Boxing Day Attendance

Plenty of Castleford, Wakefield fans live in the city of leeds too.
TeaCider said:
West Yorkshire has multiple rugby league clubs.

The City of Leeds has one, and it's a big city.

If it was the main sport in a city of 800,000 people, they'd manage more than 12,000.

In 2015 when they won the Super League and the Challenge Cup, they were averaging 15,921 people.
That's at their peak.
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I'm not convinced by that. Plenty of RL fans in Leeds are not Rhinos fans: they move there for work, but go back to the surrounding towns for their sport. Boro fans moving to London for work still follow Boro, and fill the ground on boxing day don't they?
 
Frozen Horse said:
Plenty of Castleford, Wakefield fans live in the city of leeds too.


I'm not convinced by that. Plenty of RL fans in Leeds are not Rhinos fans: they move there for work, but go back to the surrounding towns for their sport. Boro fans moving to London for work still follow Boro, and fill the ground on boxing day don't they?
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Well yes, but then plenty of Rhinos fans will live in Castleford and Wakefield too, and across the UK as a whole.

People move about.

My step-dad is a huge Wigan Warriors fan and he lives up here.

I'm not trying to put down on Rugby League, I wish we had a professional team as I'd probably get in to it, I just think the support levels are overstated when you actually look at the figures.
 
TeaCider said:
Well yes, but then plenty of Rhinos fans will live in Castleford and Wakefield too, and across the UK as a whole.

People move about.

My step-dad is a huge Wigan Warriors fan and he lives up here.

I'm not trying to put down on Rugby League, I wish we had a professional team as I'd probably get in to it, I just think the support levels are overstated when you actually look at the figures.
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Exactly right: you have to talk about the region as a whole, and not worry about where the boundaries of the city of Leeds are drawn.

I don't know how many Rhinos live in Castleford though: it only has a population of 40k. If 1% of Castleford support Rhinos and 1% of Leeds supports the Tigers, that would mean 7600 more Castleford fans than Rhinos fans.

I'm not particularly trying to put Leeds down by saying it's an RL town: I quite like RL too. Its just when you live there, you do become aware that the city doesn't obsess over football like the North East does. It's there, of course it is, but it's not quite at the heart of the place somehow.

It might be that there's no rivalry between the 2 Leeds clubs: most people I knew had some interest in both and share the same songs. I'd really expect a city the size of Leeds to have 2 professional clubs, and maybe the tension between them in cities like Sheffield and Liverpool keeps it a the forefront of people's minds more.
 
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Not sure i agree with that if i'm honest.
Frozen Horse said:
Its just when you live there, you do become aware that the city doesn't obsess over football like the North East does. It's there, of course it is, but it's not quite at the heart of the place somehow.
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BoroMart said:
agreed, I lived there from in 92 then again 94-99. It's very much a rugby league town, and indeed Leeds fans are drawn from a huge territory. I mean there have always been buses going from Teesside to Leeds for games for a start, that's before you get into the number of fans from surrounding towns like Wakey that don't have a pro team, and towns like Barnsley and Bradford that have rubbish sides. Enormous catchment area for Leeds, I think there are about 3mill people within an hour of Elland Road.
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I lived in Leeds for about 8 years, it’s a rugby league city without a doubt.
 
Leeds United are on another plane to Leeds Rhinos.
They do draw from far and wide too, but unfortunately do have masses of fans from inside the city.
It is easy to be football and RL fan these days with split seasons.

My best mate is a Wiganer and Wigan RL really is much more important in the town than the Latics.
Leeds is not at all the same, Hull is much more of a split than Leeds.
 
indeedido said:
It is easy to be football and RL fan these days with split seasons.
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I think this is a key point too.

The Super League only overlaps with half of the football season, the bulk of it is during the summer.

Most of the matches are on different days and times.

If you like both, you can easily watch both as long as you have the money and time.
 
31k crowd - if Wigan sell all their 1200 tickets . MFC Corporate areas are all sold. There may be some family section tickets left.

Nice the see the South Stand completely full and hopefully bouncing as per Chelsea game. Its normally only 75% full - often due to segregation.
 
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WindyNook said:

The last 10 minutes of the Steau game was unreal. Nobody was sitting every Boro touch was cheered to the hilt. When the goal went in people were jumping over seats onto each other. There were even cheers for Ugos basketball defence.
If you don't believe me here's the proof.
Run it on to 85 min or watch the whole 2nd half.
That was longest I've stayed in the Riverside after a game I just didn't want to leave.
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Still get goosebumps watching that.
 
Humpty said:
That's just not true.
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Only saying as I found it whilst living near Horsforth.

Quite a few of the rugby fans are very disparaging of the football as well, both the way the players go on and the behaviour of the fans. I think they think football attracts a certain type of spectator.

A lot of the Leeds football fans I have known over the years have come from other places like Bradford, Wakefield, Harrogate, Ripon - it has a massive catchment area with millions of people in it. As mentioned above it should really be able to support two football clubs.

They like their cricket in Leeds as well.

And the hand pulled Tetleys Bitter was truly outstanding.
 
Maybe I’ve interpreted what you’re saying wrongly @HolgateCorner but I’ve lived in Headingley, Kirkstall, Chapel Allerton and Moortown. There is no doubt Rugby League is a very popular sport in Leeds, they love it, but Leeds is a football city first and foremost. In my experience they’re as mad about their football as any area of the north east; much to my annoyance might I add.
 
I am not an expert on the City of Leeds, but get the impression the middle class and lower middle class areas are into Rugby and Cricket. The clear working class areas are more into football. LUFC developed later than many other Northern Clubs, by 1900 many Northern Clubs were professional, but Leeds United had not been formed till 1919. The Revie years made Leeds a much wider supported team, with coaches regular going to games from Lincolnshire, all parts of Yorkshire, even South Wales. Most of the wider fans tend now to be in the 55-70 age group. Yorkshire is about 5.3 million people, more people than Scotland.
 
If Wigan, sell over 1,000, my guess is it will be 31k.

Capacity is about 31,200 with average segregation.
 
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