About 20 minutes before the game someone working in the ticket office said over 9,000 tickets have been sold, that's clearly a lie and I don't get why they would need to lie about that. Just over 5k for the first ever Super League game at a new stadium, weather aside it was an awful turn out and the performance wasn't much better, don't see how we're going to survive for much longer.

Your turnstiles will be electronically counted, so any ' double ' sales wouldnt make any difference , 4,000 odd with probably your corporate sales all hiding in the bar

15 years is not THAT long of a time. I accept that many new fans will have replaced some of the older ones since then. But a good proportion of those "veterans" will still be around. In any case - I'm not entirely convinced by the idea that supporters gathered over the past decade are somehow soft. Why should a match that was appealing, say, ten years ago be any less appealing today? And let's be honest - the opening match to a new season in a brand new stadium is about as appealing as it gets.

15 years is 3X5 : as a rule of thumb, society changes by a great deal every 5 years. Therefore it is a long time. Think of what were common activities 10 years ago: remember videos, pubs, going to sports (outside football). Not Sky+, supermarker beer at home, and wall - to - wall sports on demand in the home.
Disagree: basing any marketing for a fringe sport, such as Rugby League, on what would have been acceptable 5/10/15 years ago is doomed.

EXACTLY!

2009 = 3,487
2010 = 3,130
2011 = 3,587
Best Crowd against Castleford for 4 years and in atrocious weather.....I would hold judgement on the "crowd issue" until at least 3 more games.....before kicking off about the marketing dept. Hull FC (3,983),us cock-er-nees (3,065) and Leeds (4,024) will be a better gague of where you are.....14,659 in 2011 for your first 4 home games...only 9,417 more to equal that. I reckon you'll be close to 20% up by the time you play Wigan.
Good luck for the rest of the season......

I'm with you on that GF. A warm summers day would've probably doubled the crowd so as disappointed as I am by the low turnout, I'll hold off on judgment for a few weeks. Oh & while we're on the subject of fans, for want of a better word, being "softer" these days, I agree 100%. I never thought I'd join the "when I was a lad" brigade at the age of 34 but I can't believe what a bunch of mard ar$e$ society have become. Professional footballers wearing tights, gloves & snoods, my U15's team turning up for training in ear muffs & bobble hats, it's embarrassing!

I even had one lad admit to missing training last week "because it was raining"!

. Get the wintergreen out & man up FFS!