Quote: Alan "Frank, I arrived early, and saw the number of young kids/families arriving. There were three schools there yesterday. There were three/four Golden Gamble sellers on the concourse, a lot of fuss was made about their (good) new programme, there was a troupe of cheerleaders, and a good atmosphere around the pitch - and yes that was aided by the number of Leigh supporters. Unfortunately, the Fev players picked up on the good atmosphere and thrived on it!
My point is that we are looking to measure ourselves against the Sooper Dooper league clubs, but we still have some catching up to do on Fev - both on and off the pitch. maybe we can learn from them?'"
On the field we were clearly outplayed on Sunday, however in terms of a pre season ours has been a shambles - as soon as the Salford situation started to deteriorate we needed to schedule a more worthwhile game than Wigan reserves. As a consequence our players are probably 2 weeks behind other teams in terms of being match ready and from talking to Fev fans about their pre season we're probably a month behind them.
Our bigger issue is off the field, our board and chief exec are a million miles behind those at Fev and other clubs. Before everybody starts, a tremendous Dunkirk spirit kicked in when Arthur had to pull out, however this has not been built on and we are now going backwards in terms of crowds, matchday experience etc etc.
Our inability to attract new sponsors to the club is clear for all to see, the shambles of Richie Blackmore being brought over on decent money and not being allowed/supported in a role which he clearly was never intended to get - I applaud the fact that Keith is a man of his word, however despair at the fact Richie was given longer than the end of January to get over here and thus become a dead cost as opposed to an asset. Good luck to Rob Parker in trying to make things happen in this area, the odds of him getting any support in something he obviously has no experience of are slim to none.
Whilst acknowledging we are unlikely to ever get another Arthur, which perhaps isn't a bad thing, the fact remains we do need a board prepared to introduce some personal monies to take the club forward. If Keith, Phil, John and the woman who doesn't attend are not so inclined, then bring people in who might - just having RFL box tickers in place for a licence application no sane person could ever "beleighve" we have a snowballs in hell chance of getting is a total waste of everybody's time and effort.
