The top championship clubs are getting good crowds it seems. Halifax attracted 3,036 fans to the Shay today for the game against Toronto. That crowd figure is well behind Toronto's 7,000 plus home crowds. But given that there would have been few Canadians present at the game, it suggests that Halifax's core fan support is not far behind Super League club Salford's core home support.

How does that compare with Leigh's and Featherstone's home crowds?

Halifax up from 1,500 last week against Sheffield, must be all those Toronto away fans.

Leigh had 5,000+ against Toronto; just over 3,000 against Batley and, after today's result (and with a ridiculous kick off time) will probably be heading towards 2,000+ against Toulouse next week!

It has been mis-reported in terms of the crowd at Halifax. It was 2,030. Still a decent crowd given it was 99.9% home fans (Toronto scores had no visible or audible response), and a decent effort on the pitch as well. The yellow card offence was no different to the Morgan Knowles tackle last week and should have been red imo (albeit I've not seen it on TV, only at the game). Toronto were just a bit sharper than Fax, but there's not a lot between a lot of the teams in the Championship, which looks like being really competitive this year.

Speak for yourselves 'Sparky' - you haven't seen us yet!

LOL - we will in three weeks time!

York vs Bradford in League one 4281.

That is a crowd

Shouldn't you know what the crowd was at Featherstone in their last league game?

Going back to the OP, I'm confused!

Fax didn't have 3000 today, they had 2000. Disregarding that, the 7000 for Toronto is a little bit of fiction based on season ticket sales after successful marketing (ST holder count whether they turn up or not). Leigh and Featherstone - where do they come into it?

A dig at Salford? Leigh? Featherstone? Anyone else? I'm not sure???

Not sure about that, Toronto's first crowd was only 6,200. It reached over 8,500 by the final match of the season.

Every week there's comments saying Toronto bring no home fans but they consistently attractive crowds 20 to 30% above the norm at games. It is not rocket science to say that the interest they generate attracts an extra 4 to 500 spectators at least.

This is very true... for this season. If they fail to gain a SL spot next year, then they'll become just another Championship club. Today was a bit of a novelty for Fax, and some of the closet fans came out of the woodwork as a result. The same at Leigh a couple of weeks back, but the novelty will soon wear off.

They must have been hiding from the TV cameras then...

More than Catalans away support.

Now jog on with your sniping

is that the typical dour rugby league negativity coming through sparky?

What you could say is - what a fantastic game it was today for those closet fans to come out and watch. Genuinely good game where fax really put a good effort in and showed they can hold their own against full time sides. We could build on this and look to keep those closet fans at games and maintain a 2000 crowd. We could market this in a really positive way.


or you could just say "it won't last" "mehhhhhhhh"

We really need to change the way fans look at rugby league or we'll be going down the pan as a sport very quickly. And it's down to people like you.

Fax needed to win the game today to kick on for the closet fans to turn out again for the Leigh game in three weeks. A genuinely good game (which it was) where fax did well (they did) means little in the end to fringe supporters because the end result was a loss.

10 posts in, how can you talk about "we'll be going down the pan"??? I also question how I personally (having supported my team home and away for 40 years) can be sending the game of RL into oblivion???

So what you're trying to say is that you watched a match on TV from a different continent at a stadium you've never been to, guessed the crowd and are now trying to claim that your guess is more accurate and reliable than people who were actually at the stadium counting the tickets.

Pretty strange.

Depends if the counters counted correctly

LOL. I know the camera angles don't always show everything, but having been to a lot of games you do get to be able to estimate the attendance figures to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Unless Toronto were hiding a few thousand somewhere, the visual evidence suggests that their actual attendance figures don't match up those published.

Season ticket holders count in attendance figures, and this will distort real statistics for all clubs. Counting tickets is different to counting turnstile clicks.

Sorry, I didn't realise that the amount of posts on this forum dictated what my view on RL is. Unfortunately, negative views of some supporters who have "supported my team home and away for 40 years" perpetuate the downfall of RL in general. Thankfully, RL's future won't be decided on a forum due to the fact RL's future keepers see forums as a little out of touch. Hence my 10 posts.

Are you the Rain Man? Pretty impressive to be able to count 7,000 constantly moving people in 80 minutes using only limited camera shots, you should apply for a job at NASA.

Jog on then, and don't bother with a 12th post.

Blimey, I was at the Shay today, and estimated 2000 (it was 2030 rather than the 3000+ reported). It's not whether there was 7000, or 6500, or 7500, more that the seats appear a bit bleak and look more like a couple of thousand rather than seven. I might well be wrong, but from what I saw on TV the number of folk in the ground appeared to be far less than the declared numbers.

Has long has all teams get decent gates for rugby league and it helps them improve great