Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:54 pm  

You can always rely on the Wire when it comes to entertaining the speccies

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:58 pm  

lefty goldblatt wrote:

The trouble is, COVID has affected everyone. Wigan and Saints (and to a certain extent, Leeds) have adapted. That comes as no surprise. Using sally's political overture, Fitzpatrick is morphing into a spin doctor, rather than his job title.
Unless I'm mistaken, 10,000 go through turnstiles to see a team playing well and winning (hopefully). Not a bloke on stilts, a loud, tuneless indie band, a man in a wolf costume and a few daft social media posts. YouTube is the place for that, NOT the HJ.

I have said this so many times I’ve lost count. I go to a sporting event to watch sport not any of the above.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:08 pm  

Do you think the reason we haven’t won the Championship for so long is because of the mascot/ stilt walker (I missed that)/band? They seem totally peripheral to me BUT a lot of children seem to take pleasure in it, and if a club it’s to prosper they have to look to the future not just cater for the dyed in the wool supporters.
These things aren’t doing any harm and may be doing some good, perhaps us old farts need to be a bit more open minded. Just a thought.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:20 pm  

Ok il bite so yes put all this fan entertainment on to get younger and other people into the stadium the idea being they watch wolves running around the pitch etc etc and then they watch the match, we win they get caught up in it and think oooh that was good to watch we will go again but watch us get beat and it will be oh hope jedward are back soon.

Yes a lot of us are old farts and all we want is to watch rugby not a sideshow but if you going to run a sideshow to get more fans it’s simple you need a winning team or they won’t come back, I’ve even seen older people stop going because they are fed up with the performances we have been dished up then the lame excuses that come out for it.

Some one said back in the days at wilderspool we went to games not expecting wins and the joy when we were walking out of fletcher st after a win was awesome. The club have come a long way since those days and expectations are higher now, I like others think the club is not being run in the right way.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:40 pm  

The two things (marketing/match day experience v on-field performance) don’t have to be mutually exclusive but unfortunately we’re doing our best to make it look that way.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:28 pm  

Captain Hook wrote:

Do you think the reason we haven’t won the Championship for so long is because of the mascot/ stilt walker (I missed that)/band? They seem totally peripheral to me BUT a lot of children seem to take pleasure in it, and if a club it’s to prosper they have to look to the future not just cater for the dyed in the wool supporters.
These things aren’t doing any harm and may be doing some good, perhaps us old farts need to be a bit more open minded. Just a thought.

I agree
Stilt walkers, men in wolf costumes etc, aren't reasons we haven't won the championship. However, our CEO seems to be putting suchlike front and centre of his job, instead of getting a top notch coaching staff and assistants, and addressing where the club are going wrong.

Little 8 year old Kayne/Jaxon/Tyla Charlee will soon get bored of his team not winning trophies, while his second generation St Helens supporting schoolmates, are off to another GF.

I'll leave you to work that one out.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sat Nov 21, 2020 11:47 pm  

The match day experience should have more than just the rugby league, but we should also do the naffness test. If we want to be a global superstar brand like the biggest sporting brands in the world we should ask, if someone suggested this at Real Madrid, Dallas Cowboys etc, would they be laughed off the park. Would Dallas Cowboys have people running races against a man in a green gimp suit etc. We do seem a bit Benny Hill.

Also remember in the early days of Super League, Bradford were seen as the leaders of match day marketing and looking to the future, trying to attract a new generation with Bullmania and all that. I remember going to Odsal or Valley Parade and thinking how much things had changed in a few years....they'd gone from an ageing audience of flat cappers to having families, loads of teenagers, especially girls. But how long did they stay, after the team went in to decline? You would have expected them to have a huge bulge of fans in their 30s now, probably with kids who they had started bringing to Odsal. Where did they all go?

Now I expect Bradford actually has a big latent support base in the town, of people who are familiar with rugby league from their teenage days but haven't been for a while. If they got some good investment in, and got back into Super League and landed a couple of major signings, I wouldn't be surprised if RL became big again there. But the excitement ultimately comes from the team and its performances and the drama of competing for trophies.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:03 am  

lefty goldblatt wrote:

Stilt walkers, men in wolf costumes etc, aren't reasons we haven't won the championship. However, our CEO seems to be putting suchlike front and centre of his job, instead of getting a top notch coaching staff and assistants, and addressing where the club are going wrong.

It has been like this since Gatcliffe left. When Roger Draper was here, everything was about the matchday/customer experience, and 'modernising' the badge and brand. This focus on the off-field stuff has continued with KF but while we've been focusing on this our eye has come off the ball for recruitment of players and coaches - which has been poor since around the point Gatcliffe left.

The irony here is, I think the club's 'brand' was stronger under Gatcliffe, who was more understated and didn't make all these performative gestures with the badge and talking to the media. When Gatcliffe took over, I think our club brand was associated with middling mediocrity, usually having some financial crisis, and being supported by grumpy men from the Fletcher Street End and pondlife corner. Then during the Gatcliffe era, the brand became much more of us being a big time club, with modern facilities, well-known in Australia due to signings of top NRL players, with a more diverse fan base.

Over the past few years, I think our brand has become tarnished with being a bit of a joke, with this Always Our Year stuff, and the number of times we've tried to wind up other clubs or made public boasts about what we are going to do and then failed to deliver. I don't look at our current badge and compare it to the old badge and think "we have a stronger brand now", I think it has gone in the opposite direction. Not the fault of the badge itself but I do think some of the efforts to build a brand have been counterproductive and I prefer the approach of Gatcliffe who had a more humble, quiet persona but ran the club well.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sun Nov 22, 2020 8:17 am  

lefty goldblatt wrote:

I agree
Stilt walkers, men in wolf costumes etc, aren't reasons we haven't won the championship. However, our CEO seems to be putting suchlike front and centre of his job, instead of getting a top notch coaching staff and assistants, and addressing where the club are going wrong.

Little 8 year old Kayne/Jaxon/Tyla Charlee will soon get bored of his team not winning trophies, while his second generation St Helens supporting schoolmates, are off to another GF.

I'll leave you to work that one out.

Except there are generations who didn’t see us win anything. Just like the majority of teams. If someone only supports a team in the hope that they will win a trophy they are either in for constant disappointment or should consider a regular switch of allegiance.

Re: Deflection tactics : Sun Nov 22, 2020 9:51 am  

I haven't actually seen us be officially crowned champions . I was four in 1955 & in 1985/6 i had to work on final day ,although i recorded it to watch the following day. However , our lack of silverware in Championship terms has been made up for in CC wins & watching the roller coaster that is the Wire, & i have no urge to start watching Saints or Wigan.