sorry seemed a bit of a generalisation on my behalf, just seems you get loads of people my age going ' for the pi$$ up' shame they dont actually watch the match. It gives us all a bad name, was speakin to someone last week and said i go to the away matches. Their immediate response was ' Oh your not ones of those who go on the coach on your own are you'. But unfortunately there is no way of stopping it

Something is definitely rotten at Odsal. I appreciate that a lot of the glory hunters who jumped on the "Bradford Bulls" bandwagon in the early days of Super League will have trailed off recently as their era of dominance is over (although they won the Grand Final as recently as 2005 and were runners up the previous year so it's hardly a distant memory) but they've gone well recently and were playing at home in the Challenge Cup quarter final. They weren't playing an 11th V 12th Super League contest in September with absolutely nothing riding on it so to only attract around 3,000 home fans was scandalous.

I'm not knocking the ones who were there, as I assume all those who have posted in this thread were, but the club need a serious inquest into why so many have fallen away so quickly. To be outnumbered by away fans (I don't know if they definitely were or not but it certainly looked like it to me) is embarrassing but to that end they're lucky it's us they were playing because had they drawn Catalans at home the attendance could potentially have been lower than 4,000.

From our point of view it's a lesson worth noting too. We've had a fleeting glimpse of success - nowhere near the level Bradford had yet - and have attracted a feel good factor and increased attendances as a result, but success doesn't last forever and retaining that support once it dries up is another challenge entirely.

Seems ridiculous that before the game I was estimating a 15k attendance.

7k is awful for a quarter-final that had one of the team's playing at home. People are moaning about the impact on crowd numbers should a semi be played in France. Well it can't be much worse than yesterday's attendance.

Good post that, Dropkick Murphy.

As I said elsewhere, you did not outnumber the home fans. You get a better impression when stood well away from the Rooley Avenue terrace. Do a bit of maths...40-odd coaches at 50-ish a coach, plus those who travelled independently. But you sure came reasonably close. Scandalously close. I was totally embarrassed with the Bulls fans' "Turnout" yesterday. I imagine the club was mortified. And as for what the team felt...

Bulls have sod all money for marketing, so that will not have helped. Plus Bradford is a pretty depressed place now financially, and at £20 a head to sit in the stand (as I paid) when you can see it on TV for free must have been a big factor for many people. Those that sit next to me are pretty keen and very long-standing and totally level-headed fans, but they did not go - three adults £60 is a fair bit of money?

Maybe the difference is that there is a good feeling around Warrington, and you guys go to matches with reasonable expectation of winning now. Too many Bulls fans go with expectations of losing - the long run of depressing home defeats last year (we did better on the road) probably scarred many. We also have a soccer club that issued extremely cheap season tickets, and got far and away the biggest crowds in the lowest division as a result (still did pants though) and for sure that took some support away.

The loss to Leeds the week before will not have helped. There were a LOT of "lapsed" fans there, first game for a while, nice day, team in with a chance. Then Leeds played a second half as good as any they had played all year, and many of those "fans" were streaming out with ten to go. You could hear people saying "same old same old" when in fact the only real difference between the sides - as it was on Sunday - was that we have a thinner and in key areas weaker squad, and where injuries to key players (including several like Lynch and Orford who were carrying injuries and should not have played) hit us disproportionately hard. We ran the Champions close, and the cup-holders even closer, which in my book is not a bad performance. But I fear too many lapsed supporters just expect wins. Embarrassing.

But I feel the biggest problem of all is the city itself. I've been castigated by some for saying it, but its dying around us. Just look at the city "centre". The city is dying from the centre. Warrington, by contrast, is a "new town" and the whole place (been there a fair few times generally not just for rugby) always strikes me as confident and looking to the future.

And Rugbychick...the crowd was only a bit worse than I feared - 10k would have been very good given recent turnouts.

Excellent post. Very interesting to read - particularly about the City's recent fortunes - such a shame as the City Centre has a lot of interesting historic buildings.

I preusme the fact that it was the start of half term and that at times it looked like the heavens were going to open didn't help.

To be honest I don't really follow Bradford's crowd number so yesterday was a genuine shock. 15 mins before kick off we were all looking round at each other, asking where the Bradford fans were. It's a real shame that the fans have fallen away so quickly and I'm sure the reasons you've posted above hold true for many of those that have stopped attending. This is something that concerns me about Wire fans too. As Dropkick said: we've a lot of fans who had materialised out of nowhere since we won something. I just hope they don't all fade away if we don't repeat the success this year.

adeybull i do feel for you we have a new ground purpose built and all stands are covered, you ground is steeped in history but its old and tired i think thats some of the problems aswell and £20 nicker to sit down in that stand is a bit much we only paid £12 at the galpharm i think with your current finacial plight you have to move to valley parade

Yes