Nick as positive a post as you have done. Do you honestly think we'll get 8 wins this year when we can't even beat Crusaders? I'd be interested to see who you think we will win?

So im not a proper fan because i booed on Friday, despite the fact that i will be there next Friday and will probably not miss a game this season? What a load of bol*ocks.

In my eyes no are not. And I would suggest that a great many other true fans will agree.

A real fan would never try to undermine the confidence of the team. What other outcome would you expect to arise from booing the players?, is it to motivate them to greatness?

Spot on.

Very honest of you, glad you realised

Some of the posts on this thread are baffling in the extreme. We get beaten senseless by the only team we have any realistic chance of beating this season and still some people don't seem to acknowledge the mess we are in. The club is shambolic on and off the field and yet for some on here criticising any aspect of the club isn't allowed. As for your comments about not being true fans Michigan Red, what a load of garbage! Madness for someone who doesn't even bother with away games to be making judgements on the quality of other individuals support. We'll see how many of these 'true fans' go to Leeds on Friday.

I'd rather have thousands of fans who don't go to away games than a dozen who think it's appropriate to boo a new, young team 15 minutes into our first home game of the season.



My worry is the huge number of people, perhaps including yourself, who are apparently incapable of recogniseing the gigantic grey area between 'not acknowledging we are in a mess' and 'booing our new, young players off the park, many of whom have done little wrong'.


Do Portsmouth players deserved to be booed off the park after every one of their PL home games?

Did Celtic players deserve to be booed off the park after after SL home game last year?

Being a poor side, or turning in a poor performance, doesn't mean having to be booed constantly.

Salford til I die?! Don't make me laugh. Our fans are a far bigger embarrassment to me than our coach, our team or our club.

100% spot on someone talking sense at long last. The club is in a mess from top to bottom at the moment. I just don't get how people can sit there year after year defending the club. Big big changes need happen and quick!

We all know how much of a mess the Club is in, it's just that bitching about sacking coaches and booing players after just two matches is a little extreme. Salford fans always used to be there to support the team through thick and thin, rallying the lads even when we were getting trounced. When you support a struggling side these are the things we should take pride in, and the fact that we are nearly always going to be fighting up hill battles it's what should set us apart from the fickle fans of other Clubs.

You can still bitch and moan, and we all do, it's just not particularly constructive to call for the coaches head and boo players just yet.

Anyone expecting us to set the world alight is deluded. It's an unfortunate fact at the moment, but we are the weakest team in SL atm and you shouldn't place your expectations too high.

I actually accept what you are saying about booing them off on Friday and for the record I didn't boo. I also agree the team getting flak was pointless as we all knew before the season they were a patchwork team pieced together at the smallest possible expenditure and were bound to get flogged most weeks.

The point I am getting at is no one seems able to look at why we had this awful team on the park in the first place. The fact we have practically no chance of getting a franchise next time around. The fact we seem to be in permanent decline. The fact John Wilkinson's chairmanship has been pretty much a constant disaster for 29 years. The fact that other teams have moved forward and we seem to be happy to be slowly dying. I would even say McRae deserves more slack this year as the team he has to work with is terrible.

I don't want to be tarred with leading some lynch mob as I'm not. My post was more about people's support being questioned and people sticking their heads in the sand in regards to our current state. I agree about taking pride in supporting Salford whatever state we are in but I think this misty eyed view of getting behind the lads even when we were getting thrashed in years gone by is abit far fetched.

As someone who has openly stated elsewhere on here that I have stopped watching Salford this season, I expect plenty of abuse from the 'top reds' out there but I still see this as a supporters forum and I have the right to speak as a lover of what the club meant to me. It has been a quite horrendous decision to make; to stop watching Salford (Home and Away) after 40 odd years but I can not watch the club squirm and die in front of me. The club is imploding and I can't watch it any more. I have been stood by the radio for the opening games and the situation is truly impossible and largely indefensible. As Red Willow rightly alludes; the whole Family Membership was the final straw for me (and clearly many others). The principle of being a paying member of something, with little in terms of selling points other than my own blind loyalty to a poor team, was a personal insult, after not being required to be a Family Member all my previous years. Mr McRae can not improve on what we have because it isn't good enough so we will struggle to ever sell it. I can't, realistically, see how Salford can be given a further Franchise given the mania for expansion. I feel grim making the decision not to watch the death throes but feel, like many others, that is what is happening. The writing has been on the wall for the past 2-3 years at least. The once, threatening fervour of the Shed is a broken, puzzled, desperate place where nobody quite knows what to do or what is expected. The players for so long now, don't seem to have any link with the Shed and at times don't seem interested. I don't know if that is the Management or the Coaching but I can't watch it any more - it's no longer enjoyable. I reached the stage last season where I realised I was almost dreading the next game. To pretend that getting hammered by Crusaders at home is anything but disasterous is delusional. Even blind loyalty to the cause has its breaking point, believe me...



* Cue the abuse.

I can understand your concerns, and share many of them, but wonder how many other teams "have moved forward"?

During the SL era Gateshead Thunder, London Broncos, Halifax Blue Sox, Oldham Bears, Paris Saint Germain and Sheffield Eagles have all gone to the wall, while other clubs like Leigh, Widnes, Keighley, Bradford, Workington, Hull, etc. are arguably in a worse position now than they were at the inception of Super League.

Considering the poor attendances (even when we've been playing well) it's a testiment to JAW that we still have a club to support. I know we have one of the weakest squads in SL but that's because we're one of the poorest clubs (both in terms of finances and quality).

How do we change this?
- spend big on players you can't afford and end up in the financial strife that HKR are in?
- get a new sugar daddy (a la Wire, Hudds, etc) - it's not like JAW hasn't offered to step aside but he hasn't exactly been trampled on in the rush?!
- build a new stadium (a la Wire, Hull, etc) - that's the route the club have taken (quite rightly IMHO) and, although it's not been a smooth ride, I think it's fair to say JAW has put his all into making his dream a reality. Whether it proves to be the saviour of the club is still to be seen, but at least he'll be able to say he did everything he tried.

In the meantime, IMHO, fans should do all they can to support the club and especially the team, whilst accepting that we're going to be at the wrong end of the division (see Barnsley fans in their one-year visit to the Premiership).

I chose not to boo the players. I prefered to applaud the Crusaders players and recognise they had done a job on us. We were poor, and they just took advantage. As much as I was annoyed by what some players had said to me in the off season... to all intense and purposes... this was a pretty new side who will take time to gel. The buck for this kind of defeat has to stop with the coach who made some poor judgements and little tactical changes to affect the possibilities of a result in our favour.

The club have made some poor decisions recently and does look like a very amateur setup in so many areas... but I tell you what... I think this will change in time. Maybe not overnight and very soon... but over time it will. McRae isn't going anywhere soon unless he resigns.... and it doesn't look like he's going to do that unless he gets the England job that he's applied for... The club won't be able to pay him off so we have him for 2 more years. In that time... we WILL be building a new stadium... and I bet a pound to a penny that McRae won't be the head coach when we move in there. So maybe we just have to be patient. We can't get relegated... we are more than likely going to have some god awful performances over the next 2 years... but lets just get this out of the way... get the stadium built... and go into 2012 with a new ground, a new coach, and probably a better team. If this ground gets built I find it hard to believe we won't get a franchise. I'd much rather be in this position now that £3.5 million in debt like Hull KR.

Short term pain.... long term gain.

I'm not happy with what I saw on Friday, but a bit of time thinking about it has done me the world of good.

I quite literally pains me to say it, and I don't ever remember agreeing with you before (nor do I plan to do so again any time in the future) but that's actually a really, really good post.