...with the uptake on season tickets at Salford, stating that Widnes, Wakefield and Bradford have all sold more. Marwen needs to realise that it's going to be a very long haul, there's no easy fix. I also think that he's insulting the three clubs he mentions.

Given his considerable marketing efforts, and on-field expenditure (compared to those clubs named) I don't thinks it's an unreasonable comparison, and is therefore in no way insulting.

Salford fans have been disheartened over the years. Perhaps it's got to a point where now seen is believing.

Salford have never been well supported Splashthecash will spit his dummy after a couple of seasons n Salford will be no more !

He's also coming into a era of general fan disillusionment, fixtures being messed around with on a regular basis and a club that had a small fanbase to start off with. In a stadium on the edge of town not in the heart of it.

If he gets the results on the field he'll see it slowly drip into the crowd numbers.

This is a bad move from Koukash.

Salford don't have a latent group of lapsed fans like say Bradford did, who watched a few years ago when they were good but have been waiting for them to get good again. Salford's fan base is small but it is pretty constant and loyal and has put up with a lot of seasons of rubbish. To grow the crowds in Salford, Koukash has to be reaching out to non fans in the area, to get them interested.

But when he says he's "disappointed in the response from the fans" he has to think of who his audience is.....'the fans' are the ones that have been buying the season tickets and have been there through years of rubbish. They are quickly going to get insulted.

I remember Simon Moran bringing up the issue of crowds in a much more diplomatic way, in 2005 or so, he made a comment to the Warrington Guardian along the lines of "if we were able to get our average gate up to such and such an amount we could spend maximum salary cap". He created the idea of a target with an incentive at the end that would get people to encourage their friends to come along to get us towards the target, without any implication that 'the fans' were not pulling their weight.

Rule one in any involvement with a sports club is don't insult the fans. Koukash is one of those owners like you sometimes see in football that likes the sound of his own voice too much in the media and embarrasses himself. His money is good for the game but he would do better if he followed Simon Moran's more professional approach.

Whilst he might be disappointed, what did he really expect? Salford have never been a massive club in terms of support and I'm not having a go, but, I remember the 70's when Snape invested in the team and the Willows and I don't seem to recall never ending queues along Weaste Lane on a matchday.

He surely needs to get 'old' fanbase back before he expands and as for them drawing on Greater Manchester as a whole well.....

BTW I've not been too impressed with our general level of support given the recent upturn in our fortunes and the fact that Warrington is a bit more defined as an RL town which presumably is easier to market

Most RL clubs, and fans of those clubs, have experienced as many dark days as bright during their history and what keeps fans coming back, or attracts reticent followers back, is the promise of a return to glory days or a large, hardcore fanbase who will stick with them through thick and thin.

Salford have neither, in many ways they are building from scratch on and off-field. The move to Barton alienated a lot of their long-term fans, they haven't enjoyed tangible success for decades and their crowds were never huge to begin with. Allied to this, I suspect season tickets in the game as a whole are flat-lining or down, as fans become more discerning about which games they attend, and Salford's catchment area of new supporters have footballs in between their ears.

Northern folk are discerning, canny individuals and it take a while to convince Salford speccies of the latest new dawn at Salford. Racehorses on the other hand tend to do as they are told, as Koukash may be ruefully reflecting.

Koukash probably has as much knowledge about the history of top flight RL in this country as Vincent Tan has about the prem.

Which is a good think (not the Tan bit) because he doesn't live in the past, something that our game struggles to shrug off.

His predecessor lived and breathed rugby league, so what is your point?

On the one hand I am not necessarily too concerned that may of may not know too much about RL but brings new money and hopefully new ideas and business acumen. The likes of Wakefiled, London, Castleford, Bradford have all struggled in recent times and perhaps need a bit of a shake up and get somebody to take over who knows how to run a business properly.

My only real concern with the Doc is if he builds something based on sand and it all collapses when he gets frustrated when not winning every pot in front of 50.000 speccys and walks away.

I mean if RU in its unenviable position of being one of the most tedious sports imaginable can generate buckets of cash, admittedly with more support form the 'establishment' we should be able to do something.

Good grief I should learn to proof read before submitting, hopefully it still makes some kind of sense.

The past is important to the game.

If a revolutionary thinker came in and suggested merging Warrington and St Helens into a super club that played league and union I'm sure the dinosaurs would oppose it.

Granted, but we've lived in the past too long and it's getting us no where.