Do us a favour Faxtastic,ask your BOD to email our BOD with all there ideas on how to increasing crowd numbers, so that we dont make the same mistakes.

The North Stand feels like home now i think Matt.

This seasons team is far better than the 2005 one.......

We've got a coach who would make us competitive.

Totally agree with that John.

I'm just grateful Starbug wasn't a Leigh director in the early 70's or 80's as our past may not have proved quite as illustrious as our honours board may show



There are many factors to take into account for our average attendance in SL. Frank has alluded to some. Not even having a regular match day was poor planning IMO and there are others but TBH they have all been discussed to death.

However just to mention 2 points that Starbug raised on attendances.

Lest we forget not only were we long relegated but we also played those last 3/4 games scratching around for a side and without even a head coach to pick it anyway. That I would say would not convince many more people to part with their hard earned at that stage of the season.

And the second point is that Starbug (and others) still refer to substantial SL away support boosting the numbers in 2005. However if you separate out Wigan, Warrington and Saints (twice), I believe the majority of the other matches were played out before extremely disapointing away followings IMO.

Huddersfield brought a mere hand full for the opening game. I doubt Bradford have ever played a SL match this side of London with an away contingent that low. Hull support actually was not that much more. Wakefield fans all stayed at home to watch on TV, as did Salford. London we know brought c zero. Leeds was non impressive either on both occasions.

The Halifax following in the cup that season was probably in the top 5 or 6 and they were a NL1 club at the time.

If we ever get another opprtunity at Super League, then yes there will be much work to do. However the LSV stadium alone should be conductive to far better attendance's than 2005. Both for home and away supporters alike.

Just a couple of things. Widnes also brought a large following - I remember a certain regular poster on here bragging about it on the VT with a photo of them. Also Wire brought over 4000 - easily outnumbering us on our own turf and any other away fans that season.
We can make excuse after excuse, and all the ifs and buts you want really. In fact I will add one - the 1st ever game in SL should have been a sell out (TV or not) but it wasn't, but of course it was the coldest day in history (for me anyway) that evening.


tickets, council, Abram didn't wave, we didn't have a coach near end, different days etc etc. But fact still remains we can't seem to get enough through the gates regularly, and historically it shows we can't. Promises that this time we will is just pre SL2005 predictions all over again.
I'm not saying we won't get there. But just saying we need to put the work in to get the town behind us especially now, instead of saying once in SL we will be awreet again.

And the stats show we were still the 9th best supported club in Super League that year, home fans or otherwise



On a serious note, IMO we can be a sustainable Super League club in the future. We will never be a big club but with the right people in place who have the vision and the ambition to reach out to the town - I really do believe the club has the potential to deliver that goal.

We need to start looking at how the town's people like to spend their free leisure time and us (together with the stadium partners) looking to deliver a package that can incorporate as much as possible of that around a 80 minite game of RL.

Obviously having the right people on board who possess the drive to make that happen will be crucial.

So how exactly do we increase our home support ? , right now

Ban daft hats.

overnight? not going to happen.

Bring in the schools, youngsters, sons, daughters etc and slowly we will get there plus the future supporters of Leigh Centurions

Why ?

If Leigh had beaten Dewsbury in the GF at Gigg Lane and gone up I feel we would have really moved on, equally the year when Widnes caused a huge shock and knocked Leigh out in the Semi Finals I feel we had the momentum on & off the field to really move forward, those 2 squads needed adding to and tweaking.

When we did eventually go up it to me seemed 2 or 3 years too late, the feel good factor was already sliding ,anyone remember the Fax away game the season we went up - smashed on the park in a debatable performance by the team , and argueing amongst our own fans on the terraces with a director copping flak - we had already statrted to fall apart before we went up IMO.

The least said about our promotion year the better, I have only felt worse than what I did that year watching Leigh and that was after a 90 point drubbing by Workington in the cup (and at least after that game the players handed club blazers back and apologised to the fans in the press) in SL many players just stole the money which added to the frustration and a 'them & us' attitude.
Our coach didn't seem to enjoy it and all that feeling came though, off field we had the shambolic what day are they playing, all ticket in a largely empty stadia and many things that should have been prepared for (we had been there or thereabouts going up for years).
The fact we averaged a respectable gate follwing such a poor team was a miracle.

Fast forward to now, reported that upto 1,000 people headed back to the LSV after the NRC win to welcome back the lads, the feel good factor isn't just back its screaming out - we are in the middle of a major financial crisis and yet you wouldn't know it such has been the hard work done by Basil to get this club moving on & off the park again - we need more straight talking like that IMO.
I'd alsos argue this current team would have provided a very good base to start adding to for a SL stint, especially with this coach.

However its not to be, we will remain in this lower league until the RFL say otherwise, I feel we will now fall behind Wakefield and Toulouse , possibly Halifax and who knows what South Wales could do if they get some results - or a Celtic style chairman.

I've done a Leyther Matt this year, tried to ignore the politics and get back to enjoying the sport again and the reason I enjoyed it - the Players giving it there all to win a match and the thrills and spills that come with it.
However Its hard not to get annoyed with the politics of RL, for example nearly every snippet I've read about our last gasp win v Fax has mentioned the fictional box ticking for SL (yet fail to mention this box ticking hasn't done Halifax any favours thus far).
The focus in RL really really does need to get back to on field importance over off field flannel, if it did I have no doubt whatsoever that Leigh would compete and attract support and investment in the highest league possible.

Are you targeting our Somali population?

Good post Jenky........

Without doubt we had peaked and were back on a downward slide by 2004 , understandable after getting so close , so many times , so what did we do ? , we missguidedly tried to do the impossible , and finish with two clubs below us

A much cleverer idea would have been to use the SKY monies to put together a squad to take us back up in 2006 as a full time team , as basically it was plain to anybody that a full time squad is the only way to get up and stay up

And by the same yardstick to go up and compete within franchising needs a certain level to start with , what's the saying ? , fail to prepare and you prepare to fail