I could not agree more.

I have not been to a Derby match for some time ( ex Horneys testimonial) and for the last few years I have been more away then home. I honestly lost the bug because I could not get to Friday matches I chose to walk away. Now its back to Sundays and the fare on offer is far better, its not perfect but I can see we are heading in the right direction.

Far too many fans where driven away in the last few years with indifferent rugby and a managment that milked them dry. Its going to take time and with the recession it may be longer now. Many teams are suffering stagnant or falling gates in many sports and its a matter of weathering the storm and survival of the fittest.

I am confident we will weather the storm and come trough better, we need to be patient now.

Wind your necks in. The best signing hfc has done for a long time is Adam. Trust him. He knows what he's doing.

Agree with all that.

Wigan's marketing in recent seasons has been excellent and they've reaped the rewards, although having a decent team helped of course

Pearson is right in what he says though we need to get the attendances up. It's worth pointing out the average attendance increased from 2008 to 2010 despite the area being badly affected by the credit crunch and the recession.

Btw. Hull will win. Bring on the shouts of 'You're supposed to be at home'

well said,

I didn't renew passes after several years, but still going nearly every week - happy to pay more for better product and will probably renew next season.........

But

Handling of dramatic pass reductions was poor.

Scrapping of voucher exchange ill thought out & cost much goodwill.

From a marketing point of view rather bemused I have had NO comunication from the club - no promotional offers, no incentives - not even a fixture list !

I have done the odd corporate & provided e mail address for prize draw - assumed I would get marketed and happy to be, had absolutely nothing - thought skill in marketing was optimising spend from existing customers - this ain't happening.

Regardless, product MUCH better & nice to see smiles in the stadium again after seasons of despair.

In Adam we trust......

afm

We play each other too many times and the novelty of having the derby back is starting to wear thin when you think we have had 4 games against rovers each season over the past few years. I don't think the derby is attracting the arm chair fans as it used to.

We do need the fans back upto the 14000 gates of a few years ago every week but lets not forget that if we get 19500 it's still a very good crowd even for a derby and forgetting finals I bet there aren't many crowds over the years that have surpassed this figure. It's getting the fans to return to your average matches such as Bradford, Wakefield, Cas etc that we need to continually work to get the support back. But I am sure in time it will happen under Pearson and Gentle. I have every faith under their stewardship the club will get to where we all want the club, at the top of the game!

I agree that the 4 derby's a year in the early years haven't helped.

if the club can sustain its league position throughout the season, (top 5), i expect people to come back and support the team, just look at hull citys' gates in 2008, upto the final few games before the play offs, they were only getting 14-16,000 then the last 2 or 3 games they were hitting 20,000+!, people will only come and watch a succesfull team, so if pearson wants those missing fans back, then i hope we are still up the top end of the league come mid summer

Did the loss of the voucher exchange scheme put anyone here off getting a season pass?

If being able to give someone an unused voucher to attend a match, might get them going more often.

They could do a bring a friend rally back, and give pass holders a chance to pre purchase a reduced price ticket to bring a friend for a specified game.

It stopped me getting a pass. living in the south means i have to pick and choose games for a variety of reasons. By having the voucher scheme i could save the vouchers and attend games with my wife. without it the cost goes up.
i suspect AP saw the Wire crowd last year and smiled. then saw gate receipts and was less than happy.

Yeah 16000 gate against Warrington and I bet only about 3000 paid