MONARCHS ASK FANS TO TURN OUT

NEWS Tuesday 20th September 2011, 12:41pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

After a run of bad weather and disappointing attendances, the Scotwaste Monarchs promotion are asking their supporters to make every effort to turn out for the remaining four meetings of the Armadale season.

Somerset are the visitors this Friday (23rd), followed by Leicester Lions (with Magnus Karlsson and Kauko Nieminen) on 30th September, KO Cup Finalists Newport Wasps on 7th October, and finally another tilt at league leaders Glasgow Tigers in the Scottish Cup on 14th October.

Monarchs' promoter John Campbell says ?Our last two attendances have been our lowest of the season, a fortnight ago being lower than the week before. Both were substantially lower than anything else we've had this season and really big loss makers for the Club.

?On the management side, it's given us plenty to think about. Our concern is that we will run to such low crowds for the remainder of the season, creating a big loss and then give us a major decision to take regarding next season. With current crowd levels we could be looking at a loss of ?100,000 in 2012. Obviously that's something we couldn't contemplate.?

While no-one would think that these attendance levels would be the norm for the new season, the promotion are asking fans to demonstrate that there is still a healthy public interest in East and Central Scotland to watch a team who have won the league twice in the last three seasons.

The club are hopeful that captain Matthew Wethers will be back in action this week after injury.