Quote: Diavolo Rosso "I find it frightening how alienated so much of our hardcore support is right now.'"
Its a bit weird reaily its like so many of us are suffering from a kind of "burnout" regarding the club and the direction it is heading, all this rumours and hearsay doesnt reaily help eather because being a salford fan after being let down time after time you instantly imagine the worst.
Personally ill feel a lot better when i hear matt parishes 1st interview since he has returned we have seen him do a few video interviews with salfords media man at his short time at the willows so i think we will gage what is going on by the way he is.
I remember in 2008 in the 2nd divison i could (and probably would) have given up the ghost if we hadnt got our superleague franchise im not ashamed to admit that i felt like i was suffering a kind of "burnout", the rugby was rubbish, the atmosphere was rubbish, i didnt particually enjoy going home and away at that point it became a chore, Feverstone away was proabably the worst i felt frustrated with both the playing staff and the way the club was run.
Luckly for me we got our franchise which helped, Wilshire kicking the goal in the final and the 20 minutes of madness that followed, we got permission to build the stadium, i stopped going doing "aways" on a regular basis due to other events in my life, Mcrae left eventually and with Vievers then Parish arrived and slowly i feel the hunger and the fire in the belly has returned.
I dont see Barton as a negative at all, its a new platform for the club to try and perform as a proffessional rugby league club, its easy to hide in the back streets of weaste blaming lack of passing trade, when we move to Barton THERE IS NO HIDING PLACE ANYMORE its do or die for everyone who is lucky enough to work in the club be that the tea boy or the Cheif exec
Sale proabably sharing our space will mean we have to up our game just to stand still which in a way a succesful business is run.
The club in many ways the club have their finger on the pulse of so many good things (twitter, facebook, phone alerts ect) but struggle with touching the comman man (or woman) on the street with general infomation about the club and thats the frustrating thing they just arnt able to connect with the average joe.
They reaily have to look at trying to go to the people in the local community of salford and manchester and say "WE ARE YOUR TEAM"
Money is an issue but its not the be all and end all, the club should be doing some kind of market research with local business in the area to say what would you want from your local rugby team, we help you..you can help us and together we can move forward
I dont believe in free tickets it devalues the product, perhaps discounted tickets for adults who have kids who sign up for rugby classes or fun days is the way to go, instead of treating us fans like mushrooms and not telling us anything the club reaily need to reach out to the community and try and make this a success, without us the existing fans Salford RL dies its as simple as that.
I just hope that JW listens to Salford Ladys ideas and puts them into place, he is the man who can make it happen, leading from the front, id rather us go out of business trying to make this a success than standing still and slipping of the radar never to be seen again, least the club can say they tried
A new stadium will mean changes, perhaps not today, not this week, perhaps not this year but soon the club will need to evolve to continue to grow, the people who did a job for us in the back streets of weaste will be replaced if they are unable to go to the next level.
At the moment lost of people can see what is coming like a car crash, our offield departments arnt communicating very well with the outside world (our potential fan bace) sale will march in with their juggernaught marketing and communication skills and steal would could be our new fans thats the concern i feel deep down for a lot of our fans.
As for Salford RL i agree with the wigan fan, i didnt fall in love with the willows all them years ago, its the rollercoaster ride of watching a team which sometimes can and sometimes cant achieve did it for me, you just never know with salford what your going to get with salford be that playing or admin,
At the end of the darkest day the light will begin to shine though and tomorrow will be a lot brighter im sure of it, us fans will feel a lot better about the direction of the club is taking and the love will return i can guarantee...if you still want it...
Quote: Diavolo Rosso "Gonna go slightly against the grain here. Even though we all know there is a 95% chance of Salford messing things up as usual, there is the 5% chance that we might actually stumble across some sort of method that ends in us making a success of it. It is still a decent opportunity etc for the club if we can make the most of it. The most annoying thing however, is that it is pretty obvious that the club would at the drop of a hat trade it's current fanbase for a new family orientated happy clappy brigade. The attitude seems to be that we are not too bothered about the current fans as Barton will attract a totally new fanbase. Pretty risky strategy.'"
Thats the kind of crazy bonkers plan id expect from salford