Bolton Must Be A Different Kind Of Magic

Let me start by saying what a good idea I think it is to have the Challenge Cup semi-finals as a double header at Bolton. There has been some concern about dwindling crowds in the world’s best rugby league knockout tournament so something had to be done to try to boost attendances. That you can now get both of these games, which should be high intensity and dramatic, for around £25 is something for which the authorities should be applauded. They’ve got it right this time, even if the population of Yorkshire aren’t convinced about the choice of Bolton as a venue.

Initially my only gripe was that they have chosen the Sunday, August 5, rather than the Saturday. Perhaps this is something to do with the EFL season starting that weekend but perhaps also it is a deliberate attempt to keep match day excess to a minimum. Many will have work on the Monday and will not be all that tempted to celebrate or drown their sorrows away too late into the night. But this is not something that is taken into consideration for the Grand Final in Manchester, at which there have been several incidences of feuding fans coming together for a dust-up while under the influence of alcohol. If it isn’t a problem for organisers expecting 75,000 at Old Trafford it should not be when they are accommodating only around 25,000 in Bolton.

I’m looking forward to it all immensely, assuming our ever-unpredictable Saints don’t let us down by bombing out in the quarter-finals to an injury-ravaged Hull FC this coming weekend. Yet a suggestion about how the event should be marketed got me once more hoisted atop my grubby old soap box. Some people are never happy, but then if they were always happy columns like That Saints Blog You Quite Like would not exist. Make up your own mind about whether that would be a good or a bad thing.

The idea was to give the event a brand name, much like the Magic Weekend, in an attempt to market the event to neutrals. It is the sort of thing that would have Eddie Hearn slavering down his expensive suits and would no doubt draw in a certain type of spectator. But these are the Challenge Cup semi-finals. In one place on one day for an absurdly reasonable price when compared with the glorified friendlies of Super League or the cash-soaked behemoth that is football. They shouldn’t need to be marketed as an event like Magic, nor should they be.

We need some neutral interest to boost those problematic falling attendances of recent years. Only just over 14,500 people saw Hull FC defeat Leeds Rhinos in Doncaster in last year’s semi-finals, while just shy of 10,800 witnessed Wigan’s victory over Salford Red Devils in Warrington. Those figures were even lower in 2016 when Hull FC beat Wigan at Doncaster and Warrington smashed Wakefield Trinity at Leigh. But if calling this event ‘the Challenge Cup semi-finals’ isn’t a big enough draw for a stadium that size then where are we as a sport?

There will be four clubs competing on the day, many of whom have sizeable fan bases who should, if they retain anything like a love for rugby league or anything resembling a pulse, have their boat summarily floated by this idea. It is these people who should form the bulk of the crowd that day in Bolton. The majority of the crowd should be turning up in a state of tension normally reserved for a soon-to-be rescued extra in a superhero movie. It should not consist mainly of day-trippers who are curious about this rugby league lark but don’t really care who comes out on top. Magic serves that purpose, or at least purports to. The truth is that it has rather more to do with raising money for the game than raising its profile, but it does at least have noble aims on the face of it. How many people are actually in attendance who were not already rugby league fans is a question one dare not ask for fear of spoiling everyone’s day out in Newcastle.

The point is that the Challenge Cup semi-finals should not be a relaxed carnival atmosphere like that seen in Magic, where the bars of Newcastle are often the major attraction. These games should matter to the majority of people who enter the stadium. Done right that is exactly what will happen and I support the concept fully, but it does not need the kind of event-obsessed promotion that the Hearn followers insist on applying to everything that the sport does. In our haste to grow the game and become more relevant it should be remembered that rugby league is a sport first and not a series of events in which the only consideration is getting people through the gate regardless of how much they will care.