Attendances (Multiple Merged Threads)

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Oh god, it's another version of the "if London drew the same percentage of their population as Fev do then they'd have 464,000 in the crowd" nonsense.

More than that tbf. 

[Mr Frisky]

6 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

Just a waste of time outside SL. 

Not really, the Bash in Blackpool usually did ok.

Love it or hate it Blackpool is a holiday town, plenty of things todo, loads of parking, loads of accommodation and the stadium is easy to get to.

If they keep it, it needs to be in Blackpool.

[fevtom]

On 01/08/2022 at 13:45, johnh1 said:

6752 on Saturday.      4011 on Sunday

As someone who goes with my mates, I didn’t mind a day drinking in Headingley and watching the rugby, but I only went for one day rather than the full weekend if it were at blackpool.

If I had kids, i’d give Headingley a miss all together.

Have to say I found the staff at the ground to be much ruder / less helpful too.

 

 

[meast]

On 01/08/2022 at 17:02, SalfordSlim said:

Low to mid 100's?! Haha behave, I bet the least we've brought to Hudds in the last half a dozen years would be 500-600 on a bad day as it's on the "ale trail" route and a lot of fans make a day of it. 

Would be good if clubs released accurate attendance figures though. I've definitely been baffled in the past when attendances have been announced at the AJ Bell and there looks a lot more than stated. I guess freebies probably aren't counted though and we've been handing out a few to community clubs/schools recently to try and generate more local interest.

 

I'd be happy to provide figures for away support at Huddersfield over the years.

Suffice to say, some have declined, some have grown, mostly though the numbers are significantly lower than they were even 5/6 years ago.

[meast]

Everything about Huddersfield is true, I've said many times on this forum that our crowds will struggle to improve much over 5000 due to the ageing fanbase ( a huge problem across the entire sport).

We are nothing more than a commuter/student/dormitory town, most people drive out of Huddersfield in a morning and drive back again in the evening and care very little for it, even going out in Leeds, Manchester, Halifax etc.

The Giants are usually only attractive to long standing fans or a few curious locals who remember the off good days, either in the distant or recent past.

There just isn't the same interest in the sport in Huddersfield as there is in say, Wigan, Hull, Castleford, Warrington, St Helens etc, even Huddersfield Town had struggled to attract many more than 10,000 before their Premier League exploits.

For a fairly large town, the sporting public of Huddersfield is pretty dormant.

Young people aren't interested, lots of families stopped coming as the Monday/Thursday/Friday nights were unsuitable for them and so they found other things to do to fill the Sunday afternoons that rugby used to fill.

Older fans die and no one replaces them, as Daz says, kids grow up, move away and no longer feel the passion and are therefore lost by their early 20's.

After talking with the new director the other day, there is some hope that her ideas can ring a bell with a totally demographic but how much influence she will have remains to be seen.

But as other clubs see crowds dwindling, it's Huddersfield and the ones who do and try and create some atmosphere and make noise who are constantly criticised for having empty seats.

[Josef K]

The crowd at HKR didn’t look too bad last night, they were very vocal as always. I didn’t see or hear an attendance being announced but id guess 6,500. 

[Leyther_Matt]

I’ll be the first one to say this must be the lowest Wigan-Warrington crowd in years

22 hours ago, fevtom said:

If I had kids, i’d give Headingley a miss all together.

My 14 year old lad has barely a passing interest in rugby but he was happy enough with his pre match visit to Reds True BBQ and then sat out of the way in the top deck behind the sticks for most of the Fax game and obviously the main event  

[Tommygilf]

Didn't hear what was announced there at Wigan?

[Leyther_Matt]

48 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Didn't hear what was announced there at Wigan?

13,261 which certainly sounds higher than it looked. Suppose it’s not unlikely that there will have been a lot of non attending season ticket holders with it being school holidays. 

[Bring back GB]

2 hours ago, Leyther_Matt said:

13,261 which certainly sounds higher than it looked. Suppose it’s not unlikely that there will have been a lot of non attending season ticket holders with it being school holidays. 

I was there and it looked 13k to 14k. 

[fighting irish]

I wasn't there and I haven't got a clue what it looked like, in fact I don't even know what 13.261 looks like. So I'm not going to come on here and consume precious life's moments speculating about something I can't verify, especially if it's likely to get me into an argument I can't win. 

[Ragingbull]

56 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

I wasn't there and I haven't got a clue what it looked like, in fact I don't even know what 13.261 looks like. So I'm not going to come on here and consume precious life's moments speculating about something I can't verify, especially if it's likely to get me into an argument I can't win. 

Thats for consuming precious life moments writing a post telling us you're not going to consume precious life moments.

[Leyther_Matt]

11 hours ago, Bring back GB said:

I was there and it looked 13k to 14k. 

Fair enough. Although there is a tell tale pattern as to when it’s a decent sized crowd when it gets a bit more populated in blocks ES3-ES4 and they looked pretty sparse, plus of course the below average Wire following (although I do recall a sub 500 following some years ago in a post-cup final game)

2 hours ago, fighting irish said:

I wasn't there and I haven't got a clue what it looked like, in fact I don't even know what 13.261 looks like. So I'm not going to come on here and consume precious life's moments speculating about something I can't verify, especially if it's likely to get me into an argument I can't win. 

Without saying too much, I’ve got a bit of experience in the field. And I’m fairly likely to bump in to someone this afternoon who will be able to give me a precise answer either way. But you keep embracing those precious moments. Stick the Sharks-Dragons game on, get a brew and enjoy  

[Damien]

14 hours ago, Leyther_Matt said:

13,261 which certainly sounds higher than it looked. Suppose it’s not unlikely that there will have been a lot of non attending season ticket holders with it being school holidays. 

I'm not sure why you think that, that is only very slightly over half full. The West and South stand alone were well in excess of being half full.

[daz39]

4.642 at Huddersfield, again very disappointing and before anyone suggests it - no they're werent thousands from Hull either.

[Mr Frisky]

15 hours ago, daz39 said:

4.642 at Huddersfield, again very disappointing and before anyone suggests it - no they're werent thousands from Hull either.

It is strange how the people of Huddersfield won't turn out to watch a very good team.

[Tommygilf]

36 minutes ago, Mr Frisky said:

It is strange how the people of Huddersfield won't turn out to watch a very good team.

Thinking about this, its far better to consider Huddersfield as "Fartown", ie. a suburb of Huddersfield. It gives a far better representation of the club (to an extent).

The stadium is too big, it prohibits atmosphere etc. Huddersfield Town only got close to filling it in the past decade with a premier league foray. They draw on support from all over Kirklees, incidentally where there are 2 other "Fartown sized" rugby league clubs, Dewsbury and Batley (and where there historically was 2 more Liversedge and Brighouse). In some ways then the names of both Huddersfield clubs are misnomers.

In a 10-12k capacity ground they'd be doing alright I'd think. Unless the football club gets to the top flight again for a sustained period I doubt that will ever happen.

[Programme Guy]

57 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Thinking about this, its far better to consider Huddersfield as "Fartown", ie. a suburb of Huddersfield. It gives a far better representation of the club (to an extent).

 

Why is that?

Shouldn't they be the club for the whole of Huddersfield?

Huddersfield has no other professional clubs, so surely it is a good choice of name?

[Tommygilf]

6 minutes ago, Programme Guy said:

Why is that?

Shouldn't they be the club for the whole of Huddersfield?

Huddersfield has no other professional clubs, so surely it is a good choice of name?

Because it helps contextualise what Huddersfield's sporting market is.

The town itself is quite small, with the football team drawing support from all over Kirklees and into Wakefield even. All places which currently have pro Rugby League clubs that would basically prevent Huddersfield RL growing into those areas in a similar way. Of course on top of that you have the growth of the Rhinos there too and even a latent support for Bradford. That is befote you get onto the town and surrounding areas being a commuter town for Leeds and Manchester.

If you contextualise the Giants as Fartown growing to representing Huddersfield, they do quite well, relatively. If you start them at Huddersfield and compare them to their ground and by extension the Association Football team, then they are doomed on most metrics.

[Damien]

14 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Because it helps contextualise what Huddersfield's sporting market is.

The town itself is quite small, with the football team drawing support from all over Kirklees and into Wakefield even. All places which currently have pro Rugby League clubs that would basically prevent Huddersfield RL growing into those areas in a similar way. Of course on top of that you have the growth of the Rhinos there too and even a latent support for Bradford. That is befote you get onto the town and surrounding areas being a commuter town for Leeds and Manchester.

If you contextualise the Giants as Fartown growing to representing Huddersfield, they do quite well, relatively. If you start them at Huddersfield and compare them to their ground and by extension the Association Football team, then they are doomed on most metrics.

The town is much bigger than many other RL towns and I'm not sure why you'd apply this measure on Huddersfield and not other places. The 4 Huddersfield fans I know all lived in Holmfirth too so I'm not sure it's this clear cut.

[Programme Guy]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Because it helps contextualise what Huddersfield's sporting market is.

The town itself is quite small, with the football team drawing support from all over Kirklees and into Wakefield even. All places which currently have pro Rugby League clubs that would basically prevent Huddersfield RL growing into those areas in a similar way. Of course on top of that you have the growth of the Rhinos there too and even a latent support for Bradford. That is befote you get onto the town and surrounding areas being a commuter town for Leeds and Manchester.

If you contextualise the Giants as Fartown growing to representing Huddersfield, they do quite well, relatively. If you start them at Huddersfield and compare them to their ground and by extension the Association Football team, then they are doomed on most metrics.

Fair enough. I appreciate that they are constrained effectively to Huddersfield itself.

That said, a proper, ambitious professional club could surely attract some Rugby League fans from the amateur and other clubs in the area. 

You talk about other "professional" clubs in the area, but in reality there are none. This is part of League's problem in england - it thinks of these teams as "professional" when they train at nights, are made up of part timers, and often have players on match fees only. 

Huddersfield should have no problem attracting kids and young people who are into Rugby League in Kirklees. Part time teams like Dewsbury should not be real competition for younger supporters. Of course the old codgers who like part time League won't move across, but the SuperLeague product should be enough to easily hoover up the youngsters, and any new fans across Kirklees. If the club goes after them aggressively with the right resources. 

With all due respect, your argument is like saying the Broncos can't grow outside Brisbane, because they are competing with the Toowoomba Clydesdales. 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Programme Guy

[Tommygilf]

14 minutes ago, Damien said:

The town is much bigger than many other RL towns and I'm not sure why you'd apply this measure on Huddersfield and not other places. The 4 Huddersfield fans I know all lived in Holmfirth too so I'm not sure it's this clear cut.

To a certain extent, though much of the surrounding places do feel like separate towns/villages. They do get support from a broad area immediately surrounding the town, but clearly not as much as HTAFC, and not as widespread.

[Tommygilf]

7 minutes ago, Programme Guy said:

Fair enough. I appreciate that they are constrained effectively to Huddersfield itself.

That said, a proper, ambitious professional club could surely attract some Rugby League fans from the amateur and other clubs in the area. 

You talk about other "professional" clubs in the area, but in reality there are none. This is part of League's problem in england - it thinks of these teams as "professional" when they train at nights, are made up of part timers, and often have players on match fees only. 

Huddersfield should have no problem attracting kids and young people who are into Rugby League in Kirklees. Part time teams like Dewsbury should not be real competition for younger supporters. Of course the old codgers who like part time rugby won't move across, but the SuperLeague product should be enough to easily hoover up the youngsters, and any new fans across Kirklees. If the club goes after them aggressively with the right resources. 

With all due respect, your argument is like saying the Broncos can't grow outside Brisbane, because they are competing with the Toowoomba Clydesdales. 

Well this brings us to an additional point that most RL clubs are struggling to attract youngsters full stop. And they are in direct competition not only with Dewsbury and Batley, but also Leeds and Wakefield. Saying they aren't is easy, but the fact remains they are.

Not to mention football. Leeds United and to a lesser extent Huddersfield Town are far larger draws than anything else, by a country mile. Along with other top flight football clubs like Manchester United. I genuinely don't think Australians can get their head around how much bigger than anything else football is in the UK. Compared to premier league football (Brisbane), Super League is Toowoomba Clydesdales - this is the levels we are talking.

[Anita Bath]

Glad the Clydesdales are getting a mention…they return to the QRL next season I believe …sadly under the new moniker of Western Clydesdales.

 

It hasnt registered in Brisbane though

[meast]

18 hours ago, daz39 said:

4.642 at Huddersfield, again very disappointing and before anyone suggests it - no they're werent thousands from Hull either.

Head scratching, what do the people want?

Mind you as most Huddersfield fans keep saying, it's a good job games are won by the players on the field rather than how many empty seats there are.