Friday night against a team that brings ‘no’ fans yet we’re on target for biggest crowd for years. Great news but has aNyone got any idea how this has happened? Have we been giving them away with happy meals at the local McDonalds.

Seems very odd.

Look I assume we have given away tickets otherwise we’d be crazy not to be singing it from the roof. But I’ll tell you what s also crazy. Us making a real push to bring in a new audience but not compiling a squad that can deliver continued interest. A 40 point spanking or performances of the type seem against Widnes and Whitehaven in 2022 will lead to the same result. I hope we put in a shift on Friday and at least give ourselves a chance of some repeat custom.

Yep, without a competitive team we won't get many people back.

You can be quite lucky to get away from the local McD with your life let alone a free ticket to a game you didn't know existed.

Sadly, like Friday, I think we will "compete" all season.
And lose every game by more than 30 points.
And I won't be delighted, but I'll think "we did better than I expected".
That's where we are. (Watching this weekend's games, I don't see us winning a game this season.)
And you're right, no lapsed fans are going to come back based on that.

See more tickets available now. Maybe as we are playing le Frogs, we are giving each illegal asylum seeker a free ticket to make it look like they have a reason to be here. Supply your own boat though.

Suspect there will be considerably less people in the ground than the booking site suggests.

Certainly Super League did us no favours with regard to the club building its home attendance. Our first three home games are against teams that finished 2nd, 1st and 6th last season.
Still it gets them out of the way and we always finish the season better than we start anyway.

Me too and if that’s because of ticket office shenanigans then they deserve a kick in the aris. If it is a sell out it does beg the question, how and does suggest we don’t need to do any of that fancy Dan marketing or advertising. We will see.

Yes I wouldn’t recommend depending on le Broncs to provide transport. They’ll be eating baguettes for Christmas that way and having to pay for it themselves. Oh the humanity!

1,002 in the Hughes meltdown aftermath season of 2014 is the lowest ever gate for the visit of the French.
3,854 is the highest in 2008 at the Stoop as Quins RL before the relationship soured and we still had a working relationship with our landlords.
Friday will be interesting, because TV cameras don't lie and IMG/SL seem quite keen to declare attendance numbers.....

At least they have now admitted a failure in the ticketing system. Let's hope they have enough fingers for the count.

Even now a surprising amount of tickets 'sold'. What is annoying though is I could have bought a better seat now than the ones that were available a few days ago.

Know what you mean Buzz.

I'd persuaded a few of the old posse to come but wasn't able to get the number together required. Think the only game they might attend now will be Catalans v Broncos in September.

It wont be a sell out, not even close. All of the West is closed, not sold out. Blocks 123/124 were held for Season ticket holders, even with those opening up it suggest we have a few hundred ST holders at best for the year. Not ideal.

All in, hoping a lot of the community tickets that appear to have been given away turn up and we have a decent start crowd wise for the season.

2,182 for the opener at our new home......anything less than that has to be seen as failure....doesn't it?
As for ST holders? No comment from the club since 2008 IIRC so it's fair to say that year on year we've dropped in numbers. Depressingly the remaining 250 or few wrap Hughes and Loubser in a fuzzy blanket that makes them imune to accepting criticism.

Naked Chips are apparently attending on Friday evening. Their chips are actually pretty good quality and I say that as somebody who is pretty so/so on Chips. Like everything in Wimbledon they aren't cheap. I think around a fiver for medium plus extra for toppings such as Grated Cheese. If you fancy a cone of Chips I'd recommend them.

Their service is very efficient if you follow the process. One queue to order, then join the second queue to collect. If everybody follows that process your Chips with the correct toppings are handed over. If you don't than it becomes a bit messy as the server tries to identify who they are for (typically somebody has jumped ahead in the second queue from what I've seen)

My recent contributions to this forum have been around beer and food, which says a lot about me perhaps. From the match preview it looks like an AFC Wimbledon regular La Posta may be present with their Argentinian Steak Sandwiches. They are pretty good (perhaps a bit too much salt) and popular with my family. Beef Empandas are excellent. Personally was less keen on the Cheese and Ham, nothing wrong, just my preference. Didn't have the Veggie one to try when I last tried.

And will MyPie return? Pies get a mention but will it be the brilliant MyPie?

A little investigation suggests My Pie are at the match tonight.

Cherry Red Records Stadium - Broncos
Friday 23rd February

MENU
Beef Pie: Steak & Mushroom
Chicken Pie: Chicken, Smoked Ham & Leek
Veg Pie: Sweet Potato, Green chilli & Feta
Guest Pie: Mexican Pork & Black Beans
Sausage Roll: Pork & Herb
Sides: Mash, Peas & Gravy

This is a QUALITY meal. Pie, mash, peas and loads of gravy. The guy totally knows how to cook. £10 at the football so probably the same this evening, but excellent value. Normally, but not always, has a choice of garden peas or mushy peas.

Veg gravy available also. The Chilli & Feta is enticing me to the Veg Pie as you will be able to properly taste both ingredients.

Tried his Steak & Green Peppercorn and his Steak, Marmite & Cheese recently and no mistaking the flavours. There was clearly peppercorns in the first and marmite and cheese in the second. Not a Marmite fan but had to try it and is was excellent.

Well London did get people through the door. Huge credit there. I think announced at just over 5,000. Probably not quite that many but certainly comfortably over 4,000. Hospitality level was very well populated and packed in at the South Stand End. Hard to find space in By the Horns (not a huge space in fairness). A couple of weeks ago AFC Wimbledon Women had a crowd of 1,410. I was worried for London in comparison.

However they got the numbers in, it is a great achievement from where things have been. The only closed area was most (not all) of he lower Main Stand, so around 3,000 unavailable seats.

What a shame IMG decided that London as an area wasn't part of their strategy. They've made sure that there is no Southern presence in their future Super League.

It was certainly a decent crowd though I agree probably not quite as big as claimed. IMG and the RFL might think the rating system is having the desired effect as for the first time in a long time (perhaps in Hughes sole tenure) an effort had clearly been made to get people through the gate. Good to see the better range of food outlets which seemed to be doing decent business.

The key now is to sustain that effort and improve the product on the pitch. Let's not forget that the most ranking points are awarded for performance.

The positives - bumper crowd. Club clearly targeted RU and Rl clubs and various other organisations and got a good number of people in of varying ages. This seems to me to be a sensible approach. Fan zone was good- lots of food options. Atmosphere in ground decent although pretty cold and for obvious reasons energy maybe not as good as some less attended matches.
The team never stopped trying all through the game and worked very hard in defence.
The bad - nilled at home. Score flattered us. We could have played another 80 minutes and not scored. They were, literally in a different league to us. Very quick, fullback dealt with everything. Some very, very big players who we struggled to hold back. They ate up the ground. We barely made 20 metres before kicking. Abdull looks like he’s eaten a horse and then started on the cart but his kicking is absolutely lethal.
We’re clearly in a very tricky situation and there’s no need to write the season off just yet but I do fear our squad to the surprise of no one may not be up to the task and is too small. I just don’t think we are as creative as last year which bodes ill for drawing crowds in. Storey and Williams didn’t seem to play long minutes- did they pick up knocks? Kershaw is a very willing runner. Lots of hard work from Parata, Lovell amongst others but not a game for players to shine. I did not enjoy that game at all. Really not sure where we are this season.

Will that many return to watch another mismatch- next time against Wigan? Which the pessimist in me feels could be even worse.
Maybe the numbers will be made up by Wigan fans?

This is the problem. It was 20 mins before there was anything to get the crowd going (I think it was a big hit from Sid that forced a knock on).

Despite the obvious (at least to the initiated) effort from our team it was dull because it was so one sided. Where was Waine ? He might have generated a bit of excitement.