Has a lot to do with who's in charge. Andrew Glover runs the club as a professional business where Ted Richardson ran it as a family business.

Mainly due to a massive dose of luck.

Andrew Glover was absolutely the right man in the right place at the right time.
He has a longer term and broader view of the 'business' of Wakefield Trinity and perhaps saw it for what it really is and where its importance lies.

When he first took over, he stated that he saw the club as a vehicle for improving the status of the city of Wakefield and restoring some pride to its citizens. He admits he knew very little about the rugby side of things and allowed those who do to get on with it.

He took a look at the club as a business, and the environment and conditions it works in, and then made good decisions on how to improve it. Although there was some criticism of 3 year contracts handed out all over, he knew that the first job was to create some stability and allow those in charge of the rugby side of things time to do their job.

Perhaps the RFL have tried to use this as a model when they were assessing potential new owners for Bradford.

As a long-suffering Trinity fan, it is certainly taking some getting used to.

It speaks absolute volumes for all you long-suffering Trinity fans that it's working. That average attendance that was posted isn't (in the main) down to fans turning up as performances have improved, it represents season-long commitment from when things probably looked a lot less rosy. Brilliant.

I'd disagree on the performances being the driver in attendances. The bumper crowd for Catalans was our first home win of the season and only our second victory of the year.

In 2009 when we reached 5th in the league, with better results through the year the crowds were not this high. Plus they were disappointing for the play off home match.

In 2004 we reached the play offs and crowds were not this good.

I think amongst the reasons for the rise in crowds is:-

- new found optimism due to a new owner
- positive allround news and publicity about the club
- new covered areas which encourages people to come irrespective of the area
- the old regime (which people lost faith with) has gone
- discounted season tickets which brings in nearly 4k of regulars (although I often see many empty seats which are assigned to season ticket holders)

Team performances have helped to some degree. Even last year when some performances were very poor the crowds were still up considerably as a result of many of the factors above.

In that case we're agreed. I was also trying to make the point that they weren't.

Yep, I thought thats what you meant.

Looking through the stats I thought I was going to be able to make a smart comment about Cas when I saw they were a couple of teams worsed attendances.
i.e The Home teams worsed attendance of the season was when Cas visited.

I got a surprise to find it happened
4 times with London at Hull FC, Hull KR, Wakefield and Wigan
3 times with Cas at Bradford, St. Helens and Widnes
3 times with Salford at Castleford, London and Warrington
3 times with Hull KR at Catalans, Huddersfield and Salford

and 1 time with us at Leeds!
I'm amazed at that. Even though it was a Monday night I'm surprised we are their worsed.

Obviously these stats partly reflective of away support, how much home support wants to watch away team, how both are performing at the time, whether it is on Sky, the weather and what day it is played......but even then I'm surprised.

The catalyst for the improvement was the change from the old to the new owner.
Things are still a way off being perfect (they never will be of course!!) but the trust has returned fron the spectators and this has been coincidental with an improvement on the field too.
The offers to supporters pre match and on matchday are well thought out in the main and are aimed at including as many new supporters as well as keeping hold of existing ones.
In all of it communication is key, it's a lot better, but we have still a long way to go. We are starting to get the little things right which increases income and means we can afford to look at improving the slightly bigger things in due course.
Credit to all, but we have no laurels to rest on. If we take our eye off the ball we will slide backwards and all the effort will be wasted.

Apologies Clearwing, I misread.