Im in

our/your club gets more benefit from you attending one home game than it does if you attend a thousand away games.

(unless you buy your away ticket from our/your club of course)

Club do benefit if you get your away tickets from shop, but yeah by going to home games they do benefit more. TBH I prefer away games but still get to all home games

Sorry old cock i go to the majority of home games too

Yes you are probably not on your own there. Once people have had the experience of modern stadia its difficult to get thenm to enjoy the match day experience at Belle Vue.

If we get the go ahead at Newmarket I wouldn't mind moving out of Belle Vue in the intrim period and have a season 'on the road'

Good for you

I don't think its just down to that, it always seems more fun away from home and the stadiums don't come into it for me.

But yes some games on the road would be fine, we should go back to BARNSLEY for a couple of games.

"Only sing when you win" springs to mind.

sounds reasonable but it could back fire if we go too far away, had you any stadiums in mind ? barnsley, but please don't say elland road, got to be the worse seating anywhere no wonder the fans stand up there, the seat in front digs in to your knees, I went to the GB Aussie final and vowed never to go there again

Oakwell would make the most sense for on the road matches. The areas to the North, West and East are saturated by RL clubs so South is the only option. It would be excellent idea if the club could arrange some sort of incentive with Barnsley FC season ticket holders with discounted entry into home matches either at BV or Oakwell.

Yep, i work in Barnsley and there is a lot of interest in the Wildcats and it could be tapped into for games at Oakwell and BV, its worth a go IMO.

Dont hull FC include 'season pass' holders in their weekly attendance figures wether they attend or not? After all, the money is in for that game if the season ticket tolder does or doesnt attend.

I wonder if we do this?

Despite very good work by the club in ` the community ` it seems that the good folk of Wakefield will not attend matches at Belle Vue in high enough numbers to make it viable.

We know we need a new stadium and every effort is being made by many good people to achieve this goal. Power to theie elbows.

If we get the new stadium it will be vital that the public of Wakefield attend the Trinity matches. How many more people will go and watch Trinity just because they play in a new stadium, nobody knows. We can not just believe that they will turn up in numbers, infact I would suggest that we should presume that they will not turn up and go out now and promote the club in new markets.

Lets take all our home SL matches next season on the road, lets leave Belle Vue asap and get the devolpers in sooner rather than later, promote the club in Doncaster and Selby and play Hull, Cas and Hull KR at the Doncaster Stadium, promote the club in the Heavy Wollen area and play our home matches against, Celtic, Catalans and Quins at Dewsbury or Batleys grounds. Promote the club in Barnsley and surrounding areas and play Saints, Wigan, Huddersfield, Salford, Bradford and Leeds at Barnsleys Oakwell stadium.

We only get about 2,500 Wakefield fans at home games, and thats with a team doing well, it blows the old adage , that a winning team will bring the fans back, out of the water, we have to act , we must be radical, by promoting Trinity and SL to Barnsley, Selby, Doncaster, Dewsbury, Barnsley etc etc we give ourselves a chance in a fresh market, It seems that Wakefield folk are not that bothered. I know that many people will find fault with this plan and bleat on about this and that. We know that doing nothing is not an option and that the great work done by our community department is not getting enough new people through the gates. We have to act.

Taking all the games away is a non starter for me. You would be taking a club with little presence in the city centre to start with completely away to areas that have no affinity with Wakefield or the club.

As I said before the markets are saturated to the North, East and West and Barnsley is the place to market the club. There are roughly 10K sports fans kicking their heals during the summer waiting for the Football season to start. Can’t hurt to try and entice some of these supporters over the Belle Vue and showcase a couple of games on their door step. Maybe we could also tap into the animosity of the Huddersfield Town fans have towards the Giants too?!

If 'football fans' is a market to attract - why not 3pm Saturday kick-offs in June/July?

As far as I know Hull still don't do that - certain other clubs do, though.

Rather than speculating on why we are so poorly attended the club should invest in employing a reputable market research company to go and find out why.

Is there really a latent mass of potential fans out there who can be enticed down to Belle Vue, if the right incentives are employed? If so, what are those incentives? Or, more worryingly, it might show that there just isn't enough interest out there in RL to sustain a Super League in Wakefield

The reduced attendances are a real conundrum.

Maybe the whole economic situation has had a detrimental effect, but, looking around neighbouring clubs, this doesn’t appear to be the case. So has the downturn just hit Wakefield – I don’t think so.

Having a new stadium should bring in larger numbers of away supporters, you know, the ones who say ‘I’m not going to that S@#t hole’ but as for home support, they cannot be bothered to walk up Donny Road.

Or could it be now the threat of relegation has gone, the support is drifting away. Don’t get me wrong, the fear of the drop was a constant on my mind for the majority of our SL campaigns, but beating it was the only buzz I ever seemed to achieve. It must be great watching your team vying for honours year on year, but sadly we’re not. What have we got, a chance to have a couple of playoff games, if we’re lucky, before running out of steam, because it too tall an order to win it from 8th.

I’ve no idea how many season tickets were sold for this season at the club, but if I was in charge of the revenue streams, I would be looking at a sizable price reductions for next season also with the gate price coming down too. If it’s left as it is, yes, the stalwarts will still come, but attracting new supporters is the key. A number of posters have cringed when the likes of George Sampson did his thing, but check the crowd, and with no disrespect, the opponents that day. People will come to see ‘celebrities’ it’s the way of the world now. I just can’t think of many from the local area, but for instance, if that lass off Loose Women (Jane) came to B.V I’d bet she’d put a thousand on the gate.

And if they put her in the stocks it'd be a sell out.

The point you raise about relegation is an interesting one. No clear pattern on this, but it wouldn't suprised me if (generally speaking) the mentality of Wakey fans was more attuned to fighting against the odds, so gates improved when we did well whilst the threat was still there, where as for some other teams for whom it has never been such an issue are less affected by this.

Thread cleaned up. Good topic, so lets stay on it, please. Any more childish attention-seeking gets the delete button, and I don't need to be a "mystic" to predict that...

Fair points but you have to remember that before this year we had increased crowds year on year and were flirting with the 8000 mark IIRC.

Things that have changed since last year that may have caused this sudden disinterest:

Franchising come in
Stadium application refused
Prices up to £18

any more? (obviously excepting the various bereavements we had- not sure they would impact crowd numbers)

Good Post.

I would also like to add that there are other clubs that are suffering poor crowds. We seem to be showing the decline the most but some of that could be down to the fact that we publish true crowd figures.

I also agree what you say about P and R. Games no longer have the same
intensity. Thats why the RL came up with the top8 system to give middle table teams something to play for. But like you said if the mid table clubs manage to scrape into a playoff place or just miss out on one, everyone knows it means sod all .

With regards to the relegation issue, the current average is above the seasons where the threat of demotion hung over the club (2007 aside when the club was in no real danger).

Without a doubt the main issue is the price. I realise I am becoming a broken record with it but it is just too much. How viable a decent price reduction (£12 admission price?) is I don’t know as it’s a fine balance between, improving turnover, improving the playing squad and enticing stay away support. If I didn’t have a season ticket this year I would have to pick and choose which games I would be able to attend, predominantly down to the cost.

Wakefield do seem to be the only ones on a down turn with respect to similar sized neighbours but there are mitigating factors which may explain the trends;

Castleford get decent gates IMO due to their civic pride the local population have for the area. In my experience ‘Wakefieldians’ don’t seem to have the same amount so the club can not draw on that ‘loyalty’ when things are tough.

Huddersfield’s improved attendances are a result of a clever marketing ploy funded by Ken Davey. Their issues may come next year if he is unable to sustain the discounted season tickets for a further season.

I'm not his accountant, but I can't imagine Ken Davey would really struggle to offer a similar deal again next season. Indeed, he may have to, if he wants to ensure that those who attended this season because of the cut price offer come back for more and really get hooked on the game.

The proof of the pudding will be when their season tickets return to the "normal" price, as only that will measure the real progress the club has made on the way to becoming completely self-financing. Increased merchandising may, in the meantime, have bridged the gap, or even increased revenue on last season, but with no figures to see, it's hard to speculate.

Our experience this year indicates that the club may well be forced into doing something along similar lines next season, assuming that the Huddersfield model has proven viable. Cutting costs now for those paying on the gate will always be a contentious issue for some who already hold season tickets and may question the sense of buying another next year, with the current pricing structure, as opposed to picking games and paying on the gate.

I just hope that we seriously address the question of marketing the club in Wakefield and beyond before the new stadium becomes a reality, as I can't see the novelty factor alone being sufficient to sustain it, if this season is anything to go by.

It is expensive at £18.

What is it at Bulls £17?

A new stadium in anew area of the city will generate interest



Any news on the stadium yet?