Attendance report

[Gateaux]

St Helens new Langtree Park stadium has enabled Saints to challenge the Warriors in the attendance league.

Statistics from the current season, up to and including April 22, obtained by Running Rugby from the official Super League media guide and website show that St Helens have had an impressive average gate of 15160, close behind Wigan’s 15682 and ahead of Leeds Rhinos’ Headingley Carnegie mean of 14730. Saints fans are packing into their 18000 capacity home, fully justifying the decision to move from their old Knowsley Road fortress where the seasonal average hovered around the 11000 mark.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, worries continue to mount for London Broncos who have only been able to attract a few thousand to The Twickenham Stoop each time this season, the only club in the Stobart Super League to have an average below 5000 and Salford City Reds have yet to galvanise their large catchment area into turning up in big numbers to their new 12,000 capacity ground which, on average, has been less than half-full.

There are encouraging signs in West Yorkshire, where Castleford Tigers,Huddersfield Giants and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats are all showing increased gates and Bradford Bulls fans are showing great support for their troubled club to post a 13000 average so far. Catalan Dragons are again holding their own with a solid 8,000 gathering augmented by visiting fans from England.

Warrington Wolves are on course for a record figure and Widnes Vikingsfans have certainly not been put off by Halton Stadium’s artificial surface, attending in double the numbers they did a few seasons ago. However, the Humberside clubs are treading water at the other end of the M62, where Hull FC and Hull KR have seen crowd numbers only fractionally rise and fall respectively since last season.

Over the previous 16 seasons of Super League since it came into being in 1996, Leeds have the largest average attendance – 14080. In 2007 the Rhinos habitually packed Headingley to set a Super League record of 17416 over the season. Second in the all-time list is Wigan (12538) with Bradford, thanks to a lengthy period of sustained success in the competition’s early days, third on 12402.

St Helens will surely join the rest of the quartet who have shared the title between themselves all these years with a 10,000+ career average at the end of this season, and would have been on that mark now but for the 2011 season in exile in Widnes while Langtree Park was being built, which saw a significantly fall to 7863 from the final campaign at Knowsley Road (11569).

The advantage of new facilities and increased capacity is clear to see from the experiences of Warrington and Hull. The Wolves’ average in 1996 at Wilderspool was less than half the figure recorded at Halliwell Jones last season. Hull were attracting 6000 to the crumbling Boulevard in 2002, a year later their average was over 11000 and in 2007 the `Airlie Birds` were followed regularly by 14000. That figure slipped back to 12000 last season.

It shows that a shiny facility does not offer any guarantees if the team does not perform as well as in the past.

http://www.code13rugbyleague.com/2012/04...ce-report/


From a Saints POV it is great to see us doing so well, although I expected an increase I didn't expect such a large increase and just hope we manage to keep it up!

[westy_warrior]

good stuff.

any according to your website you won the first ever St Helens - Wigan derby at Langtree Park as well so its all good.

[jools]

Except some of those numbers aren't actual attendances. Some clubs, like in football, e.g Bradford automatically count season ticket holders even if they aren't there!
On Sunday the attendance was given as 11,000 -it was more like 8500.

[Rhinojase]

London again showing improvement to justify there place in super league i see and that changing names every few seasons helps them

[HKR AWAY DAYS]

(04-26-2012 01:02 PM)Rhinojase Wrote:  London again showing improvement to justify there place in super league i see and that changing names every few seasons helps them

London RL should be embraced by the wider RL community. They play and support the same sport as us. Increasing participating in the capital is paramount to the well being of Rugby League. You're nit-picking at one aspect of the game in the south. Only one county in the entire country does not have a RL representative. That is how far the game is growing at varying levels of competitiveness throughout the UK. I would suggest you look up a guy called Ian Ramsdale and tell me he doesn't make excellent arguments for supporting RL in London.

When I hear about rugby league in London, I’d like to hear about all the fabulous grassroots and community work, the young kids coming through to the Broncos and the local lads at the Skolars. I want people to focus on how well the game is growing down there, how many people are involved, whether it be participating on the pitch in an administrative role or as a fan on the sidelines standing behind that blue wire separating you from the pitch.

I hope that things like this will change people’s opinions and perceptions and realise that with grassroots, growth and focus in youth development is a massively positive aspect of the game in London. Without local Hull players in the BARLA leagues, there can be no Hull KR and Hull FC. Without local London players, there now can be no London Broncos and vice versa.

This is how we justify having a flagship team in the capital for those based in the south.

[LeedsBarmyArmy]

(04-26-2012 01:25 PM)HKR AWAY DAYS Wrote:  

(04-26-2012 01:02 PM)Rhinojase Wrote:  London again showing improvement to justify there place in super league i see and that changing names every few seasons helps them

London RL should be embraced by the wider RL community. They play and support the same sport as us. Increasing participating in the capital is paramount to the well being of Rugby League. You're nit-picking at one aspect of the game in the south. Only one county in the entire country does not have a RL representative. That is how far the game is growing at varying levels of competitiveness throughout the UK. I would suggest you look up a guy called Ian Ramsdale and tell me he doesn't make excellent arguments for supporting RL in London.

When I hear about rugby league in London, I’d like to hear about all the fabulous grassroots and community work, the young kids coming through to the Broncos and the local lads at the Skolars. I want people to focus on how well the game is growing down there, how many people are involved, whether it be participating on the pitch in an administrative role or as a fan on the sidelines standing behind that blue wire separating you from the pitch.

I hope that things like this will change people’s opinions and perceptions and realise that with grassroots, growth and focus in youth development is a massively positive aspect of the game in London. Without local Hull players in the BARLA leagues, there can be no Hull KR and Hull FC. Without local London players, there now can be no London Broncos and vice versa.

This is how we justify having a flagship team in the capital for those based in the south.

Great post! 100% agreed!

[Gateaux]

Brilliant post hkr

[Rhinojase]

The game has grown massivley at grass roots level down south its easy to see but its not reflecting on attendances rather than a change in name a change in location may be better because the way they are running at the moment they arent going to be able to survive like that forever

[westy_warrior]

good post HKR, your going challenge me for poster of the year of you keep this up.

[camdentiger]

(04-26-2012 01:25 PM)HKR AWAY DAYS Wrote:  

(04-26-2012 01:02 PM)Rhinojase Wrote:  London again showing improvement to justify there place in super league i see and that changing names every few seasons helps them

London RL should be embraced by the wider RL community. They play and support the same sport as us. Increasing participating in the capital is paramount to the well being of Rugby League. You're nit-picking at one aspect of the game in the south. Only one county in the entire country does not have a RL representative. That is how far the game is growing at varying levels of competitiveness throughout the UK. I would suggest you look up a guy called Ian Ramsdale and tell me he doesn't make excellent arguments for supporting RL in London.

When I hear about rugby league in London, I’d like to hear about all the fabulous grassroots and community work, the young kids coming through to the Broncos and the local lads at the Skolars. I want people to focus on how well the game is growing down there, how many people are involved, whether it be participating on the pitch in an administrative role or as a fan on the sidelines standing behind that blue wire separating you from the pitch.

I hope that things like this will change people’s opinions and perceptions and realise that with grassroots, growth and focus in youth development is a massively positive aspect of the game in London. Without local Hull players in the BARLA leagues, there can be no Hull KR and Hull FC. Without local London players, there now can be no London Broncos and vice versa.

This is how we justify having a flagship team in the capital for those based in the south.

Couldn't agree more!

---

I think where London are based now is not brilliant geographically wise, but they have a great stadium in the Stoop which will give them a base to grow. I think reverting back to London Broncos is a great move as Harlequins is too well known with Union and it's gives them a distinction.

Unfortunately for London, they are competing with 4 premier league football clubs, a number of Championship Football clubs, 2 Premiership Rugby teams (well one is in Watford) and a whole host of other sports. This doesn't mean however that they can't grow, it's just going to be more difficult. Look at Salford, they have been establised 70 years or more than London, have a similar setup with regards footballs clubs and other teams around them and they are only getting an extra 4000 more than London through the turnstiles (even with their shiney new stadium)