I think Salford would find a fat investment and blue chip sponsors if they rebranded as Manchester.
Salford is always going to be that scruffy little cousin down the road to Manchester.

The location of their stadium is a major issue in getting people through the turnstiles. It's just too much trouble parking, getting to and from etc. Compare that to the HJ, especially on a Saturday afternoon when fans pack the nearby town centre pubs and eating places. Thank God we didn't go for the out of town option in 2002 with the horrific Limekiln plan.

Ooohhh i'd never heard that before about the out of town location.

Yes, the club was talking about a site on the edge of the old Burtonwood airfield as close to St Helens town centre as Warrington's. Nothing around it, just a massive car park. 99% of speccies would have to drive or take two or more buses. We would have been the new Salford.

That was a bullet dodged.

We should be incredibly thankful for initially fantastic support from the council and subsequently support from Moran and latterly Middleton.

But the council fostered this growth in the club, land given by Tetley Walkers, Planning Permission for the supermarket and stadium given by the council on the condition Tesco paid for the stadium. Fit out of stadium then paid for by sponsorship through Martin Dawes I think? Look at other deals for council built stadiums and we’ve been very lucky to end up with a facility that is owned by us when you look at Hull FC, Leigh, Salford, Saints etc etc.

I'm sorry but this is complete nonsense.

For all there are 'unsavory' areas, every town has them and Salford is a city btw, there is wealth in Salford, Fred and Peter Done are perhaps best known in that category, the trick is finding one that is interested in the sport and their hometown club.

Salford has a strange demographic, yes it does get over shadowed by its conjoined twin and does suffer with its identity to distinguish itself from Manchester particularly as an evening there would be classed as going uptown. But it does have a Cathedral, a proper University, two Rugby League teams, a Football Team in the old Fourth Division and the area around the Docks is impressive

For all the limitations in numbers Salford do have a group of diehards and I'm not sure they would relocate and accept a rebrand and I don't see 6,000 Mancunians waiting in the wings to take their place.

They missed the boat IMO with the ground location and its design somewhere like Agecroft, or as part of a redevelopment of Littleton Road sharing with Salford City and Swinton might have made more sense

Make your mind up, it’s either complete nonsense or it’s not.

Oh it's complete nonsense alright, and part quoting my post doesn't prove your point or weaken my argument. Manchester's boom isn't because of an influx of Rugby League starved residents.

What you seem to be advocating is a move to relocate Salford to a Manchester, let's say they will be called or merged with Manchester Rangers and they can then flourish spreading the Rugby League Gospel across the whole of Greater Manchester whilst recognizing that Wigan Leigh Rochdale Oldham Swinton will draw on most of the appetite for the game.

Well it seems that this has been mooted before and there wasn't any traction. I'm not au fait with the current state of play but Rangers have a connection with Salford but with Salford being the senior partner. Oh and the current fans who moan about getting a bus from Weaste to Barton, well a trip to Belle Vue or the Etihad Campus mmm don't think so

Decision day tomorrow.

I hope they sort something out but can understand (without knowing the full facts) why other Clubs are taking their time giving the thumbs up as I'd say that any bail out no matter how temporary needs to be a one off with the issues that brought this cash flow crisis on resolved in future.

It's a balancing act isn't it, we are in competition but need (viable) competitors and the pool is small enough as it is, perhaps too small?

This difficulty should have been brought up before the end of last season ,especially as London Broncos have once more had to suffer relegation.

Well it’s not the first time they have been bailed out this way. Not sure what the different reasons for each time but there as to be a line drawn how many times this can be done. Maybe that’s why the clubs have gone away to think/look at it.

Think this time Salford have to demonstrate that going forward they can be sustainable. Hopefully with the stadium situation sorted out they can get better revenue streams from it and this shows they don’t need to get the begging bowl out again. Salford have done well on the pitch with limited resources if they can replicate that off the pitch they should be ok. Read some are laying the blame at Blease’s feet for this.

Totally agree that viability should be looked at I'm not sure how much the points would have been affected on the IMG Gradings or whether IF it was a case that Salford would have been downgraded below London but a quick check Salford were 8th and London 24th on that particular metric

IMG criteria.

Finances: Reflects success of fan engagement and business performance
Rewards sustainable investment and sound financial management.

Score max 4.5 which is 22.5% of the total score

I don’t know if Salford revealed their ratings but they did come 12th with 13.97 next on list is Toulouse at 13.58 then London at 12.65.

Actually found their score for finance.

Finance (max score 4.5): – 2.15
Non-centralised turnover £: 1.50 / 2.25
Non-centralised turnover %: 0.15 / 0.75
Adjusted profit: 0.25 / 0.5
Owner investment: 0.25 / 0.5
Balance sheet strength: 0.00 / 0.5