Drawing A Crowd With The Halton Spartans

The NFC2 side's coach Ian Derbyshire tells us about playing in a stadium and making a local impact...

In an amateur sport, we don’t play for crowds.

However, exposure is everything, and a vocal support base can be a huge booster. Nobody knows that better than the Halton Spartans, of North West England.

Half an hour outside of Liverpool, Widnes – connected to Runcorn across the Mersey by a single bridge to form the borough of Halton - is the kind of small English town where Rugby League traditionally reigns supreme, but the Spartans saw an opportunity to move in on that territory.

With support from the Halton borough council, they moved into the Widnes Vikings’ Select Security Stadium for their home games, where they have consistently drawn crowds in the hundreds for their rookie season in the BAFA league.

“It’s been really good to get an atmosphere,” says head coach Ian Derbyshire (left). “We sold merchandise, and air horns to get some noise going in the ground. You could always hear the Spartans fans. We try to involve the players’ wives and girlfriends and children, and what you end up with is them all sitting together, and invariably they get the chants going, and get the defence going.”

Halton started to turn heads when they drew a crowd of nearly 600 to their final association friendly in the middle of last winter, immediately turning their home fixtures into a profitable proposition.

Keen to promote minority sports in the face of rugby’s domination, the Spartans entered into a joint marketing campaign with local ice hockey team Widnes Wild, which saw both sides help promote each other and boost each other’s home attendance. They also made a point of making opposition fans feel welcome, sending teams information on the stadium and the local pubs, which culminated in the Manchester Spartans bringing nearly 90 people.

“We started off around the 300-350 mark, and the last game got just short of 500, in what was essentially a nothing game in in as much as what was at stake,” Ian says. “At professional level, the Widnes Vikings average around 5000 – 6000 people at the stadium we share. I don’t think we’ll challenge that, but what I firmly believe we will challenge is the stronghold that Rugby League has had on the area at amateur level. Amateur Rugby League is not as dominant as it used to be.”

On the pitch, things have also gone to plan for the Spartans in their debut year. Their 5-5 finish, while far from eye-catching, lays a solid foundation, and Ian is satisfied that his side can push on in the next few years.

“We’ve compared ourselves with some other new teams that have gone through their first season without winning a game, and had massive amounts of points scored against them. I think we had a good season to build on going into next year.

“I firmly believe that we are doing all the right things. Looking at the bowl games this year in Division 2, the Northern Conference was won by the Sandwell Steelers, and the Southern Conference was won by Bury Saints. Both of those teams are in their second year, and I set a challenge to my team and my coaches: if they can do it, why not the Spartans?”

All photos courtesy of Spartans club photographer Tim Furfie