The entire quagmire people have got themselves into over is the AIL any good or not basically comes down to one simple thing, where are the crowds of people! Well they are not going to travel 250 – 350 mile round trips to support their local club every other week becuase they cannot take 9-10 hours out of their day to do so! The Current AIL is a not feasible for building spectators at clubs and is crippling club rugby financially!
But we have been hearing a lot about crowds recently.
Bangor RFC has regularly played host to 400 spectators!
The word COMMUNITY is absolutely central to this – absolutely central!
Everyone focuses on the end and not the means – the end that we all want is busy rugby clubs especially on match day, but the means is the key to this.
What is the means? ANSWER: THERE IS NONE because before you start you have to ask people to travel 300 miles every two weeks!
WE HAVE COMMUNITY! Thats not the problem!
At Randalstown RFC recently their was 600 people at their fight night! None of them had travelled 300 Mile round trips!
Someone knew someone who knew someone, players had sold 100s of tickets themselves, the event took on a viral speed driven by the club and facilitated by the club, and the club is all those people who give their time voluntarily. WHAT PRIDE RANDALSTOWN RFC HAVE in that night “WE DID IT” emblazoned across all their faces, but not only that we bumped into several players from other clubs who were there to scope the night out, have a bit of craic and think about whether it could work for their club, Dungannon did it last year the place was packed! It started because the core people who have been in the club their whole lives and love their club had a dream, a goal as a community and as a business to put on an event, when everyone pulls together to publicise by word of mouth the game on Saturday, the game on Saturday, the game on Saturday, word of mouth…….. we have that but then you go and say oh I forgot to say you’ll have to drive 100-250 or maybe 300 miles!
WHAT PRIDE IS THERE IN 20-50 PEOPLE TURNING UP TO WATCH AIL RUGBY?
But why would the public come to watch a game at a club 80-150 miles away! Would you do that for weeks in a row and maybe with a young family etc etc, its not feasible!
When a club engages with its local community that community will turn out at the end of the season for finals for big games and then you will get thousands, but only because the club played lots of local derbies down the road! But will they travel 250 mile round trips nearly every Saturday! NOT A CHANCE! NOT A CHANCE! NO WAY! Its just not realistic, people at the end of the day have families! Some of the games within one province are a big ask but people will do that a couple of times a year.
