choice & sometimes third choice over football, chricket or such minor sports as ice and field hockey.

However, consider we are in serious management trouble without a CEO etc. Unless this is resolved soon and the Board expanded we will be in trouble before to many months have passed.

Perhaps this is another topic that needs a seperate discussion heading.

Who is making these excuses you refer to. Ive never heard the chairman go on about them. I think this is you getting caught up in this forums hype rather than fact. People who post on here in the main are just making general points and opinions based on very little inside knowledge of the club and/or knowledge of their own businesses which they relate to the club.

What have Catalan done? Yes they had a very good third place last year and improved there crowd. What you dont know is what support assistance they have received from behind the scenes possibly from the French RL, RFL, European federation etc

I dont accept mediocrity but what I am is a realist. I've followed a very poorly ran warrington club for 40 years. I've followed the Broncos/Quins for 15 years concurrently.

Warrington probably one of the biggest/famous RL clubs in Britain were playing to 4000 crowds at Wilderspool and had massive debts. They were bailed out by the council regularly and to my knowledge still have debts from those days.

Don't think for one minute we are a failing club. We are on the playing filed probably and overachieving club. What we appear to need to do to satisfy the RFL is improve our crowds and profile which I'm sure we will in time given the resources.

I can tell you what happened in 1998. We bought our season tickets on the strength of the team in 1997 only to find in 1998 half of those players had got fed up and left. We almost lost the great Gilly. Scot Roskell, a great try poacher, got so disillusioned that he went off to play for London Welsh (I believe) and is now in New York, working as a landscape gardener. We had to start again with a team getting to know and learn to play for one another. I believe this was the year a certain Mr. Steele Retchless joined us and Mr Grant Young. Grant never needed to tackle a player, all he had to do was stick his chest out (he was 6 foot, seven) and let the opposing player collide with that....