Fixture clashes with rugby

Agreed.

Having stood in the sunshine handing out leaflets last summer it was a surprise to find that an awful lot of people didn't even know TP is there.

We've had three or four Saturdays already without a game this season, I hated them all. The thought of having more empty Saturdays just to convenience some people for whom we're an afterthought is painful in all honesty.

Palms wrote:We've had three or four Saturdays already without a game this season, I hated them all. The thought of having more empty Saturdays just to convenience some people for whom we're an afterthought is painful in all honesty.

Have to say I've been reading this thread and thinking of writing something similar to what Palms has. Saturday's and football are ace, Saturday's without are not, and we'd be doing it to attract people who probably couldn't careless anyway.

That being said, I would be interested to know if we could attract your TV watching football "fan" out on a Friday as it is less likely to clash with Sky's super duper Armageddon football (or whatever they have branded it recently) Saturday/Sunday. How we would gauge the likelihood of that though I have no idea.

I personally would not want be keen to head after work on Friday to one of the few places in town where I couldn't have a pint

Just for clarity, no one is proposing Friday night games, to my knowledge.
The original question was designed to pool the collective knowedge of the forum to understand if there are any precedents / examples of other towns / clubs who have made arrangements not to clash with rugby / other fixtures. The thinking was we could learn from them what arguments work and don't work and why.
Seems like no one is aware of any.

OliverH wrote:Am I correct in understanding then that there are two possible ways of avoiding a clash:

1. Convince RFU to schedule Bath Rugby games accordingly (snowball's chance)

2. Convince other teams on a fixture-by-fixture basis to move matches to a Friday or Sunday once we've seen the BCFC & BR fixture lists

[the latter still leaves open the question of whether people would go to two sports matches on consecutive days - the ideal would still be alternate weekends.

Steve / Comrade: Not sure why we think (without testing or asking) that the RFU would be anti.  Accepted, they may want to understand what's in it for them.  I don't think the "effort" argument stands up.  Its a computer algorithm in the end (which already exists due to ground sharing).  Am I missing something?
PS. The point of the thread is to learn where it works currently in order to contact them to find out what arguments work or what levers we do or don't have.
Of course its possible there are no precedents or arguments but the impact analysis would indicate its worth exploring.

Looks like Gloucester might the best ones to approach, notwithstanding that they haven't themselves managed to alternate.

Roman Mike wrote:Just for clarity, no one is proposing Friday night games, to my knowledge.

The discussion changed direction following Benny's question - that's the nature of forums. As someone else mentioned, the best person to have a chat with about this is probably Nick Blofeld.

Friday night friendlies against the Bristol clubs have been good in the past, which given they're in the cricket season is handy

In case anyone is interested:

We've had 4 day games this season that clashed with rugby (Chelmsford, Hayes, Concord, St Albans); average attendance 561. Note this includes community day.

For the remaining day games it's 675. This does include Boxing Day, Easter Monday and the Maidstone game who brought quite a few fans but there is clearly a difference when the rugby are playing.