246?

[HolmeKnight]

Another excellent performance by the Knights last night but witnessed by a pitifully small crowd.   In fact, I would estimate that more Knights supporters were at St Helens than for this "home" game.    I, as much as anyone, want to see the stadium saga settled.    (Let's hope the promised good news materialises.)        In the meantime, I implore anyone with any interest in the Knights to make the effort and get to the games.

 

I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Knights this season.   The coaching staff have got the team so well organised and the players give their all every match, even in defeat.   Their efforts are worthy of a much bigger audience.   In fact, the contrast between the efficiency on the field and the shambles off it could hardly be greater.

 

Ok, home games should be played in York but it's not that difficult getting to somewhere like Featherstone - I was back home by 10.20.   I enjoyed the Clifton Park experience as well:  free parking one minute from the pitch, beautiful setting and a good view of the action.   I'm 65 but I don't mind standing, and you can always take a fold-up chair!

 

I was at Gloucestershire All Golds the other week (back by 7.30) and shall be at Newcastle next Friday.   Even if the stadium situation is resolved soon, it seems unlikely that Bootham Crescent  or Clifton Park would be available immediately owing to work being done on the respective pitches.   So, wherever the next home games are actually played, please make arrangements and go and support this wonderful team.

 

 

PS:    I'm a new poster and have never been on any social media before, but I just feel so strongly about this!

[DEANO]

Sorry I'm york through and through but I'm not traveling away to watch a home game no matter how good they are

[paul]

Got to agree with Deano if you are at home you play your home games at home not 30 miles down the road,and I won't be going to any home that is played out of York.

[Happy Punter]

I live 30 miles north of York ,  so I have had  to travel to every home match and have had to do so for many years. It hasn't been a major hassle. You're the ones missing out by your refusal to watch the team, if you're happy with that then that's fine. I'd have missed out on plenty of great games if I'd decided it wasn't worth the petrol money. I understand both points of view though. 

[DEANO]

It's got absolutely nothing to do with cost. It's all about principal.

[HolmeKnight]

In a way I can understand not wanting to travel out of York for home games on principle but I don't see how this helps the club or the players.   If everyone took this view the team would be playing in a completely empty stadium - farcical.   Surely, things need to be kept ticking along until such time as the ground situation is resolved.

 

For me, it's a matter of loyalty.   I was born and bred in York and it has never occurred to me to support any clubs other than York City and York RL / Knights.   I watch both home and away as often as I can.  It may be an accident of birth but it's like saying, "I don't like my family any more.   I want to be in a different one."   It just seems perfectly natural to support my local teams.

 

Talking of principle, I have a different one.   As a season ticket holder, I would object strongly to having bought a ticket for a match and then not using it.   If the match was being played in Penzance at 2.30 in the morning I'd probably still be there!

 

Regardless of the ground situation, the Knights are hardly going to prosper without steady and better support.

[DEANO]

I think you will find I am loyal supporter and was gutted at not being able to watch the recent "home" match. The club won't have missed my support as they already have my money

[jayemm]

The poor crowd may make the present regime realise that the club cannot carry on like this.The team and fans deserve better.

[Clarence St]

I'm just pleased I didn't let my opinion of the club's owner and the current situation regarding the club stop me from being at the game on Friday to support the players, the coach and the backroom staff who put all the hard work in. I would have missed the best rugby I've seen from the Knights for a long while. It was truly exhilarating stuff and as P.M. said in the Press report, some of the tries were sublime.

 I must say I agree with you HolmeKnight, worth going a long way to see, never mind just half an hour down the road. In fact it took about the same time to get home to Woodthorpe as it can do from Huntington.

 Well done lads and thank you. Keep it up please!

[moorside roughyed]

Sad to hear the posts on this thread.I do hope you can get this most unfortunate situation sorted sooner rather than later.Good luck.

[AndyHall]

maybe the people who didnt go, feel that we're only in this position due to the greed and selfishness of the current owner - so maybe they feel that staying away from games that financially benefit the current owner is a good way of starving him out.

Obviously season ticket holders don't hold that card, so staying away would only punish the players, but I'm sure the players and coaching staff understand.

End of the day, players are transient, what happens to yck now will not affect them in 10 years time. Fans however, are for life and beyond and I for one aren't thinking about this season, I'm thinking about my grand kid's grand kids.

So not a penny more to Guildford.

[dummy scissors]

I hope your home ground situation is sorted out soon. 

 

As a Swinton supporter I sympathise with your plight.  I have chosen to remain a paying spectator during our 20+ years exile from Swinton. We have had unpopular owners and poor management over the years and many people chose not to follow the team anymore which is understandable.  However, the few hundred who remained as paying spectators helped keep the club alive through the bad times and now we are begining to thrive again under more dynamic and enlightened management. We still don't have a ground in Swinton and it might be a while yet before we do when, hopefully, even more of our lapsed support will return to the fold.  To me supporting the team of players who go out and do their best for the club they represent with their skill and hard work is more important than whoever may be managing the club be they good or bad.

 

Stick with your team and help bring back the good times at York.  The lads who pull on the jersey every week deserve your support.  

[jayemm]

We have the opportunity to play our home games in York,But the club owner,it seems would prefer to play our games 30 miles away.

[Spelly]

To those who say "I'm / we're not going coz it's not in York!" my message is simple...................

 

Stop whinging! If you're a fan, you're a fan!  This is your first experience of not being in the Minster City, but.............

 

We've not played at home for 23 years!

 

As I've said before, if we played on the dark side of the Moon, I'd phone NASA to see what time the next rocket was leaving!

 

Get a life, and support your team!

 

Spelly.

[Simon Hall]

To those who say "I'm / we're not going coz it's not in York!" my message is simple...................

 

Stop whinging! If you're a fan, you're a fan!  This is your first experience of not being in the Minster City, but.............

 

We've not played at home for 23 years!

 

As I've said before, if we played on the dark side of the Moon, I'd phone NASA to see what time the next rocket was leaving!

 

Get a life, and support your team!

 

Spelly.

 

 

Spelly,

 

It's not the fact we're not playing in York that has got some people's backs up, it's the reason we're not playing in York that some are bothered by.

 

That reason being the actions of the owner of the club who runs it like a lifestyle business, when it could be so much more. Added to the fact there's other people who are far more financially and commercially capable interested in taking over the club whose overtures he won't even entertain and you've got quite a few totally fed up fans.

 

Imagine if Swinton had the owner of a League 2 football club interested who could get you back playing in Swinton and competing in the top 6 of the Championship, I think you'd be pretty upset if there was someone stopping that happening just so he could keep hold of the club for himself.

 

We'll be playing back in York in the next month or so, he's done a bit of subterfuge so the council can't avoid him any longer, but that won't alter the fact that the club is being held back from what it could be.

[AndyHall]

23 years ago, if you could have avoided 23 years of homelessness by getting rid of all your problems, would you? Would you have chosen ambition and stability over 23 years of not a great deal?

Cos that's the thing here. We've seen Swinton and Oldham and it's simply not good enough for us. We have a state of the art stadium about to be built and we don't want to go in there with a ###### club, with hardly any fans, with no real future other than the status quo.

So if not paying to get into a few home games can help prevent 23 years of not alot, that's what we'll do.

And that handful of fans that kept Swinton going, just kept Swinton down. Had everyone taken a stand early on, who knows where you'd be now.

[Happy Punter]

I'm sure the current coach and players will be delighted to know you'd prefer to be watching a better quality of player in the side. Cos that is how I interpret what's been said. Maybe some of us are happy to see an exciting young team. I'm sure many of the team could have gone elsewhere in the close season and it is to the credit of the club that the majority stuck together. So it isn't all bad. , but it's obviously not good enoough for some. The championship level isn't a bad place to be and there's more to life than super league .

 

The rot for rugby set in when super league came in and television money made the rich richer and the poor poorer. For many maintaining the status quo is a result of that.  

[DEANO]

I think everybody wants what's best for the club but just have a different way of showing it. That's everybody except one man and his family who wants what's best for them

[AndyHall]

We don't want better players and coaches, we want better FOR the players and coaches.

Minikin, dent(s), smith(s), craig, Roche, infact all of them could hold their own against top level RL sides - but not with the resources They have.

As stated before, none of those lads will still be here in ten years, do making anything about "supprting the lads" shows a lack of ambition and forsight for York Rugby League.

And it might surprise ypu tp learn that some of tge players feel exactly as we do.

[shades2]

All about opinions, but glad to see that other people are willing to make the effort to support the players & coaching staff wherever we are, been saying it & doing it for the last 4 month's, Spelly is spot on, also add Oldham & Sheffield to the clubs whose fans have stuck by them when the going gets tough & in Oldham's case are also not happy with the people running their club

[HolmeKnight]

It's good to see the moral support from fans of other clubs, especially Swinton.    When these situations arise, sometimes all you can do is make the best of a bad job.

 

Those Knights fans who are deliberately staying away are hoping to bring matters to a head and somehow remove the owner.   The trouble is there is no guarantee that this will work and it seems a very negative campaign.   Those, like me, who continue to support the team just want to keep the club going through this difficult time.

 

As a York City supporter since 1965, I cannot help but draw a parallel with the plight of the football club around 15 years ago.   The club was mismanaged, abused and ultimately asset-stripped by two successive chairmen, leaving it half an hour away from liquidation until saved first by the Supporters' Trust and finally by the magnificent McGill family.   (If only ....... )   There were protests, marches, bucket collections and lots more but I do not recall the attendances dropping off at all.   Fans realised that the club could only be saved by resolve and increased support.   Would the McGills have been prepared to take over if they had seen apparent apathy among the fans?   The message at Bootham Crescent was, and still is at the end of every home game: "Keep the faith".

 

This is why I believe Knights fans should keep supporting the club.   The "no more money for Guildford" brigade are in danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

Let's not forget too that the purpose of sport is entertainment.   The players have been performing brilliantly.   Even allowing for the quality of the opposition last Friday, I would not have easily forgiven myself for missing a 70-0 win.   How often does that happen?

 

Here's a novel suggestion for those who are staying away:  Just go to away games!   Newcastle Thunder on Friday would be a good start.   Nice stadium  (I went a few years ago when Gateshead v Knights was switched there), large crowd expected with lots of visitors on the eve of Magic Weekend and not too far up the A1.   Not really expecting a Knights win but I'm sure they'll give 100% effort. 

 

I repeat:   "Keep the faith!"

 

 

 

[Simon Hall]

  Would the McGills have been prepared to take over if they had seen apparent apathy among the fans?  

 

Seems the McGill's are still interested in taking over the Knights, despite the apathy among the fans. Even those ones who are considering staying away!

 

So there.

[AndyHall]

Here's a novel suggestion for those who are staying away:  Just go to away games!

We are doing. And we're supporting the players in all the other ways we always have done too, ways most of the bathmates wouldn't even dream of

[HolmeKnight]

Seems the McGill's are still interested in taking over the Knights, despite the apathy among the fans. Even those ones who are considering staying away!

 

So there.

Of course, like most Knights supporters, I'd be absolutely delighted if the McGills could take over.   Unfortunately, it's not yet within their power.   Guildford holds all the cards and will only go if and when he chooses.

I go back to the York City situation.   The fans hated Craig and disliked Batchelor even before the extent of his misdemeanours was known, but they stuck by the club because they knew that the club is bigger than any one individual no matter how powerful.   Result:  it took a lot of time and effort but the situation was ultimately resolved.

[Simon Hall]

Of course, like most Knights supporters, I'd be absolutely delighted if the McGills could take over.   Unfortunately, it's not yet within their power.   

 

It's in our power though, all it takes is the fans to stick together.

 

But they won't, most just want to watch a game of rugby without the hassle.