Does that help to take your mind off things ?

Not wanting to get involved in any argument. My opinion is that we will struggle to get near 10,000 untill the ground has a larger capacity & people can turn up & pay on the day & take non pass holders on a spurr of the moment whim. As I have posted before the club misses out on about 20 attendencess per season as with the East stand sold out some of my family dont come with me as they can not get in with me & are not commited enough to apply for tickets. There must be others in the same position.

They need to sort out the anti social behaviour in the east stand too. My dobbins supporting cousin was threatened by some psihed up t0sser last year for daring to tell him to put his fag out

Do fans need to do that this year?. I know plenty that have decided against the whole club rovers thing and have just got tickets fairly easily for the east stand for the Big Kick-off even with your X actor loser entertainment and ticket offers to the local primary schools and netballers

Explain, 'cos you have me baffled there.

When the east stand is done, the aim is to try and get an average of around 10k.

With the East stand it will take capacity to 10,000 decent viewing positions. I'd be happy to see us getting over 9,000 and over 10 for the big games. Sadly as we know other clubs fans are reluctant to travel "all the way" to Hull so we will have to work damn hard to get new fans to games, a trophy or two and FC actually becoming real rivals will help.

I think that away following should be part of the franchise criteria. Both Hull clubs take good numbers away to every game, that has a huge benefit to each individual home club, but precious little financial benefit to either Hull or Rovers.

Say an average away following is 1000 paying around £15 entry to each game, that's £15K to each home club on ticket sales alone each time Hull or Rovers come to town. Over the season that's nearly £200K (from each set of supporters) benefit to the game (but not to either Hull club, who on the whole receive very poor away support). The argument for boosting away travelling supporters, is to me, compelling and, as I say, should be encouraged through the franchising process as there is actually very little the home club can do to encourage more visiting supporters, the onus should be on the away club to get more fans there.

I think it's a good idea, but it's not something under a club's direct control, like the ground, home attendances, finances, youth development etc. Realistically a club won't spend money incentivising its own fans to travel away when they have enough on trying to maximise home attendances.

They would if a license point was at stake.

A club could target sponsorship in the form of free or reduced travel to away games from coach operators or negotiate reciprocal deals with other clubs for incentives to travel.

All that is required is the will and incentive to do these things. At the moment there is no incentive and consequently no will.

It will never happen. It penalises clubs that are geographically isolated (Catalans, Quins etc). The RFL are pro-expansion and away fan numbers as a criteria would be working against that agenda.

It would be possible to weight the relative value of travelling fans so that geographically distant clubs aren't penalised unduly. Or, "expansion" clubs could automatically be awarded the point if the RFL so desired. The important thing here is that the majority of clubs would have a real reason for encouraging more fans to travel.

I don't really expect to see a thousand Catalans fans at Craven Park any time soon, but we should be getting hundreds more from Salford, Huddersfield, Wakey and the like.

Should we? The clubs you mention have fairly small home gates anyway.

Maybe there should be a licence point for offering good facilities to away fans, such as covered seating and realistic prices. I don't think we should get a tick for good travelling support when we offer little or no incentive to encourage other club's fans to come to us.

I take your point, but that does not explain why Hull also receive poor away followings. There's no such excuse for facilities at the KC is there?

Exactly, its nothing to do with facilities, those teams simply do not travel in numbers like ourselves from Hull.

And its not exactly a place to come and spend a weekend with family if truth be told.

2 of the 3 clubs you mention brought more than Leeds last season!

So Leeds are one of "the like".

do you mean 1400 rovers have never had anywhere near that and never will

Yes ok then we hope to average 1400

Gods honest truth, you really are a pleb

Do they offer us the incentive to travel to them though? Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds offer the away fans anymore than we do?

Well supported teams fans will travel where they need to in order to support their team, blaming the stadium for not going to a game is a PATHETIC excuse IMO. Would you not go and watch East Hull v West Hull at Rosemead because you didn’t want to get your shoes muddy on the touchline or because you couldn’t get a decent cuppa at half time?

Each to their own really. Some fans will come whatever, others will prefer not to get rained on etc. Even plenty of our own potential fanbase stay away because they can't get in the decent stands. The hardcore 2/3k of every club would support their side wherever they play, but to attract more fans you need a mixture of success on the pitch and half decent facilities.

i think thats 14000 fans over 5 years. Are dobbins in some sort of brainwashed cult they are on the brink of going bust again

cannot fill the ground now apart from one game a season, chairmans doing a runner but apart from this everythings rosy

oh to be a dobbin or are they secretly the reborn

the cult from the 70,s

we areused to sitting in relative comfort close to the pitch not perched on some dodgy golf stand six miles from the pitch you borrowed thats why i won,t attend the derby at poorhouse lane nice and comfy at home watching in hd