Three full months in to the season, and Widnes had played four home games.
If you take into consideration pre-season, at this point of the year we are exactly half-way through the year-long contract of players.
In real terms, that means Widnes have been paying wages to the squad for six months – and have been able to draw upon four home games worth of revenue to do so.
They’ve been fortunate this year that a home cup draw with Warrington, not only provided a home game, but one that generated an unusually high amount of revenue (believed to be in the range of £38k), without which, the club might well have been in a financial pickle.
Breaking down Widnes’ fixture schedule
The below graphic shows the 34 weeks of the season. Away games are shown in red, home games shown in green. A “C” in the box means it was a cup weekend (which of course means that in theory, it could have been drawn home or away, with the exception of the Rochdale opener). An X in the box means a bye week. A grey box with a “C” is a weekend off due to cup where Widnes had been knocked out earlier than that round.
The early parts of the season are littered with cup games. You can’t get away from that.
What you could change though is making sure teams played home and away either side of a cup game, so that they aren’t then relying on the lottery of being drawn at home in the cup to get a game on their own patch.
The prime example this season was that Warrington cup game – had Widnes not been drawn at home in that game, they would have gone from February 23rd to April 13th without playing a home game.
Huge wait between home games giving little chance of momentum
Even discounting Widnes’ poor home form this season, the time you have to wait between home games (until the three in a row in June) makes it very difficult for the club to build momentum in terms of ticket sales and attendances.
Any lapsed fans enthused by the occasion of the Warrington cup match had to wait a whole month (from March 15th to April 13th) for the next home game to attend.
Aside from the back-to-back home games against Barrow and Oldham ahead of Easter, Widnes have had to wait three, four or even five weeks between home games.
- From home game 1 (Sheffield) to home game 2 (Warrington): 20 days
- From home game 2 (Warrington) to home game 3 (Barrow): 29 days
- From home game 3 (Barrow) to home game 4 (Oldham): 5 days
- From home game 4 (Oldham) to home game 5 (Featherstone): 23 days
- From home game 5 (Featherstone) to home game 6 (Halifax): 35 days
How do clubs expect to build a fanbase on such a schedule?
How does rugby league become part of someone’s routine with such gaps between home games?
We are fortunate in the Championship that the large majority of games are 3pm on a Sunday. In my view, that is a huge advantage and should be in terms of growing interest.
But if your home games are the equivalent to feast or famine, it is hard to get that routine bedded in.
HAHAHA – no laughing matter
Widnes are currently in a run of four away games out of five. After that, they then have three home games in a row. That then turns into five home games out of six.
In the first 10 weekends of the season, Widnes had two home games. They’ll now have five across seven weekends (they is a blank weekend due to a bye).
Here is a graphic that shows league fixtures only – bearing in mind that this doesn’t show the gaps in the schedule where you might have had weeks off for cup games or byes.
On the face of it, it doesn’t look too bad. However, there’s barely any runs of HAHAHA, which is the desire of many fans. It becomes worse when you compare it with the above graphic, which really exposes the weeks between home games.
How are other clubs affected?
Some point to the availability of grounds as an issue for not being able to have a clean home-away-home-away run of games.
Grounds shared with football teams generally have some sort of maintenance in the summer, which means Doncaster, Halifax, London, Oldham and York could be impacted.
A quick glance at the fixtures shows Oldham will go from May 25th to July 6th (ironically against Widnes) without a home (this incorporates three away games, a bye weekend and a weekend off due to cup final).
Halifax go from May 11th to June 29th without a home game (this incorporates two weekends off due to cup, three away games and a bye weekend).
Doncaster play five successive away games from June 15th to July 20th.
London routinely move games to alternative venues (like Rosslyn Park) anyway, and York don’t appear to have any real change from the norm.
This season will likely be an anomaly, as Championship should return to an even number of teams next season, so bye weekends will be removed.
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The fixture scheduling was debated on Episode 13 of the 2025 Widnes Rugby Chat podcast, listen below:
