A Quick Hello

Quote: Dominance "What have the club done to entice my mate to come down? Have they offered any incentive to entice a new supporter.

You've offered 20K of free season tickets, great idea in principle but it hasn't worked. Maybe entice Mum or Dad to come down and child will follow? New fans will not turn up on mass without marketing. Yes, we as fans can play our part, but what has the club done? You give me x amount of discounted tickets and I will happily distribute at work. I'm sure others would too.

Look at Swinton as a casing point. They were averaging around 500 in the first few games. They got over 1,172 against Leigh which probably was due to the travelling support. They have a £5 entry and get 1411 of a televised game, on a Thursday night against Haven. I accept they may not have hit the forecasted turnover through the gate that day (not far off though), but what about bar takings, food etc. They also posted a win so how many of those will convert to the next home game. Point is, they tried something and it got people down.'"

Any discounted ticket strategy has to be done with care. Bradford Bulls went down this path and the outcome was administration for the club. The 20,000 junior season tickets were distributed for the first time last Winter and we will ramp to 40,000 next year and for at least the 4 years subsequent to that. Further, we will extend our work into the schools to promote the club and what Cougars can do for them. This had somewhat lapsed over the previous 4 years. The junior season ticket offer of free to every league match is a strategy targeted at persuading young people to come to the game and will slowly build as the years progress. It isn't a tactical solution so it's impact will take a long time to take effect.

We will do target individual companies for discounted tickets. For example, we are discounting any Airedale hospital staff member by 20%. However, of the 3,500 employees at Airedale hospital only 4 per match have turned up so far! If you can provide details of your company will we provide you with discounted tickets for distribution there but we are reluctant to do a wholesale discount to all fans. If you will liaise with

Coaches cost a lot of money and, given that most of the team live nearer Dewsbury, Batley and Hunslet than they do Cougar Park, it would be financially inappropriate to fund a coach to carry most of the team a couple of miles only. For these matches only we utilise the minibus and players cars. For matches further away or where the players can travel to Cougar Park and then get on the coach, e.g. Halifax, we fund a coach. I don't see why this is unprofessional because for home matches all of our players turn up in their own cars so they are, by extension, more used to travelling to most games in their own cars. It seems silly to waste the club's money on a short hop up the road when the players are comfortable with this anyway.

Quote: Dominance "On another thread we were promised a new web page for last week. Yet another failed promise.'"

The new club website was set to launch last week. Unfortunately, the hosting of the website is taking time and we are still waiting on this situation to be resolved. It is not a failed promise if the situation isn't in our hands.

Quote: Dominance "As for available players, from what I hear Cosgrove wanted to stay, but his loan deal came to an end. I think he did more than enough to warrant a contract. Was it a case of we couldn't get him permanently or didn't try?'"

We signed Elliott on a 4 week loan deal from Dewsbury. We were impressed by him and asked Dewsbury if we could either sign him on another loan deal or sign him permanently as he wasn't getting game time with Dewsbury. Dewsbury haven't agreed as yet to either although we have pushed hard and believe that Elliott wants to come and play for the Cougars. The club always tries to get the best team within the available budget and Elliott was a target signing after we had seen his quality but,unfortunately, we can't get Dewsbury to agree it as yet.