Crowd average suffers a hit

WITH THE final home game of the season at Boundary Park just around the corner, the Roughyeds are set to record the lowest set of attendance figures since the winless season three years ago.

Back in 2007, the first following the club's relegation to National League Two, the overall average of 1143 included the 4327 who turned up to watch the televised home game against Celtic Crusaders. That was a £1-entry match which will now be remembered as featuring all six of the players subsequently and infamously found to have been on incorrect VISAs.

In 2008 the figure increased slightly to 1159, boosted again by a £1-entry promotion which attracted 2806 to watch pretty-in-pink Oldham defeat eventual play-off final conquerers Doncaster 36-16, again in front of a live television audience.

Without those two successful promotional boosts, the averages for 2007 and 2008 would read, respectively, 944 and 1057.

But the average mark for matches played on home soil 2009, currently standing at 975, is set to dip below the thousand mark for the second time in the new club's 12-year history.

Only a bumper attendance against Hunslet would prevent the club emulating that horrendous 2006 season, in which an average crowd of 929 watched as a squad boosted by signings from the amateur game played out a National League One relegation campaign against the background of huge financial upheaval.

While on the pitch last week's win against Swinton showed that Tony Benson's minuscule and stretched squad still has plenty of appetite for the fight, the season-low crowd figure of a mere 745 indicates that, sadly, some fans may have lost the faith. An all-pay gate suggests that some season ticket holders chose not to attend.

Roughyeds officials will hope that the word is spreading that the manner of another backs-to-the-wall victory at Boundary Park will entice more fans to make the effort for the elimination semi-final against the Hawks this Sunday.


GATE GUIDE

Average home attendances (Boundary Park unless stated):

1997 — 3836

1998 — 1828

1999 — 1182 (Spotland)

2000 — 2186

2001 — 1840

2002 — 1149 (Hurst Cross)

2003 — 1572

2004 — 1317

2005 — 1275

2006 — 929

2007 — 1143

2008 — 1159

2009 — 975 (so far)