smoking monkey wrote:
In HKR's case I don't think it's all about winning because they were doing that pretty much every week in their last few NL seasons but still drew poor crowds.
Maybe there was never an appetite for NL while Hull FC were in SL and getting back into the same league as their rivals restored lost pride/interest around East Hull but for whatever reason attendances at NCP soared immediately after promotion and have continued to show steady improvement.
More significantly neither home or away support seems to drop significantly during poor spells of form and in that respect we Cas fans could not claim to have shown the same solidarity over the last 2-3 years.
We might deride the majority of Robins fans as 'Johny come latelies' but it looks like they're here to stay and I wish we could say the same about the couple of thousand who have fallen off our bandwagon since 2007.
As a long standing Kr fan ( 43 years) i have seen the ups and downs of most clubs who presently operate in SL, i have also visted every ground over those years and can honestly say that the condition of some of those grounds was always irrelevant and secondry, the support of my club has always been first and foremost regardless, i sometimes think that the modern supporter is either soft or just use the facilities argument as a lame excuse.
With regards to support, during the late seventies and eighties Rovers always had very good support home and away which continued until probably the late eighties/early nineties, in fact it was during the early to mid eighties when Rugby league as a sport was dying on its feet and both Hull clubs with their large followings and successes during those periods, kept the game of rugby league in the media spotlight. Unfortunately for rovers and Hull to a lesser extent the crowds then started to decline rappidly due to poor managment and descision making, which resulted in the clubs fortunes declining even further to a point when Rovers had to go into administration.
Thankfuly, a new board of dirctors took over six or seven years ago headed by Neil Hudgell and several other board members who were and still are huge Kr fans, the rest is history as they say, we are now making huge strides both on and off the pitch with some very good player recruitment an improving youth set up and huge ground improvements including extensions to the east stand, a new six million pound North stand development to begin in June all been well, plus further developments planned for the south side at a later date.
All clubs in all sports go through difficult times in their history for different reasons but most come through them and out of the other side, we are no different in that respect and as with all clubs who show the desire and commitment to improve and achieve success, come the larger followings.
