morley pie eater wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 5:30 pm
It's hard to allocate blame between the locals for not turning up (what rule says they should?), and the club for not engaging. At Tottenham last year, going down on the train from Yorkshire, it seemed that Huddersfield fans were predominantly over 50, say.
My theory to add to the mix is this. You support who you were brought up to support. If a club (RL or football) drops down the leagues, fans lose the habit of going and therefore don't have the same influence on the next generation.
Fartown, as they used to be known, haven't seen much success for years. I worked with a fan in the 70s, and he was 50-odd. I don't think he could remember them winning owt! I doubt if his grandkids go. So creating interest in Huddersfield is a Herculean task.
Now take the likes of Bradford or Widnes. If somebody could revive them now, they'd be in with a chance. Anybody over 30 in Bradford will remember running with the Bulls. Bradford had good crowds, even with a dismal stadium, and a bigger ethnic minority population than Huddersfield. But if Bradford sty as they are for another 20 or 30 years it will be a much harder job to resuscitate them.
i agree to an extent, and think about Man City in footballing terms, albeit they had a decent following when they were s***.
however, there is nothing stopping any club from getting into local schools, rugby clubs, promoting the game, coaching sessions etc etc. IMO some of it is just lazy on behalf of the clubs (note i dont know what Huddersfield do or dont do within their community). We've seen with some clubs, that they have become very lazy and just reliant on the SKY tv money, and happy to take it, so no investment in the ground, the academy, marketing
Huddersfield could easily give away 5k tickets every home game to local clubs / schools for free, and charge a parent £10 to bring the kid. If nothing else, they would bump up the attendance, and may even attract the next generation