88 89 and 90 two league titles and a world club Challenge (which to be fair wasnt a major trophy more of a novelty and was in its first official year)

so how that differs from 09 10 and 11 with two challenge cups and league leaders shield I'm not entirely sure .....except one was more recent the other isnt.

In fairness anyone that was a Widnes fan in the decade or so before that would have seen regular success:
1975 Challenge Cup
1979 Challenge Cup
1980 Premiership
1981 Challenge Cup
1982 Premiership
1983 Premiership
1984 Challenge Cup
1988 League, Premiership
1989 League, Premiership
1990 Premiership

I'm just including the major trophies that have an equivalent today and am ignoring the Lancashire Cup that they won six times and Regal Trophy twice in that period. Other than a brief spell in the late 1980s Widnes were not the dominant team in the country but for a long spell of about 15-16 years they were always contenders for major honours and won major trophies regularly. That is a good achievement because over that time frame they will have had to turnover lots of players and probably build around 3/4 different teams and not drop off. Their achievements from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s are similar to Saints from the mid 1990s to now.

So in the context of that we have a long way to go to match that achievement however we have three major trophies in the past three seasons and are one of if not the strongest side at the moment with the best coach in the game and quite possibly the best and most stable set up off the field so Widnes fans must have that daunting feeling that Liverpool fans had in around 1994 when they were taunting United for having won two league titles in donkeys years and telling them to come back when they'd won 18. I don't expect Warrington to go on to dominate rugby league like United did in football but its quite feasible that we could go on to win trophies at the rate that Widnes did in that period above, ie winning a major honour every couple of seasons for the next decade. Meanwhile when are Widnes next going to win a trophy, I can't see them winning anything in the next decade unless they go back down and win the National League Grand Final, so for Widnes fans any fading clams of their trophy record against ours now might be as good as they get as in a decade's time we might well have added a few more trophies to our record whilst they continue to look back at 1990 as the last time they had anything to cheer about.

But I suppose you should never say never, I doubt when David Plange was sacked in August 2002 many people would have realised within 8 years we'd have back to back Challenge Cups...

Indeed, and I am from that era. In fact, it is that record you highlight there that makes it so hard for people like myself to accept where we are right now. I dont think ANY team has fallen that far, and from such a height - despite the claims of your Halifax's, Fev's etc. What makes it worse is that only some of it has been the doing of the club and its ownership.

As I said in earlier post - people like me will ALWAYS hang on to past glories as it is human nature. What we really want is to get back to being a top-half side competing for silverware. I hope that comes sooner rather than later because I firmly believe SL, and certainly Warrington, St Helens and Wigan will benefit massively from it. And as much as anything, we need as many good sides on the Western side of the pennines as possible.

No matter how big the gulf is between widnes and warrington widnes will always bring 1500-2000 fans to wire/ and vise versa. That in itself makes it an exciting game and there's only a handful of teams that bring that many supporters to warrington. I remember our last stint in SL. First season nobody gave us a hope in hells chance and neill kelly ended up getting coach of the year, beating warrington twice. We had a side mixed with nfp players and aussies nobody had really heard of. I'm not saying we will beat you this year but with watts. Clarke, cross. Hanbury,briscoe and supposedly two more players to come in I think we can compete with the likes of salfordand london. Watts himself for his short stint on the field showed the agression and class he has.

Its a three year process for us. We have a great stadium, great owner who will spend money, great fans and some fantastic academy lads coming through. We will get stronger and the derby days from 10 years ago will be back. 5th april, 26th may and 19th september is all that matters to me.

I should think you will bring more than that?

Exactly. How many does that stand hold and how many did we bring on monday?

The last season Widnes were in Super League our game against Harlequins drew a bigger crowd even though the Widnes game was a traditional Easter fixture.

I cannot see that Super League benefits by including a team from what is to all effects a village between Warrington and St Helens.

As apposed to the Australian crusaders? Biggest farce ever throwing them in the deep end? London? Crowds have not generated in London since the start of sl.

It benefits from one of the brightest academies, facilities, stadium nd one of the best owners in the league.

I did say they were a bit touchy.

You can cite cups won in the 1970s and 1980s with gay abandon, and there's no doubt that Widnes had a number of great sides in those eras.

But, unlike in 2001, you're unlucky to score much of a hit by trolling Wire fans when we all remember doing a jig in the sun at Wembley while the hardcore Widnes fans were struggling to raise a Fandango at Featherstone.

I also think people who are new to this derby will be a bit surprised by the crowds, however, and that is obvious in this thread. In a reduced-capacity Wilderspool there was always a tense atmosphere, but realistically Widnes didn't bring a great number of fans over - not more than Leeds or even Hull.

I won't bite but you know your talking bubbles

I prefer 'between Halewood and Murdishaw' personally

Widnes fans are similar to Wigan fans in the way they go on about past glories. This Widnes side has no history, they have only been around for 3 years after the other team went bust.

Looking back at the derby gates last time around, they attracted big crowds in Widnes first year back (2002) and our first year at the HJ (2004) - both games they won - but the other three derbies played at Warrington were nothing unusual compared to our average gates at the time in fact two of those three were lower gates than our average for the season.

In 2002 we had an average gate of 6189 and the gate for the Widnes game was 9105. Widnes had a higher average gate than us that season (6510)
In 2003 we had an average gate of 6978 and the gates for Widnes games were 7264 and 6902. That season the game at Widnes had a higher gate than the two at Warrington - 8537

At that time (pre HJ), the two clubs were probably about equal in size with roughly equal gates.

In 2004 we moved to the HJ and had an average gate of 9880, with a gate for the Widnes game of 11413.
In 2005 we had an average gate of 11078 and the gate for the Widnes game was 10061.

Widnes average gates stayed at around 6500 for their four seasons in SL.