Tony

I'm not one bit surprised this has happened, it was inevitable, the club was riddled with a disease, you don't treat the symptoms for the disease you eradicate the source to progress forward. This is the same in Salford case. The board is the disease whats put this club on it's death bed FACT.

Shows how daft you are, TB says he's blocked you but still reply.
Same no doubt you'll reply to this despite you now being added to the block list.

Red League : please explain the morality of slamming a person who has put his OPWN money into a club to try to keep it alive.
Eccleswhatsit : please explain the stance of falling out with a chairman whose actions allowed you the liberty of supporting Salford until you decided otherwise. You condemn his actions even when those actions allowed you to support the club for several years.
Philyourbutt: oh whatever: you're happy now

Other than maybe one or two clubs, rugby league teams simply don't make money. Unless you have a backer who can absorb the losses, you're eventually going to become unstuck. It's finally become too much.

The whole sport needs a rethink on how it's clubs are run.

Didn't the Variety Centre get wound up? Or did I imagine that? Sounds more like something that will have cost money in the end to me.

Yes I'll explain! Wilkinson has made millions out of the Salford public and surrounding areas for the past 30 years through the variety centre's shows Christmas party's new years party's, dinners/awards evenings, weddings the lot! And what of that has he pumped into our team to make it successful? NOTHING! But his family have gained out of it big time! For gods sake our record transfer fee Is still 50000 for Gary broadbent, to be successful you have to speculate to accumulate and since 1982 that man has never spent the big bucks to compete not one season! I remember Neil baynes telling me that he was only pulling in £300 before tax, he said most of the team were on the same pay, that is what you call cheap! Like I said earlier the variety centre was built to raise funds for the team, wilkinson obviously forgotten all about that.

really GT? If you believe it actually went out of business you are naive.

OK. Sorry. I'll hide in the corner. How embarrassed am I?

Rightly or wrongly, I always felt secure at the Willows. We never seemed to go and spend beyond our means - which sometimes meant relegation, but almost a guaranteed promotion the year after - and I always felt we competed pretty well within our capabilities ie generally lower table finishes, with the odd decent scalp along the way. How could we have done much better on the size of the crowds we got? Major opportunites were missed following our decent seasons in recent times: 1997 = 6th, 1998 = 11th. 2006 = 5th, 2007 = 12th (and relegated).

The last two years or so, have been like a really bad dream, one from which we aren't seemingly going to wake up from. Scriptwriters from a certain other Salford based soap opera could surely not have come up with what we have been served up:

The sale of decent young talent eg Myler, Turner, Ratchford / McRae going on leave following stress / Alker getting sacked and the whole sorry saga involved with the dismissal of the hitherto iconic clubman / Vievers in / Vievers out / Parish in / Parish out / Vievers in / the shambolic lead up to the final game at the Willows and the potential to sell the new vision to a 10,000 crowd, spurned / a hopeless inept loss to Leigh at the first game at the new stadium / playing the first competitive game in an inch of snow / Sale move in before we've had a chance to warm the bed / Matty Smith sold with a third of the season remaining / players undermining the club on Twitter / a player taking the club to tribunal in an attempt to get out of his contract / a sponsor employed to help the club with their finances getting involved with a winding up petition against the club / players employed to help the club with their on-field performances getting involved with a winding up petition against the club / an extensively dragged-out 'financial rescue' which amounted to a failed attempt to get a loan to see us lurch on for another year...

I've no doubt missed out plenty of other issues which I've either forgotten or blanked from my memory to save further pain.

Less than one year on from the dawning of our new dream, we are faced with the ultimate nightmare: no club to support at all and the loss of our tired but beloved old ground. With no framed turf to help remember her by...

300 pound a week baynesy must of been having you at it mate, i know salford didnt pay the best money in the world but ill guarantee you that they would of been paying more than that, i know patten holdsworth feka and others were on 100k plus, plus simms money you could buy a few good ones with that

That answers the question in the title of the thread.

He wasn't having me on, he was telling me how the club pays bad wages, just shows a few years of paying big wages and we need council loans and player sales to carry on, if wilkinson hasn't got the money why did he stay in control all them years? I'll tell you why because that gold mine/variety centre kept the pound signs in his eyes! Keep the rugby club surviving on a shoe string budget while he made millions for his family, shows
Where his priorities really lie, and now he's looking to retire he cuts his losses and the willows variety centre gets wound up (takes his
Money and runs)