Crisis ? What Crisis ?
Rose tinted ?
By Griff
July 15 2005
You've all seen the figures, and Brian's take on them. Here I've tried to look more at the trends involved and the history behind those trends. The reason for this is not because I want to set-out to paint a rosy picture, but that I think you can draw very wrong conclusions from the cold data.
London Irish - 2004/5 Season
| Date | Opponent | Result | Attendance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24-Apr-05 | Bath | 19 - 21 | 10771 |
| 26-Mar-05 | Gloucester | 12 - 13 | 17111 |
| 27-Feb-05 | Wasps | 19 - 33 | 10018 |
| 6-Feb-05 | Sale | 6 - 9 | 8125 |
| 27-Dec-04 | Northampton | 21 - 22 | 17364 |
| 21-Nov-04 | Newcastle | 21 - 15 | 9560 |
| 7-Nov-04 | Worcester Warriors | 25 - 15 | 7232 |
| 16-Oct-04 | Leeds Tykes | 12 - 16 | 6410 |
| 3-Oct-04 | Saracens | 20 - 3 | 7047 |
| 19-Sep-04 | Leicester Tigers | 22 - 39 | 9472 |
| 4-Sep-04 | Harlequins (LDH) | 18 - 12 | 12750 |
Adding this season to the year-on-year table gives:
| Season | Average Att. | Percentage Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 97-98 | 3718 | |
| 98-99 | 4022 | 8.2% |
| 99-00 | 4638 | 15.3% |
| 00-01 | 5920 | 27.6% |
| 01-02 | 6927 | 17.0% |
| 02-03 | 9921 | 43.2% |
| 03-04 | 10657 | 7.4% |
| 04-05 | 10533 | -1.1% |
As has been pointed out, as a bottom-line it looks bad. The growth seems to be ramping up and then suddenly it is cut and this year it isn't growth at all. To my mind, though, that is a very blinkered view. Take another look.
The moves from Sunbury to the Stoop and then from the Stoop to the Madejski allowed the club to ambitiously grow crowds giving those big growthnumbers. Stability at the Madejski allowed them to then capitalise on this growth and with the Powergen Cup win in 2002 along with a fourth-place ZP finish and subsequent Heineken Cup place Irish very aggressively marketed themselves to the rugby-public and achieved quite phenomenal numbers. Ironically these were pushed even higher with the club embroiled in a tight relegation battle which was resolved only onthe final day of the 02-03 season.
Since then the on-field fare has been, how can we put this, less thrilling. The first year, with no HC place, no relegation battle, a promoted club pulling in very small crowds and with the team underperforming to an alarming degree London Irish still managed to pull in more punters.
This season has been boosted by the Worcester factor, the newly promoted team giving the total attendances for the ZP a nice lift. Looking at their match with us, though, shows they didn't bring all of that support with them to the Madejski. The previous season's Rotherham game was watched by 5,831 people, as you can see the Warriors managed to top that, but only by 1400, not the 5000 by which they augmented Rotherham's home support average. So, while the trend across the premiership was raised considerably, the same can not be said for our average attendance.
Another boost for the figures is the London Double-Header. However you calculate the figures it was a master-stroke for EPR put this together. I think Brian's divide by four rule is about the best way to handle this, it's been argued up and down and there really isn't a perfect solution. Had we had a home fixture against Quins on the first day of the season with a bit of a push from the marketing chaps I suggest 12,750 wouldn't have been a stretch for us. Indeed, I suspect we could have pulled in 15K plus. So while the LDH gives us a bit of a headache, it hasn't skewed the figures too much.
The major downward factors have all been calendar problems. The Sale game was hosted opposite an Ireland siz-nations game, the St Patrick's match was weeks after the actually Saint's day and clashed with Easter. The Christmas game was against Saints, not Wasps, the east-midlands side were playing poorly at the time and it lacked that local-derby bite. The marketing and festive-period factors pulled in a respectable 17k but it wasn't the heights of the previous year's sell-out.
The bottom-line is always going to draw the headlines, I would be very dissappointed to hear that Pat Coyne and his team aren't at least concerned by the drop in average but I would expect that they're also quite proud that they held onto the huge increase in people that Cup success and top-flight European rugby brought. Mr Coyne is, I suspect, generally happy with the signings made during the summer, Magne alone must be worth a few extra tickets per match. He'll be hoping that a modicum of early season success will swell crowds and put last year's blip behind us. If success is not so immediate he'll certainly have his work cut-out holding onto much of an increasingly dispirited Irish support.
So, is it a crisis or a consolidation ? I think the latter, another year of crowd loss would be worrying but the calendar looks a lot more friendly. Bristol probably won't bring so many as Quins would but not by huge amounts. The St Pat's game doesn't clash with holidays or religion. The Christmas game is now a New Year game but it brings back local rivals (and defending champions) Wasps. On balance, I think we'll be looking at a similar growth to 03-04 of 7%, so we're looking at an average gate of 11,250. Time will tell.