What i'd be interested to find out is how many of those club wembley tickets were bought by Rugby League fans, and how many turned up.

I would just like to see what the RFL is doing to encourage them to attend, or sell the tickets back so that the RFL could make use of them to help promote the game.

So say for example there are 12000 club wembley tickets and 10,000 were sold to people who only followed football. What promotion material did they receive to make them aware of the match they could go to? or if they were owned by companies, did they have any encouragement to use those tickets for prizes etc to get people going along?

Its got more to do with the decline of West Yorkshire RL rather than a decline or death of RL as the OP suggests.

Hopefully we can have a wigan wire final next year when it would be a guarenteed sell out.

As I said a couple of years ago, unfortunately there is only a handful of teams in RL who can be relied upon to fill Wembley given the increased size and the West Yorkshire teams are no longer them.

As long as we have a final between two of Wigan / Saints / Wire / Hull / Hull KR youll have pretty much guarenteed Sell Outs.

Previously Leeds and Bradford were also on that list but with their decline in form, and loss of fair weather fans, they no longer can pull a significant crowd at a final!

Perhaps moving the final back a few weeks might help. The bank holiday weekend is a disaster as accommodation is harder to get and pricer and the roads and the railways are a pain in the backside. Plus, if it was before the football season starts there is a greater chance of the gaps being filled with casuals and neutrals. The impact of foreign broadcast Saturday afternoon football in pubs surely doesn’t help. And maybe there are more alternative days out on the last bank holiday weekend.

All things considered it was a good attendance but the way it came across to the TV viewer made it look poor. And I know this from a couple of comments from work colleagues this morning; “there weren’t many there” they said.

Large areas of unoccupied seats at Wembley coupled with the less seen (due to Sky) embarrassment of the Magic weekend with even more empty seats does not really act as a good advertisement for the game.

And it could be argued that with a capacity of 90’000 Wembley has outgrown the CCF. Even in the Wigan end that at least appeared full, there were many empty seats around where I was, one here two there. They could move the CCF to Old Trafford and play the Grand Final at City’s ground.

The RFL need to take a long hard look at their pricing policy and their arrangements for Club Wembley.

The stripe around the middle of the stadium looked awful in the ground and even worse on TV as your eyes are clearly drawn to the empty row after row...but that's Club Wembley and it hits all Wembley events in one form or another and may be beyond the control of the RFL.

However the £70+ price point, to be in the lower tier at the side, was even more damaging as this had the strange effect of the trophy being awarded with very few fans either still in the section or even celebrating the Wigan victory with the players as they lifted the cup!!

Compare it with the scenes of triumph when the cups were lifted at the old Wembley and there was no comparison....

Multi-tiered grounds seem to give people a great view of the game, but the atmosphere really gets dumbed down. Compare that to the old Wembley where it was one level all the way round and the atmosphere used to be amazing...

Exactly. Think of the facts:

1. Leeds v Wigan is not the dream final. Wigan have been consistently good all season, whereas Leeds have been very poor. Leeds fans feared another humiliation at Wembley and after losing to Harlequins who could argue?

2. Warrington have matched Wigan most of the season and would have made for a more attractive final for neutrals.

I'm just glad for both sets of fans that Leeds did perform on the day and not produce the kind of gutless performance that we've got used to this season.

It seems to me that next year is going to be infinitely worse than this year. The Premier Inn outside Wembey Park tube (where my family stayed this year) is already fully booked for next year's Bank Holiday weekend, as is every other hotel around the stadium itself. It looks like the Olympics, and its aftermath, are going to seriously wreck the traditional CCF week-end if it stays where it is.

I understand that the CCF next season will be in July well before the olympics

Quote: Stretford "I understand that the CCF next season will be in July well before the olympics'" www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... -2012.html

Quote: Stretford "I understand that the CCF next season will be in July well before the olympics'" www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... -2012.html

I think the Bradford fans would come out of their armchairs if they got to a final to be honest. The leeds fans would have travelled in numbers had they not been such firm underdogs.

Not sure Hull KR could take 30k to a final unless it was against Hull.

The major thing I noticed was the lack of groups from the amateur teams this year which was nice as last year was messy with coach loads of lads all arriving beered up at noon.

I think, as easy as it is to be all sanctimonious now, there were some clear differences in the experience of Leeds and Wigan fans this year. At the end of the day, both clubs have a fairly similar number of what you might call "proper" supporters, who attend most games through thick or thin. Wigan perhaps slightly more, but if we say 11k - 15k or so, that would be near enough. Wigan are currently nearer the top end of the range. Let's call them tier 1.

You then get the next tier up, those who don't go regularly, but will tend to turn up for the big games at home. There are usually more of these when things are going well, but in general they explain part of the variation in gates between matches against big rivals and "normal" matches (other variation being readily explained by fluctuations in visiting supporter numbers). You can probably add 6k-7k for these. Tier 2.

Then there are the hangers-on. The type who don't really bother much most of the time, but like to come out of the woodwork for big occasions. There are probably another 10k of these at both clubs. Tier 3.

Tier 1 were probably, for the most part, present and correct on Saturday, and always would be.

Marketing to tiers 2 and 3 is the hard part. You need these to fill big stadiums for big matches. Like them or not, if only the hard core support turned up, Wembley would be a bit rubbish with 25k people rattling around in it.

Leeds have dragged the hangers-on and fringe supporters in huge numbers to Grand Finals in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009 recently, to go with CC finals in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2010, all of which yielded large, although ever-decreasing followings. Numbers of tiers 2 and 3 drops as novelty wears off, but they are readily kept at good levels while you are largely winning the big matches.

2011's form, together with the 2010 Wembley debacle challenge the commitent of supporters. Tier 1 will largely withstand that challenge, as they have commitment. Tiers 2 and 3 have little (2) or no (3) commitment, by their nature. So a big expensive day out in London was always going to be a tough sell to them. Wigan's 2nd final in the last 5 years, and the first CC final at Wembley since 1998, with ateam enjoying huge success is a much easier sell to the floating voters.

4 years ago the Leeds boards were full of people looking down their noses at the attendances of other teams.

Or you could believe that Wigan's 30k who were there are all just super hardcore and Leeds' casual fans aren't. Up to you. My explanation makes more sense to me though.

I was at the game and there were a few more Wigan fans than Leeds but the passion and noise in the Wigan end was none existant!

Understatement of the year 2011.

I was in the wigan end and what surprised me was some of the wigan fans leaving with us as soon as the last try was given. I couldnt believe it.