By Mark H
July 6 2002

It's only 56 days untill the start of the English domestic rugby season. Mark H discusses the move away from the traditional Saturday at 3pm slot and the trend towards Friday evening and Sunday afternoon rugby. He argues that it will not increase attendances amongst the Zurich Premiership clubs. I've had a deeper look at the full fixture list for the season, and it's a bit disturbing. Of the first 21 rounds (126 matches) of games (I haven't included the last round, as these will probably all be on the Sunday anyway):-

19 are on a Friday night
44 are on a Saturday
63 are on a Sunday afternoon

That's 66% of all ZP matches taking place on a day other than a Saturday, traditionally the one day in the weekend with good travel links.

Of the 44 Saturday matches, 10 are at FG, 10 are at Pooh Corner, 8 are at Kingsholm, 8 are at the Stoop, and 8 are at the Rec. No other club have a Saturday match.

There are 2 weekends (15-17 Nov and 4-6 Apr) with no matches on the Saturday.

There are 8 weekends with only one match on the Saturday. Bath have 4 of these, Saints 2, PCP 1, and Queens 1. Both of the Saints games are the noon kick offs during the autumn internationals.

The four highest average attendances will be at Pooh Corner, FG, Kingsholm and one other, probably Bath as they usually sell out (some would say they sold out a long time ago!)

I haven't got the football fixture lists for Bristol Rovers, Reading, Watford or Wycombe, but it would be a fair assumption to say that there would not be a fixture clash every weekend.

In my opinion, there is a very disturbing trend here, with clubs obviously not budgeting for getting any travelling support in, as for example, how many Irish supporters will travel to Sale on Friday 4th October, or how many Bris suporters will go up to Newcastle on Sunday 1st December. I deliberately haven't used Saints as an example as there will always be a strong travelling support. It would be interesting to see travelling support figures for next season for the Friday/Sunday matches and compare them to equivalent previous fixtures.

Rugby does not want to sell itself as a Sunday game, for that is the road that football tried to go down, and that's part of the reason why attendances at some clubs went through the floor.

What do the clubs want - more revenue through support or less expenditure on policing/stewarding etc.?