The pubs shut at 2 pm on a sunday

The Labour clubs shut at 3

No sunday shopping

B and Q didn't exist

The only footy on the TV on sundays was ' the big match ' which was a repeat from a saturday game

Nobody had heard of bar b ques

Even the canned/ bottled beer was crap

The biggest problem we as clubs outside the top flight have is the lack of atmosphere at matches caused primarily by the lack of fans

What is needed is all 20 NL/Championship clubs to sit down round a table with a blank piece of paper on it

That should be the starting point

Also this meeting should take place outside of any influence of the RFL

Had a chat the other day to a mate on this, what we need is a "final", any final will do, cup or league. The aim this year should be to get to at least 1 final.

Being a member of a local amateur rugby club I can see the affects Halifax appearing in a big game has, out of say 30/40 people associated with Boothtown rugby only say 5 follow fax, when we have a big game, say play off v Cas other year or semi theres about 20 attending the game instead of 5, a final is needed to kick start it all.

thing is people round here dont wanna pay for nothing cos they right set of spongers

hope leon dont think im talking about him today

getting to a final doesnt always work. i went to leicester to watch halifax town play the play off final a few years back and we took 10,000 there and the first home game after that the crowd had only gone up by 150-200 fans.

i think sending fax players into schools would help to get kids in but that would mean parents would have to come and they might not like the prices.

the whole free for kids idea is great but its how to accomatdate the parents into a package that would suit parents and kids.

If Halifax say decided to admit free admission for all, the attendance would still be only 3500.

Win the league this year, and erm. play in the same league next year for your endevours.

RL is becoming tedious

Unfortunatley that is what we now have , we either learn to build within that structure or

What is the other option ?

we could somehow take control of rugby league and put ourselves into super league next season whether we win or not.

Correct

All well and good making a final. but really we need to win one.

years ago

Good points made there and it must have made a difference to RL plus its now a summer game and for married types like me its harder to justify going to most games on a nice sunny day to the Mrs, especially away games!
Add to this my pet hate and that is the promotion of 'new' clubs at the expense of decaying traditional clubs in what are still in my eyes RL towns like Keighley, Oldham and Workington.
Oh and the appeal to modern RL fan of SL which means that in towns like Oldham and Workington you have Saints, Wigan and even Leeds fans!
It is not an easy one to fix, sad as the game is pretty decent now at our level it just lacks the razzamataz to the modern fan.
It can be done to a point, Cas did a great job at their place when they were in NL1 but they did have a winning team and the core support from SL stuck with them, not sure they could have kept that up after 5 years in NL1 tbh..

That would be good support at this level.
We do as others have put need to get to a Final and preferably win it but a good effort even if we lost would do, then kick on and get to another Final or two is what we need, not a glory in one Final then bust scenario like years gone by.
Halifax RLFC lost fans and its credibility after the Thrum Hall fiasco, the move to the Shay with the East stand disaster and the move to summer rugby and SL which to older fans was very disliked plus financial problems in 2000, 2003 and 2007 to name but three. The club was at times not very well run and treated people badly at a time when Bradford had the best period in their history.
Come on we have reached just one semi final in any competition the NRC at Whitehaven since 1998 and not much before that so nothing to get excited about at all plus the 27 defeats in 2003 killed off even some of the hardiest fans of the club then when they came back in 2004 we were still poor.
So all in all I still say our support has been good considering. It is getting better but things happen slowly in Halifax, people need convincing. Keep up the improvements we are doing and get the East stand up and running I believe we will get 250 to 500 more fans per game next season.

so really, it looks like the completed stand will need a silverware winning/competeing team then - we have tried everything else

The new stand will help but stating the bl**ding obvious we need to keep a good team and get to that elusive Final.
we have got the foundations in place!

I just don't know what is wrong with this town!! People just don't seem to come out and watch some high quality sport!

We could only get 4000 against Melbourne Storm! Look at all the effort and publicity that went into that!! People just don't seem to come out and watch...I just don't understand it!!!

Yer true but it was a Friday night and like I keep saying the Shay is not the most appealing ground - yet.
I thought we would get 5K tbh at that match. The club tried.

very disapointing but i do feel the club could of done more on on the publicity side of things
thats in the past now just hope we can do it in the future

I dare say Halifax don't have the budget to spend money on publicity and marketing like SL clubs do. What would you rather the money be spent on, decent players or marketing?

The problem in the past is, that when the fans have come, we have played crap. The Melbourne game aside, when there has been an effort from the town to come and the attendance has increased the product on the field wasn't good enough.

Maybe this year will be different.

When we 1st got relegated our first game @ home vs Keighley attracted over 3000 fans, We played pap and ground out a 18-12 victory. Crowds quickly declined over the course of that season, If we'd have been around the top of the league we'd have kept a healthy number, but unfortunatley TA hadn't finished destroying the club he loved,

Hope the Club rethink about playing on Friday Nights from June.Anybody else hate Friday Night Football ?

i like it away from home the shay isnt as good on friday imo

I think one thing many clubs do wrong is promote Rugby League. Rugby League fans will come anyway. Why not promote it as an event-so for example why not have a special Family day in Summer where the family is the target-Face Painting, Bouncy Castle, Get Mcdonalds,Eureka & Calderdale Leisure services involved, BBQ (London Skolars have a good BBQ on the go at games). Maybe each Youth club in Calderdale involved in a Parade before the game with each Youth team member given free entrance and a player personally visiting a Clubs training session and inviting the youngsters down.

Maybe the Cup game against Loughboro could be Student day where all Students are invited down for free and getting Calderdale College, Leeds Met, Huddersfield Uni, Bradford Uni involved in promoting themselves that day.

Maybe a game against Toulouse would be International Day where anybody who has a Foreign Passport would get in for Free-There are many Foreigners in Halifax area. Maybe many do not know what Rugby League is. Maybe parade players who have played International Rugby League in some way before the game-Simeunovich Brothers have played for Serbia, Other amateur players have played for England/Barla and maybe also look to get a local firm that deals in wine to sell wine or have a wine tasting event before the game

Another day could be disabled day. Invite the Wheelchair Rugby people and look to work with people who suffer from being handicapped in some way. Also maybe look to invite an Olympic Gold medal winner from the Paraolympic team

Just a couple of ideas. Some might work others not. The thing is Halifax like all clubs need to do more to get in to the hearts of the community and should look to target a section each home game or so and get involved with Groups or Companys who maybe have never had much contact with Rugby League.

I can understand us moving a game to a friday, the week before we play another team who also plays on a Fri night, that way we have a 7 day turn a round. Doubt would impact too much on away support. I enjoyed it when we played on Fri nights in the Pendlebury era, but that was with a full stadium, dunno what home crowd would be like now not doing as well (but still playing good entertaining rugby). Like DK says, we'd have to promote the event.

At last a like minded person seeing what we have , what we lack , what we all need to do and good constructive idea's of how to achieve it

I congratulate you for the best post I have seen in months with regard to the sport and clubs at our level

:2thb381h


I refer to my earlier post on this thread

:2thb381h

This meeting needs to take place , and the first things on that piece of paper would be the above idea's from ' Der Kaiser '

Then all clubs helping each other to achieve the same objectives [ even club officials and staff helping out at other clubs , sharing of resources , group purchasing and sharing of marketing items [ advertising trailers , bouncy castles , blimps , marquees , stages , PA systems , very sexy dancers