Seen as the last yes/no was such a debated thread what about Sunday's attendance. Can we really break the 1,000 for a game against Haven? JD speaks about hitting the notional 1,000 mark. I understand it's free for kids again, but given it's school holidays (families going away/aborad etc) I think we'll fall shy and get around 750/800.

No!

All these Cougar Train Videos, facebook and Twitter feeds are great for existing fans but they're not reaching out to the Keighley public.

They were half right with the ladies day concept, sending free tickets out to local businesses. Problem being if you had a y chromesome they were useless.

What about a follow your local heroes campaign? See if we can get Charlie Perry to do some moody black and white shots of the players with when the next home games are being played and get them posted on to community notice boards, or if the board of directors fancy backing their ambitious plans, advertising hoardings and billboards throughout the town.

There's 3 big posters in Armdale centre for this Sunday's game.

Well that's a start!

I put a lot of effort into doing these Stealth.
A small handful of my FB friends share them and pass them on.

It is a couple of clicks, to share the updates on your profile and you have 120 friends who are not on my friends. If more people shared and used the videos they might reach more of the Keighley Public.

Maybe we should 'adopt' a pub in town, meet up before the game. At least we fans could be more visible then.

...one with cheap beer, though

The only way to bring in the crowds and back up the ambitious talk, would be to make a couple of big name signings who would want to play and not be paid for being put out to grass. This would go a long way to securing promotion and help keep us up when we get promotion. If the 5 year plan for super league is reality we are going to have to make some big signings so why not start now and kick the plan into gear as we are down to 4 and a half years to our super league dream

I know you put a lot of effort in to the videos.

But is that the club's marketing strategy? Get you to make and upload videos to YouTube and send e-mails and post links on forums and social networking sites and rely on other people that they go viral?

You're right it's only a couple of clicks to share the videos. But I very, very rarely use facebook on a PC. In fact more than 90% of my posts on here are made with a mobile. I could easily retweet on twitter (@StealthComic if anyone's interested) but I hardly ever use it and had less than half a dozen followers the last time I counted so I don't bother.

700 if the weather's nice. but it's good to have a target.

adult for a fiver with child free vouchers got me off by backside and brought me back last year. we both have season tickets now.

free kids drink if you pay a quid isn't a huge pull - especially if i have to queue for it.

it's all a bit chicken and egg though. if you get people in they'll come back if you win or look like you could next time. but you have to get them in first!

Micky - vids are great - keep em coming. i'd like to hear more talking up of the next game: "it's going to be a really good match. so and so visitors are strong at the moment but we're firing on all cylinders now!" that kind of stuff

to be fair, JD did do more of that in his last message

Mr Hicks, I agree to an extent. The one thing missing from Cougarmania version 1 is big name signings. Grimma, Eyres, Appleby, Hiley but to name a few. Yes, JD was a big name, but if we could somehow manage to sign a couple of big names that would help. It sometimes feels like everything is geared to next season if/when we are in the Championship, i.e. that unamed Samoan. What if we don't get there? I appreciate money is tight, but if the money was there for the Samoan could we not use this to strengthen the squad now to a) assist with the push for promotion and b) to assist with drawing the crowds back.

I feel I have to make a strong point here, Mickey since he started doing videos etc all in his own time and at his own expense has and is doing a fantastic job, for myself who cannot get to games this season due to work commitments it is a godsend.

As to freshening them up why do those mentioning it give Mickey a hand I am sure he would appreciate it.

Keep up the good work, Nigels knocks are very good he thinks he is a comedian and is done very well.

I hope the club can get to 1000.

As for big signings yes ideally good but only get players who are better than what we have not just for sake of it. The players we have are doing great hence 2nd in table.

At no point has anybody made any criticism of Mick and the fantastic work he does. I'm unsure why the defensive lines have been drawn. I too cannot make every game due to work commitments and just because I don't have the time to dedicate to Cougars every week does not mean people cannot have an opinion. The highlight video's are fantastic and viewed by many far and wide. I think people are making posts about the attendances and what the club could do to attract more fans. Some have mentioned the weekly JD video's which are a great idea. IMHO they could do with freshening up now and again, but that's just my opinion. That's nothing to do with Mick, more JD and the club to invent new initiatives etc.

I would hate to think any of the posts have caused upset to Mick. Nobody from what I have read are having a go, people are just voicing their opinion of how the attendances could improve.

In relation to new players, I think people were saying big names may help, but that's JD's domain and up to him to identify new players to improve the squad. If the players are not availale at the moment thats fine. I agree fully though, new players should improve the squad.

I just think the club need to think out of the box.

That's what the likes of Mick O'Neill and Mary Calvert did back in the original days of Cougarmania.

Remember the Keighley Camels April Fools joke? Brilliant, it got us regional TV coverage.

The recession is still biting hard, inflation is approaching 5% but pay rises don't reflect this, so disposable incomes are less. Folk are more discerning about how they spend that income, so it's hard to get them to part with it.

Which brings me to this point. Are the club, and Rugby League in general, offering value for money? As most of us here are generally loyal fans who go to most games our answer would almost certainly be yes, why would we go otherwise? But what about the folk who don't go, the folk we want to come and expand our fan base, do they think it's good value? That is the real question.

In the halcyon days of Cougarmania we were a full time professional club at the top of the 2nd tier of rugby league, adults were paying £7 to get in, now it's £11 to watch semi-pro rugby league in the 3rd tier, the argument is there to say we aren't offering the value for money in relation to the quality of the product as we used to. Is it the single reason we used to get 5 to 6 times the number of fans in the mid 90's that we get now, certainly not, but it's got to be a significant contributing factor.

Other leisure organisations, which like it or not we compete against, are coming up with increasingly innovative schemes to get folk to part with their cash. Cineworld for example allow you to go to their cinemas as many times you want for £15 a month. You've got to admit, that's cracking value for money, sneak a bag of shop bought confectionary in and a bottle of water and you're laughing.

The club has to get out there and make people want to come down, put the name around, be brash and let everyone know what they're doing and achieving. It's not good enough to say, "if we start winning games, the fans will come". It's not good enough to just expect fans to do the club's job and spread the word.