Godzilla

https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/josh-charnley-targeted-by-championship-heavyweights-in-huge-transfer-move

My take: I understand that the club are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to knowing whether to open another part of the ground, the capacity of the Joe Royle stand is limited and it could well be that it gets full at some point this season but I also share the worry that some of the things that are being done at the moment haven’t been properly thought through and there doesn’t seem to be a plan. The crowds this season have obviously been lower than the club hoped but they aren’t out of line with a lot of other championship clubs and I think it’s more than 20 years since Oldham averaged more than 2000 a game. Even before the ‘old’ club went bust crowds weren’t always that big. The club put up a clip from the 1996 game against PSG recently – the crowd that day was 2,500. The way the club has been turned round in the last couple of years has been great but getting the club back to where it was in the good old days is going to take time (and planning). Cutting prices for the Barrow game was a nice idea but it was done at the last minute and it wasn’t that well publicised – not everyone lives on social media – the friend I see at most games and who (unlike me) actually lives in Oldham – had no idea that the prices had been cut until I told him a couple of days before the game. I don’t have a problem with charging a premium for buying on the day but again it seems to be a last minute decision – so some people are going to turn up unawares on Sunday and find the price has gone up 20%. I also worry that a £4 difference is too much and is likely to make some people feel they are being ripped off. I find it concerning that when I read about the £24 charge on Facebook the club website was still showing the old prices (it has been updated since) – again it suggests a lack of forward planning. The club has also (again at short notice) decided to move the Bradford game to a Friday night, again not a bad idea in principle but the lack of notice means attendance is likely to be lower and if the gate is disappointing will that be because people don’t like Friday games or because they didn’t know about it early enough? Or indeed will it be because it’s the next Home game after the Fev game and those people who only find out about the £24 entry price this Sunday think sod that and boycott the next (Bradford) game? If you change too many things at once it becomes harder to tell what impact each individual change has made. And that makes it harder to tell what has worked and what has not. Distributing leaflets is something that I think was first raised on this forum and again the club seems to have gone for it without thinking too much about it. Bill has asked for volunteers to deliver them but as mentioned above the cost of getting a firm to deliver leaflets is so low is it really worth using volunteers to do it? What will the leaflets say? Will they target a particular game or games, there’s a 7 week gap between home games coming up soon, is it sensible to send leaflets out now or would it be better to wait and target the run of games after the break? Right well I think this post is long enough now, let’s hope the crowd on Sunday is indeed big enough that the club have to hire some more stewards!

Especially as the Admission price page of the club website hasn't (yet) been updated. (& that page also says the next game is the Bradford game)

Friday night lights would suit me better personally as I often have other stuff happening on Sundays.

Having watched the game this morning I'd have doubts about starting PLT against Keighley, too many errors, but I'd want him on the bench in case we are behind late on

Well worth a listen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g0j6sx