Broncos wouldn't. What the community engagement offers is a way of building links with the local community. This builds interest in the club and some of those people will then try out a game. If they enjoy it, they tell others. It also builds a stronger tie to the club in not so good times. It's not a miracle cure.

Dulwich Hamlet don't sell out Saturday fixtures because they run social campaigns etc. They sell out because they get the offering right, for their market place, both on and off the field.

It was also a slow burn, taking over a decade from the start of the transformation. Do Broncos have the luxury of that sort of timescale?

Wherever Broncos have moved to they have been good at getting out to the schools and setting up RL training and teams, the problem is this has not really encouraged parents to bring the school children along to games.

Can this be done with a part time squad ?

Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up.

The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others.

Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.

No, we don't.
Could have done this with any of our moves really couldn't we? We apparently even turned down help from one of the blokes behind the whole DHFC project a few years ago.

Quote ="Halfdan of t'wide embrace"Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up. The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others. Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.'" Not only that but they did it against the backdrop of losing and then fighting to get their ground back in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... on-it-back

Quote ="Halfdan of t'wide embrace"Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up. The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others. Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.'" Not only that but they did it against the backdrop of losing and then fighting to get their ground back in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... on-it-back

Sort of. Both men who drew up the Hamlet revitalisation strategy were Broncos fans, one a long standing season ticket holder and regular away fan for years, one a few times a season. They offered to meet the club and brief / advise them on what had / hadn't worked at Hamlet for free. No meeting ever occurred

They weren't directly offering to help as they were a bit busy at the Hamlet and, crucially, were South East Londoners so did not have the necessary community contacts around Ealing - as it was then. A thread on here suggested it may have fallen through as key people at the club may have thought they were after jobs, which was total rubbish if it is the reason.

Sadly one has since died. It's only fair to report I am aware of contact between the other one and Broncos recently. I don't know to what extent.

Maybe this time the club might actually take some advice from a bloke who knows how to build a club up? Maybe advice was the word I should have used rather than help in my original post.
While the DHFC guys might not have local contacts for Wimbledon ( or previously for Ealing) they'd surely have been able to show how they'd developed things in their area and how they went about things?
Safe to say that in the end a lot of what they did must have been successful in terms of building the supporter base. DHFC have crowds , as a 7th level football club, that we would now love to have.

Surely we are a lot larger, even potentially with SL just one league above us, not to need to deal with some level 7 (or whatever they are) football team.

They attract fantastic crowds (several over 3,000 this season). Something we fail at so plenty to learn.

They need all the help they can get. It's not about the level the advice comes from but the ideas themselves that are important. Anything that can drag this basket case of a club in the right direction has to be welcomed.

At the moment Hamlet are the bigger club in terms of fan base, match day revenue etc by far. Broncos are potentially far far larger in fan base, revenues etc. They were far bigger in both when Hamlet commenced revitalisation.

The basic principles of fan attraction cross sports - see Peter Deakin's achievements at Saracens using a blueprint developed in RL. Hamlet have won two major national awards for this sort of stuff. They certainly aren't the only information source the club could approach however they are strong candidates to pick their brains, especially as they were offering their knowledge for free.

Enfield Town did a similar deal and I went with my son a few times. I have to say one of the key reasons I haven’t gone back as a paying customer, although, I don’t discount it from happening was the on field product was not what it was when I was a child watching Enfield FC, on field product is a real driver of attendance especially if you have little in built generational support. Not easy but is something for Broncos to think about.

I think even the Broncos know that, you only have to look at the team we had at the Stoop and some the crowds. Those days are long gone and will be difficult to reach again.

I am not sure DH does know this. Assembling the worst sqaud we have ever had and targetting 5,000 fans does not strike me as a coherent plan.

Someone has been reading this thread...

I've just received an e-mail from Dulwich Hamlet Supporters Trust offering me the chance to buy tickets, in limited blocks, v Widnes and Whitehaven for a quid.

Shame it's a bit short notice but good on the club for trying. There's a few lapsed Broncos fans there so hopefully some may take advantage.

It is a shame that the club have started offering discounted tickets to other sports clubs yet the real fans are expected to pay the full price. I know is is getting new potential supporters in but speaking to someone who was involved in Afc Wimbledon once those cheap tickets disappear not many of their fans will come back.

No need to be patronising towards DHFC, they’ve got a successful model for building crowds - their attendances are better than many fully professional clubs, and the numbers we can only dream of at present.
We’re in no position to not listen to advice from people with a proven success on their hands.
Unless we want to fail with this move as well……

And if Broncos management want to see how it’s done it’s only a relatively short drive round the South Circular to Dulwich….

Depends which site the club is based at.
Currently postal address is a managed regus office in Richmond....so the partnership with the dons doesn't appear to include a desk


It's all pi55 and wind now anyway.....Hughes has either decided or been convinced that 5k in 3 years is possible.....I await his statement blaming fans or anyone else but himself for this latest farce falling on it's Arris.

Unfortunately Broncos are now in a position where they need bums on seats and substantial numbers of newbies are unlikely to pay £22. The vast majority of £1 tickets won't stick around. The trick is to make sure the same people can't repeatedly get in cheap. Get enough in and X% stick around. Dulwich don't discount now. Enough people stuck around and told their friends so they now sell out Saturday games

The cheapo offer that got me through the Broncos door for the first time led to 20 season tickets.

In an ideal world you certainly wouldn't sell tickets at £1 to anyone but Broncos are now in a big hole and expecting thousands of newbies to stump up £22 is unrealistic.

I've made a few phone calls. The football club mentioned has nearly 900 junior players. Let's assume they average at 1.5 parents. By my dodgy maths , that's 1350 parents + 900 kids do potentially over 2000 free admissions. It's typically 20 or so at first team matches.. And apparently Broncos are good at putting on lessons which may pop up once or twice and wonder why no parents turn up.

Google fan engagement, it's really not rocket science.

Also you have to look at what you are paying for. Its not super league, its not even a full time team. The key part of the match day experience is the match (maybe not for the kids under 10 perhaps). If the performance on the pitch is dire with limited skills why pay £22.

Broncos had a decent product when you brought your first season ticket.

Advantage to the broncos now is most newbies wouldn't know that what they are watching is 1 step away from park rugby.
It's the match day experience that the club will be pushing hard....although at £22.00 a pop and a fiver a kid, there are better and cheaper ways to pass 90 minutes whilst blowing less than £50!