higson to swinton

Quote: leighonardo "Well my point is that prior to AT coming on board, there was an open fans meeting held in the MM Bar during October 2006, discussing a financial deficit and the clubs sorry state of affairs. We had no coach, no team, no CEO. We were all encouraged to help the club out by buying a season ticket, joining the lottery and increasing our LISA contributions as otherwise the future was looking very bleak, simply put.

The meeting was chaired from the clubs perspective by Mr Coffey and Mr Freer.

Roll on to October 2011, and what have the club achieved under the present incumbernts? We all know the answer....

So what are the barriers to finding new 'investment'?

I do wonder why Mr Ainscough was interested enough to come along to 'a few meetings' as Mr Freer informed us at the fans forum he did, but then ultimately decided that 'investing' into Leigh RL is not suitable for his circumstances right now.'"

To be fair the circumstances were a little different then. There was a lot of mistruths banded about then and the club didn't handle things at all well. People were at a low ebb by the loss of Tony Benson as coach. As far as I remember everyone got paid.

We were fortunate in the fact that AT came on board and began to bank roll the club and run it his way. The financial landscape was very different then too.

Fast forward 5 years and we've had 2 recessions, lots of redundancies, record levels of unemployment. I don't think the money is there for people to invest. We've got firstly club staff and then secondly club players who are going without wages.

Forget the investment, forget the one great white knight, he's been locked out of the castle. That said, if one appears this must be seen as a Brucie bonus. Fan involvement has to be the future in line with a sound business plan and one that can be built on. Who knows, if it is run well and the club continues and progresses it could attract investment.