I think it was universally accepted in 02 that had we gone down we'd have gone bust. It seems to me most fans, the players & certainly Cullen when he came in realised the battle was for more than the saving of the season, it was for the saving of the club & of the town in many ways. The feel good factor following the Cup win this year, the publicity surrounding the move to the HJ, Simon Moranovich & his chequebook, Andrew Johns, Monaghan, King, Myler, Morley - NONE of this would have happened had we been relegated.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but there can be little doubt 2002 was one of if not the most pivotal seasons in Wire's history since the formation of the Northern Union. The seasons of cup wins were more momentous, but none have held the balance of the future of the club in its hands quite so precariously...

I'm not so sure y'know about this 'fans were more understanding'. Laughton got plenty around where I stood for one, as did plenty of others I can think of.

I can also remember walking out of the JJB, and literally thinking 'Crouthers & Cardoza will never play for us again' after they, well, basically showed themselves up in a dismal display at the JJB, we got beat by 50+, those two in particular just looked like they couldn't give a hoot. I think IIRC, Halliwell came shortly afterwards, those two at centre stank that night.

I also remember them copping some abuse at Salford, good friday, nip & tuck of a game, we were attacking, someone threw the ball on the floor, Pinkney went full length and we lost, I remember the fans being really angry. Rivett & Cardoza were stood near me, not playing, they thought ot was hilarious when we were losing, and some fans decided to tick them off.

i always thought 97 was much worse than 02.

I remember that game (Wigan) as the earliest i've left a match - so early i had to find a steward to let me out at half time. Highlights of that season were basically Sid Domic & Darren Burns.

i think thats the one im thinking of. was that the season where we had to win the last game of the season to stay up? i thought it may have been earlier than that though....

yeah we ended up having to beat paris down here at wilderspool which went all the way to the last minute with john hough(remember him) haviong made a comeback to the squad and scoring very late on,though we got some dodgy decisions off cummings that day.

97 was bad, really bad but 02 was something else

paris you say?? don't remember it being them, perhpas im going back even earlier. jeez, this thread is making me feel old, more than anything else! i remember walking over wilderspool causeway talking to the old man saying if we don't win this, we'll be playing runcorn instead of widnes in the future. i think the game i remember was oldham, but you're probably starting to grasp hpw bad my memory really is!

Not sure thats entirely true. I remember a few nervous questions along those lines being put to Neil Dowson at Squadbuilder meetings in 2002, he was saying although relegation would be a blow, the new stadium was happening whatever, it wasn't dependent on Super League, and we weren't going to go bust.

Salford ended up going down, they were no better off than us, their new stadium was hardly imminent, and they managed to retain a full time squad in the National League in 2003, this is what I reckon we would have done. Maybe if some of the bigger shareholders had lost interest in us after we were relegated, Simon Moran would have bought his majority share for less than he had to pay in 2004.

I reckon we would have lost players like Burns, Domic and Wood to other SL clubs and the 2003 team in National League One would have been basically the young players of the time, like Huddersfield had done in 2002 when they came up. Blokes like Steve Maden, Dave Alstead, Mike Callan etc might have had a chance if we'd been down in 2003. We would probably have come up and that would have made a great story, first game back in Super League and moving into a new stadium...

I think it would have been harder to start the big signing drive in 2004 though, if we were in our first season back.

That was 2003 Geordie, 2002 home shirt was white with a primrose and blue V. the away top is still my fav mistly yellow with blue sholders