Not making excuses but it would be interesting to understand the make up of the schools who are attending and those who declined. For example its presumed all the schools invited actually play RL?? I think the anaysis needs to understand how many of those schools invited actually play rugby league and then understand of thle 10 takers how many of those actively play rugby league. I can only speak for my towns junior schools (Atherton) and I am not aware of any of them actively playing rugby league. Maybe the target audience was wrong, maybe next time approach the high schools in the same areas and especially those that play the game. Its at high school were the next generation of fans can quickly get hooked and begin to come to home matches on their own.

Just an observation but I might also be equally as wrong.

25% is a good result and if that attracts say 200 kids and 25% of those come again with their parents that is another 150 people through the gates for the next game, they go away and tell their freinds.

From little acorns............

There will be no quick fix but this is a definate step in the right direction

It is a good take up given the time scales involved, with a more long term plan in place this needs to be built on. From my understanding the invites were only received by some schools 10 days ago which made it difficult to organise in some cases, given the circumstances it is not a bad return.
That said well done to Leigh East I hope the day is a great success but the circumstances are different.

Point taken

Did you offer?

I wasnt meaning that





I was askin if the offer wasnt accepted maybe

Actually as I said before I dont think that it was a bad turn out tonight, personally Id target the 1st/2nd yr high schools free ticket all that s needed, dont need supervision. Although good stewarding would be needed to stop inter school problems lol

Looked good to have at least some of the East Stand populated tonight, let's hope those who attended are rewarded with future incentives so that they don't slip through the net.

Yep, just a shame none of the parents and children could hear any of the announcements, music when all the dancers were on,it seemed like the PA was not switched on in that stand! There were no programme sellers, no half-time draw tickets, the bar shut 5 minutes after half-time (lots of missed opportunites for crisp, pop, pie and beer sales) and most importantly no loo paper in the ladies loos but I suppose at least it has a roof and electricity!

I'm sure Fred will confirm it, but I would suspect that Sky will have requested to have the PA turned off in the East Stand.

Can understand that Matt but surely it could have been put back on for half-time so at least the parents could hear the dancers being introduced. Normally we are in North stand but paid to support my school and sat in South stand, it definitely felt "second class" to our normal match experience - not the way to entice more regular spectators.

You sat in the South? You poor sods


Never Eat Shredded Wheat and all that



Completely agree with you though; if you e-mail everything to the club and the LSV and then they will know what to improve upon for next time.

Too late to get my directions right, we have season tickets and normally stand!! I tell my class "Never, ever support Wigan!" - shame I didn't use it myself!! It was much easier at Hilton Park with Asda end and Kirkhall Lane end!!

Never Ever Support Wigan...

But surely Kirkhall Lane ran parallel with the Tommy Sale Stand?

As you can see Geography was never my strong subject!! I know what I mean!

you are right Matt but ever since that first SKY game they have not been able to turn it on again - dont ask me why, dont shoot the messenger all enquiries/complaints to LSV please not I.

Admit it, it was on your request, wasn't it?

Just like to say that last night Leigh CE Juniors did go to the match as a group.

The only issue is, that the kids were only told about in yesterday morning and quite a few did go.

Christ Church school only recieved an email yesterday too late to get information home to parents.

Seems to me a good idea poorly executed nowt new there.

Whatever the take up ,I thought it was excellent last night having all 4 sides of the stadium with fans in them , It made things much better , My main focus would now be to get a plus 5,000 attendance at the Fax game , we should be telling Fax now that we will open the south stand if we can guarantee they will bring over 500 fans [ Yes I would put free transport on if it was up to me , but it isn't my monetary risk , it looked to me that those that did attend enjoyed the experience , it must be repeated , those that didn't take up the offer need to be asked why , and a way found to get them to come next time

There is no easy way to get the interest out there , no single thing you can do , it is many idea's used over and over again

On the official site(27th April) Leigh highlight an initiative for all local schools........... No reason to doubt that the club did n`t contact all local Junior schools, maybe the problem is the other way round.?

I find it strange that some schools only received the email yesterday, when some got it and signed up a couple of weeks ago, usually when I receive emails from the Community department they are addressed to other people as well, it took me a while but they seem to understand that you can send it to more than one person or school at the same time.

Do we know that the email this week was the first?

Do we know that it wasn't the schools who didn't pass on the info soon enough?

Beat me to it, I'm not the fastest at typing especially with Whiskey in one hand

and a game on TV

Only just read this, and you make some valid points, which hopefully we'll all learn by.