Agree with this. The match-day experience at the Willows was amateurish but streets ahead of what you have now.
Just a few examples:
Not all the food bars in the stands are open. The one in the West stand near the Leeds end ran out of milk.
The announcer has absolutely no charisma and sounds more like a fan than an announcer.
The ground is difficult to get into and the car park hard to get out of.
The ticketing is all to cock, and the stewards/ticket office generally haven't a clue what's going on.
Too many stewards and not enough friendly faces from the club around the ground. At the cup game it actually seemed like you had more stewards than supporters.
No Mascot...Ignito may have been a bit of a laughing stock with opposition supporters but at least he added to the experience.
The stadium is characterless.

It's not easy I know, especially if money is an issue, but some things don't cost anything. Even clubs like Hunslet and Batley have regular kids matches as curtain-raisers or half-time entertainment.

Maybe I've been a bit spoilt by going to Headingley where pre-match and half-time is outsourced to a professional events company working closely with the Rhinos community team, but I'm sure that even on a limited budget Salford could do much better.

To reply to the Leeds fans posting on here about our ground, these are the things that the club has no control over, the car park owned by the SMC, the stewards G4S and the catering a company have paid £13m over ten years for the catering contract they are supposed to be professionals, ticketing ticketmaster. So most of the gripes are nothing to do with the club but do effect the club unfortunately, the other stuff, mascots i have managed 40 odd years of going to watch rugby without a thought of a club's mascot I actually go to watch what the team are doing on the field, similar i have been attending Old Trafford since the year dot and i wouldn't have a clue what the mascot does or what happens pre-match or during half-time, i want to talk to mates about what we have just seen, but it gets drowned out by the sound system and the inane droning of the announcer. I just want to watch Rugby League, I don't want to wear a muppet hat or bang a drum a scarf and replica shirt will be just fine is that too much to ask for?

Rugby league needs to have relegation & promotion, without this it as an elite few & the game continues to die. The franchise system is killing rugby league.
Rugby league needs promoting badly at grass routes, in the schools, without this the game will continue to decline.

It is said more supporters are watching Super league (successful teams), this maybe true but this is at the expense of the lower leagues, just look at the lower league teams, Oldham, Rochdale but to name a couple, I work in Rochdale & I know of rugby fans who have deserted these clubs & now watch Huddersfield because they are winning.

Salford have lost more support during the franchise system because we get beat most weeks, at least when we were relegated you could regroup & rebuild. Our season is over again & we are only in May, nothing to play for.

Without real competition good or bad rugby league will continue to decline (general statement not just aimed at SRC)

The companies to which those services are outsourced are still employed by the club who should have some influence over them.
What you as an individual would have been fine before the advent of SL, but you have to offer much more than
'just watching Rugby League' if you want to bring a new generation of supporters through the turnstiles.

I could be wrong, though I'm sure I'm not in backing up Pev in saying that the club do not employ these people the SMC do. So we have very limited influence over them.

I suspect that is not the case, the stadium is operated by a management company who appear to have the responsibility for all aspects - you could argue that the club should have had some input but in truth none of us know what is in the tenancy agreement.

I agree that the match-day is pretty amateurish - I brought two friends for their first RL game firstly one of their two tickets wouldn't scan so they had to go and get it replaced in the shop, then when we joined the queue at HT to get a coffee as they were both frozen, we got to the counter to be told "run out" - guess what they weren't impressed and I suspect it may be a while before they return.

Can't go into detail but I know for fact that there are some issues around stewarding which the club (at the very top level) do take up with the SMC.
There should be clauses in any long-term outsourced contract to penalise poor performance.

I'm not arguing that the Reds are responsible, or even that they can have that much impact, but surely they are paying for a service here. If the service isn't good enough they should at least be making the effort to get something done about it.

The number of stewards has been one of my main gripes. There were 8 stewards guarding an empty South terrace during the academy game on Sunday.

Contacted the club earlier in the season about this, and was told the number of stewards is as set out in some sort of green stadium saftey guide. However this states the requirement is only for 1 steward per 250 supporters, so we still seem to be highly over-stewarded. No doubt it is Salford who are paying through the nose for this via the stadium rental costs.

In the South stand they either didn't have any hot chocolate at all, or the one other person who was in the stand before I got in, drank it all. I tried the two outlets in the south end of the west stand too, and they had none at 2.15pm. Who would think people might fancy a hot chocolate on a cold, wet and windy day?

No the Reds are paying rent to the SMC, so if there is a problem the club may take it up with the SMC but the SMC may or maynot do anything about it, we are in the same boat as Wigan we both rent and don't have a big say in how the ground is run.

I know,why don`t we do some promotional work at Makro,that could drum up some sponsorship and support.Genius,don`t you think.

Again, can't go into specifics as that would be breaking a confidence, but I've seen an e-mail from David Tarry which states categorically that at least one incident will be taken up and acted upon by both the club and the SMC with a view to changing the way stewards relate to fans.

As the chief states it is the clubs fans who are paying and using the services run by the stadium management company. I find it such a shame that all new stadium have the same poor quality expensive food and drink on offer.

This is not aimed particularly at Salford as its the same at every club and wasnt much different at the Willows but in my opinion the game day experience would be improved by offering more variety. Could the club not have a Holts pump at every bar and have a local independent supplier to provide good quality barms and pies at a reasonable price?

Very true. Whilst many of the things that people have gripes with are not up to SRLFC to actually deliver, the concern is that poor performance from the stadium management company, azure catering, and G4S stewarding all lead to a poorer matchday experience for the customers of SRLFC, and lessen the likelihood of repeat business. I really hope that the club are being proactive about this and not just taking the attitude that it's up to someone else to get right.