Originally Posted by
Gray77
I don't think just having a good season or changing the style of play over a short period makes a huge difference to stuff like this. They make a difference but I think you need to keep doing it for several years to notice a real difference, up or down, much like Wigan are now realising that years of boring RL have driven 3-4,000 away to the extent that they now never turn up except for when they play Saints.
I think outside forces are bigger, much like moving to a new ground in 2012. That was such a big change, with a new ground with thousands more seats than KR, better facilities, slap bang next to the town centre etc. People who hadn't been for years and people who had never been went to the games early on that season. I had members of my family go to the first couple of games and they'd never set foot inside KR, and I imagine lots of others know people who 'gave it another go' or decided to try it out for the first time. But the RL on offer didn't keep them around, and once those people said no to going to the game a few times in 2012 or 2013 it was back to normal and they were lost to the club again for the long term.
Saints haven't only got 11-12,000 fans, obviously. I'd reckon at least 50,000 people in St Helens would claim to be proper fans of the club. Half of them have never been to a game or only a small amount, or used to go then stopped going for whatever reason. For those people going to the game isn't part of their lifestyle or they stopped going for so long that they got it out of their system. It's hard to change weekly habits unless something big comes along to make them think twice. The new ground will have done that to some of those people, and indeed it did get some of them through the turnstiles in 2012, but it didn't last.
Look at the crowds we got for our games in the first half of 2012 at LP, some of them under Simmons as well
15547 - Salford (first league game at LP)
13108 - Catalans
14875 - Hull
15199 - Leeds
17980 - Wigan (Good Friday, as per every GF since)
14253 - Widnes
Even when there were hardly any away fans we were pulling in 13k. Now, this included all season ticket holders of course, and some didn't show up every week, but somewhere between 13-15,000 people either bought season tickets or turned up to LP to watch us regularly in 2012. If they could make that financial decision in 2012 they could make it again in 2013 if they liked what they saw.
Fast forward to 2013, and see the crowds for the first few games.
12003 - Huddersfield
11257 - Hull
12228 - Leeds
The differences are quite big. 3500 less watched us open the 2013 season at home compared to that first ever game in 2012. 3500 less watched us play Hull early on in 2013 compared to almost the exact same time in 2012, and likewise about 3000 less watched us play Leeds in 2013 compared to almost the exact same time as 2012.
Those 3,000 or so people made a choice to give it a go in 2012, and they barely lasted a season. That can't have been down to the ground not being easy to get to, or because the views and the seats weren't up to scratch, etc. It was because the RL on show wasn't worth the money and wasn't worth the change in lifestyle and habits that going to the game regularly involves.