Another club moving in to the top8 could be at the detriment to HullFC yes, but it would add more competition and make us improve further to keep our place in the top8. With the BBC moving to Salford, the area is gaining even more importance nationally, and SL can't afford to miss out on the publicity.

and yes, the biggest tool any club can use to gain new fans is success...but I still feel Salford could have made a better effort than they did for this fixture.

Hull opened the KC in 2003 with a fixture against London (possibly the least attractive home game on the calendar) but still marketed it and gave out free/cheap tickets to council staff etc to fill the ground up and make it feel like an event.

If they had given our 10K free tickets, yes a good thousand, even 2 thousand may have been put off by the weather...but they would have still had 8/9K in the ground. The fact is they didn't bother to do much with the marketing, the same die-hards turned up...and they started the season with a defeat and the same problems in attracting new fans to the club.

I did, and tell me, what has changed? , Huddersfield are still not a viable stand on their own two feet SL club, Kens millions are still needed every year to prop them up, and try to get the local population interested, take it away and they'd be back down with the Reds in couple of years, maybe another 10/15 years and they might be susstainable

Have to agree.
Lets see how Salfords attendance are a few months into the campaign before needlesly lambsasting them!

But they wont be anywhere near the top 8 , even we gave them a good hiding in the 1 st match, it isn't just success, it is playing for ' something ' , at the moment they are essentially playing 27 friendlies

As I said, even freebies wouldnt have turned up, and you are correct, their marketing has been rubbish at best , but people arent stupid, no club can build itself with the prospect of losing most of its home games year on year

you just cannot help yourself can you but to have a dig at cas.

the home support is a worry,ive read all the excuses but it didnt stop 1500 cas fans going over the pennines on a road which was barely passable to get there and the m62 resembled a car park on the way home,hope everyone made it home safely.

the game was what anyone could expect given the conditions,both teams tried to play rugby on a night when if it hadnt been a sky tv game would have been called OFF.

the stadium is basic and there were a few teething problems but it will be decent place to go in the summer and it does have the feel of a rugby ground.

The crowd was 50% up on the corresponding fixture from last season.

What more can you ask for?
If it had been on another day, without snow it might have been higher, but 5k+ in that weather on Friday night TV game isn't bad at all.

If Salford keep up that level of increase there will be a lot of embarrassed pundits about.

As for Huddersfield, it isn't a standalone club but it is moving their and that's ultimately the long term goal. I'd suggest that only Leeds and Wigan could truly claim to be standalone.

Oh and no way did 1500 Cas fans travel. It always amazes me the sheer stupidity of numbers suggested for away fans in these situations.
500 Cas fans tops.

you are right i underestimated it ,the club chaiman has just put out a statement saying we sold over 1800 tickets.

Correct.

You have to admit though, these parochial scenes of well-meaning but inept match-day organisation don't do us any favours when they're on the telly.

I doubt it.

If I'd been given free tickets to an outdoor sport I'd never had any previous interest in, and the weather was as bad as it was for Salford/Cas, and I had *any* other distraction than work to keep me warm and indoors on a Saturday night, I'd not have gone. Imagine if it wasn't RL, but lacrosse or shinty. Would you have bothered?

Free tickets aren't enough - there has to be some incentive. In that kind of weather you need a better incentive than when it's warm, sunny and pleasant to be outdoors.

Looked like 1300 of them stayed at home then.

It'll be interesting to see what Cas's crowds look like when they move into their new stadium.

When do they open it?

Right. The weather was awful, the crowd was probably 2-3k less than was expected due to the weather.

I'd love to know how many watched the Sale v someone game, I reckon there was around 6-700 people there but I bet it's advertised as around 8000.

Re Starbugs point about crowds, I see the point, but in Australia Gold Coast finished bottom and their crowds were 15k Parramatta the same, in fact all of the other team with no hope of the play offs attendances were good.

Good grief do people still compare uk crowds to Aussie crowds? why?

Might as well compare Saints to Liverpool FC.

Again, Salford had a 50% increase on the same game last season. How is that not excellent?

Summer Rugby my , I was cold watching it and it's summer in Australia

(didn't get below 21c last night)

I didn't, I compared the situation teams who won't make the playoffs like Salford with the closest comparison, which is the situation with Gold Coast and Parramatta.

Sorry if this caused you any upset.

I'll tell you why it's not excellent! Last year, we had just won 3 in a row and Cas had lost 7 on the bounce! We only got 3500 cos Cas fans did not travel! Don't use that as a benchmark for claiming 5200 in a new stadium is excellent!
And Cas did bring 1500 easy, if not then the crowd was only 4200!!!!!
Either way we had 2700 paying Salford punters which is less than the corresponding fixture last year!

Quote ="Code13"The crowd was 50% up on the corresponding fixture from last season. What more can you ask for? If it had been on another day, without snow it might have been higher, but 5k+ in that weather on Friday night TV game isn't bad at all. If Salford keep up that level of increase there will be a lot of embarrassed pundits about. As for Huddersfield, it isn't a standalone club but it is moving their and that's ultimately the long term goal. I'd suggest that only Leeds and Wigan could truly claim to be standalone. Oh and no way did 1500 Cas fans travel. It always amazes me the sheer stupidity of numbers suggested for away fans in these situations. 500 Cas fans tops.'" www.castigers.com/article.php?id=2060 That stand was nearly full and hold just over 2,000 I'm led to believe.

Quote ="Code13"The crowd was 50% up on the corresponding fixture from last season. What more can you ask for? If it had been on another day, without snow it might have been higher, but 5k+ in that weather on Friday night TV game isn't bad at all. If Salford keep up that level of increase there will be a lot of embarrassed pundits about. As for Huddersfield, it isn't a standalone club but it is moving their and that's ultimately the long term goal. I'd suggest that only Leeds and Wigan could truly claim to be standalone. Oh and no way did 1500 Cas fans travel. It always amazes me the sheer stupidity of numbers suggested for away fans in these situations. 500 Cas fans tops.'" www.castigers.com/article.php?id=2060 That stand was nearly full and hold just over 2,000 I'm led to believe.

Having already been in that stand with 4/500 leythers ,there were around 1,4/500 Cas fans in that stand last night, it holds around 2,000

Yes Huddersfield are moving forward, but if you chuck 10/15 million at most clubs, they would eventually start to get there, another 10/15 to go and they might win something and break 10/12,000 occaisionally

Given the conditions and the fact the game was being shown live on SKY 5200 was a decent attendance. With the same circumstances I'd be surprised if the Willows would have got more than about 3000.

Given more favourable conditions and games against some of the big teams who will bring considerably more supporters I wouldn't be surprised to see attendances approaching 5 figures on occasions.

The stand that Cas fans were in holds 2500.

Would say Cas had about 1500 there taking into account a section of the away stand was closed off for the big screen.

some people (many moaning salford fans included) need to get a grip. 5200 is a good crowd for that game;..;..live on TV,...snow all over,....FREEZING COLD.....

People saying we wouldnt have got more in the sunshine are talking rubbihs.....the cllub sold 8000 tickets this week....I know as I bought mine from the staidum and they showed how many ticketst were left on the PC.

So 3000 ish didnt turn up because of the weather...probably cos they had kids and rightly didnt want them to freeze!!

Get a grip - it was a shocking night for rugby which WOULD have been cancelled if it wasnt on sky. Take that into account....5200 is still pretty healthy. Cas brought about 1300 which was great. There stand holds 2000 and it was a good turnout. Stadium wont change things overnight...needs time people....honestly have some flipping patience.

The numbers on here of about 1500 seem about right. Think they will need to open up other stands to away fans for sunday afternoon games in the summer against the local big teams like Wigan Saints and Wire. It got pretty crowded in the stand with aprox 1500 cas fans in.

Also only gripe i had with the stadium was putting the big screen in the same stand as away fans so we couldnt see replays when any of all 4 corners could have been used. Decent first visit to salford though.

Clearly there would have been a much greater attendance had it not been for the weather. But I don't think the club really helped themselves in a couple of ways. The big marketing push for the game started only days before, whereas it would have been much more beneficial to have it starting right from the day the fixtures go out. It all seemed a little bit eggs in one basket, with the fair and Amelia off X-Factor etc. Don't think it was the best idea having that, I wouldn't have bet against there being snow this weekend. If there was something like that mid-season, eg. the Warrington match in June, we could have a great crowd.

Still, the fixture was up around 50% from last year, which isn't too bad given the weather. If the Warrington game has a similar increase then the stadium will be pretty much full. It's far too early to judge though, we'll have to see come the end of the season.

You really think Cas took 1500, the Cas propaganda machine continues to suck in the gullible. Cas "exaggerated" Tigers - god bless them all.