I think you may be badly mistaken with this quote. I don't have the statistics to hand, but I bet if you look at Leeds attendances in the early millennium, they were quite healthy even though we hadn't been champions for over 30 years. I would guess Leeds were the biggest supported club pre 2004 before they started dominating Superleague. There will always be a number of people that jump on the bandwagon of a teams success, but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of Current Leeds fans have always been Leeds Rugby supporters. The demographic of a clubs support is forever changing, and Leeds have embraced the family concept better than most clubs. As the oldies have died off at Headingley, the amount of women and children coming through the turnstiles is something to behold. Will they appreciate success like the grizzled old guy that was stood amongst 3500 in the late 70's, who knows. In an ideal world you and your team would have your day in the sun, but just because you haven't, don't let your failure colour your judgement towards a fan base that supports a more successful club.

My retort was regarding the insinuation I’m doing something wrong.

I don’t deny Leeds have been the best supported club in the area for time immemorial, but as you appear to like a flutter, I would wager that Leeds has the greatest percentage of supporters who originally followed other clubs (who incidentally bring along their wives & kids) in the whole of Yorkshire.





Once again, my failure!

If by refusing to jump ship & nail my colours to another mast is clouding my judgement, then I’m doing things wrong & a failure to boot

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Anyhow, back to my original point, my sympathies go out to a number of Leeds fans, that due to the injuries to the squad they just failed to put the cherry on that extremely large cake.

I'd be surprised if that was the case. Where would these fans have come from? Highly unlikely that you're going to get Wakey/Cas/Fev fans dumping their local club to go watch Leeds, for example.

Don't forget that once you leave the centre of Leeds there isn't another pro club for 20 miles to the north (York) and probably 60 miles of you if you head dead east (the Hull clubs). There's a huge catchment area for Leeds to tap into of people who don't have other RL clubs in the vicinity to follow.

Contrast that with Bradford at the height of Bullmania for example, who were ridiculed for poaching fans from the likes of Huddersfield, Halifax and Keighley. How many of those at Bradford have stuck around in leaner times I couldn't tell you, but I'd bet the proportion of "moved" fans at Odsal was higher than at Headingley.

Not sure about Wakefield but Cas & Fev fans would consider it sacrilege to follow Leeds.




Yes but, there’s still the likes of Batley & Hunslet where years of misery would send a fair few to the dark side. Also the border lands of Morley, Garforth etc.



For sure, Bradford were the kings before their decline, it would be interesting to see how Leeds fared if a similar scenario were to occur – we can all live in hope

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Not sure you understand the history and transient populations within Leeds / Yorkshire. Wakey fans would never jump ship to Leeds, you're deluded beyond belief. As for the Hunslet issue, the old traditional area of Hunslet was demolished way back and it's inhabitants scattered amongst the new outlying sink estates of East Leeds and elsewhere. Hunslet died as a club when the Hunslet area was effectively levelled and it's inhabitants rehoused all across Leeds. You talk mostly rubbish regarding people jumping ship, the only small morsel of sense comes with mention of outlying areas like Garforth becoming more aligned to Leeds. Stop guessing and start living a bit more.

Agreed, Garforth is more Rhinos than Cas, Kippax has more Rhinos than you would think. Micki is defo more Cas.

Slightly off topic I have got to know the son of Kevin Beardmore. He's a barber in Manly, a great lad and isn't a Cas fan as you would think. He prefers the Rhinos.

So initially you label me a failure due to my steadfast resolve to carry on supporting a car crash of a club, but now I’m also delusional.

You go ahead, however I know a number of individuals who have decided to support Leeds after initially supporting Wakefield, including my own nephew whose Father & Grandfather are / were dyed in the wool Trinity supporters.

His reasons for his defection were simple, he was sick of watching cannon fodder year after year, winding up orders & the like, so now he drives the few extra miles to see more annual success than I’ve witnessed in a lifetime.

I’ve had it explained to me that no matter how many previous successes Leeds fans have witnessed, the joy of the next one is just as sweet, I don’t need to digress into some turgid debate about how fickle supporters can be.