Well, we know Marc Green won't put a penny into the club.

This. Completely this.

I probably am one of those base hardcore. I've got my renewal sorted already, but then, I would have that renewal regardless of division, regardless of players, as so long as I can afford it. I am not in any way swayed or influenced by the emotional blackmail that comes out of the club and Mr. Ferres especially, who I honestly don't trust as far as I could throw him. I tend not to listen to most of the guff.

The club are in a Chicken and Egg situation. They need some success to get fans back. They need fans back to finance a team that can bring success. It's a difficult situation, but all this "each fan needs to spend £900 a year to get promotion" kind of rubbish falls on deaf ears here I'm afraid.

The problem with "each fan needs to spend £900 a year to get promotion" is that it is not a guarantee. If it was I am sure many would pay it as we did when we had the £500k in 10 days scenario. The scenario we have now is "once bitten twice shy".

Can someone provide a source for Marc Green, or anyone at the club, actually saying that '£900 to get promoted' rubbish, because I don't believe for one second that they actually said that.

What I suspect they might have said was, hypothetically, is that if we wanted to have a SL level salary cap available to us, then - at our current level of ST holders - each one would need to spend £900.

There is a big difference in those two statements. Nobody at the club would be dumb enough to say 'spend £900 to get the club promoted'.

Of course that's what they said. I was exaggerating to make a point, which I thought would be obvious.

Not obvious, quite a few people on here have used the same quote as if it was actually said.

MG was very upfront about his, 'financial plan' so we all knew from the off that he wasn't going to throw money at the club.

To say he won't put a penny in though, is nonsense as he clearly already has. Starting from the off, when all the season ticket money had clearly gone to the previous owners and he honoured the tickets, and built a side. Maybe he has a printing press, or maybe he put the cash in?

Yeah, pretty much agree with that.

I always thought the 'early bird' was mainly to attract some quick cash into the coffers and keep things running through the off season. To be honest, I always assumed that the EB rate was the 'financial plan rate' and that nearly everyone would logically pay that sum anyway. However, if they don't need to do this then fair enough - to be fair, I paid early anyway, though to keep the same seat in the stand you still have to be bit earlier than most.

Disagree it would be poop or bust. I think if we fail to get promotion, then i think we would be scaled back massively. Junior development, possible PT. Certainly a few years in the championship until an SL club inevitably goes under. The club would still be a strong championship club.

Despite all the doom & Gloom there are still some good things going on at the club, particularity in the junior setup. I believe we've signed up some real gems this time up and a lot of money has being put into the juniors which suggests to me MG is in it for the long term. If it all hinged on us getting promoted this season and would be poop or bust, then why would the club put money in to the juniors? Surely we would do what Leigh are doing, with their entire money going into the first team squad?

I'm glad we're focusing on getting our academy back to where it was a few years ago. My worry, though, is that anybody half decent will only stay with us for a short amount of time before SL clubs offer them what we cannot while we remain in the Championship.
I don't see any SL club going bust now. I think the only chance we have of going up is if the poor attendances continue in the super 8s and the big clubs put pressure on the RFL to change the system again. Either that or they expand the SL to 14 (or more) teams when the tv contract is renewed. But that's like 5 or so years away? We might be too far gone by then.

and anything can happen.