Only way you'll get a lot of lapsed Wigan fans back now is if we have our own stadium. I'd rather stand on a grass verge at Robin Park Arena than sit in a soulless dump like the DW. Come on Lenners lad, announce Robin Park.

Both my late parents went together to that match and said, it was that crowded, their feet hardly touched the ground after the match till they got to Standishgate.

Reputations are hard won and easily lost. So are ST holders. IL has taken them for granted for a few years with some disasterous PR stunts - Millwall, Hull in Oz, Edwards, Bateman re-signing etc. It will take more than a couple of signings to rebuild the trust between the club and the former ST holders.

If NONE of those things had happened - I would suggest we would be in virtually the same position we are now
Said it previously,
People blame IL for not buying big names - We buy big names and nothing changes
People Blame the stadium - But we've averaged crowds at this stadium bigger than anything we had at Central Park
We had Big names in the early 00's - Rubbish crowds
We have had teams with average players - Big Crowds

We've had success - Rubbish crowds
We've had periods of mediocrity and had Great crowds

People have seen my previous thoughts on this subject and ultimately I do believe that the club do need to "Market"/Promote the club better than it does especially in the last year or 2 - But I also believe that the fans/casual watchers or whatever do need to decide if we want the club to remain at the top of RL hierarchy. It's a 2 way street and I have also said that some of the Fans negativity towards it's chairman, coach, players, stadium etc.. over the last 7/8 years or so through what I would argue relatively speaking is one of the most successful periods in the clubs history is remarkable!
And the trouble with that is that through Social Media reach the most dissenting voices get heard more and over a wider audience and it affects other peoples perceptions creating even more negativity.
We seem very happy to criticise the smallest thing, but unwilling to praise what are sometimes fantastic achievements.

Agree.

Casual fans have too many excuses not to show up these days. The two playoff crowds against Salford were abysmal and not far short of embarrassing especially when you consider what the queue for OT tickets would have looked like first thing Saturday morning.

The "official" crowds may be better at the DW Stadium because it is a more secure Stadium with full length turnstyles instead of small turnstyles where kids could be handed over, climb over or crawl under and no accessible walls to climb like there was at Central Park.

If the club and some supporters think that the signing of Hastings, George Burgess, Bibby and Clarke are big signings, they are poor compared to some of the signings of other clubs and have not inspire, from what I gather, a mad rush for season tickets.

As for the marketing of games, you only have to look at the lack of pre match publicity at many non season ticket games games like Challenge Cup ties and play off games like last seasons Play Off Semi Final, even for the recent Liam Farrell Testimonial game.

And what success the club has had in the last 7/8 years is nothing compared to the time that the "gang of four" ran the club, especially when Maurice Lindsay was the Chairman.

Even the club website is out of date. The season starts next week and unlike other top clubs, we still do not know the names of the players who will be in the squads of the Under 18, Under 16 Academies or the Women's team.

Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, the marketing and publicity of the club has gone downhill in the last few seasons especially since good administration staff like Simon, Graham and Paul have left the club.

Don't know where to start?

I can't compare crowds at the DW to Central Park as some kids may have crawled under a turnstyle or climbed over a wall? Ok

Current Man of Steel signed this year plus an International Ex NRL Experienced Prop - A previous Man of Steel the previous year - But our recruitment isn't as good as other clubs
And bear in mind, without any financial restrictions that the current Regime need to deal with the Gang of 4 also signed Billy McGinty, Neil Cowie, Barrie McDermott, Terry O'Connor, Sam Panapa, Ged Byrne, Martin Hall None of which were superstars but went on to "Play their Part" in the success we had.

As for the success of the Gang of 4 - Maybe that's part of the reason were playing at the DW? Didn't end too well did it?
And if You or anyone else want to continually refer to the success of the 85-95 period as a Benchmark to judge all other Era's/owners/coaches/players by then I'm afraid you will continually be disappointed (And maybe that's where the problem lies).
Rightly or Wrongly the current regime have to play by the rules/situation of today - Salary Cap, NRL Increased Salary Cap, Professional RU/Summer Rugby etc.
If the Gang of 4 had to deal with any of those never mind all 4 or more they wouldn't have been able to do what they did.
The last 10 years or so In my opinion the success that the club have achieved has been fantastic. The players we've had the privilege of watching especially some of the Home grown such as Sam Tomkins/Oilver Gildart/George Williams and one of the 3/4 wingers that have come through not to mention some of the young forwards has been great.

But it appears None of that is good enough for some people
And if you read my post I do mention that the club need to market things better, but I also say that the club needs to cut it's cloth
When we allegedly didn't buy top names and we brought youth through they were criticised
Were buying better names and they're criticised
But I also mentioned that even if it's not in the playing department that cuts need to be made then they will need to be made "Somewhere". And maybe that's where? Marketing, youth development etc.

.... add to that in recent seasons:

Women's team.
PDRL team.
Community Work.
College Courses & other further education initiatives.
Kids camps.

The gang of 4 never even looked into anything other than what we saw on the playing field.

The gang of 4 couldn't even bear the thought of Wigan Athletic being allowed to play an important FA cup game against Liverpool at Central Park (even though some gate receipts revenue would have filtered through to Wigan RL). Madness and short-sighted.

The mid eighties to mid nineties were a period I will always remember with great fondness but looking back you can't help but notice that grave mistakes were made along the way.

The gang of four never looked into what you have said because at the time Women playing rugby or even football was looked upon as not being right. In fact for many years, the FA actually had a ban of women playing their game while many supporters of our game treated women playing rugby as a joke. The club at the time did some community work with players visiting schools, day centres for the handicapped etc. They also had no involvement in education as the Council did not at the time do joint projects like the one at the former Pemberton High School and they did not consider things like kids camps just to make money.

The gang of four and rightly so, cared only about providing supporters with success, top class signings, but did make mistakes, the biggest of which was selling Central Park to Tesco without first of all getting plans for a new Stadium passed by the Council.

The crowds at the DW Stadium may be bigger as there is not the same way of getting in free as there was at Central Park.

And the signings of Bibby, George Burgess, Clarke and even Hastings can hardly be described as big signings like those even of the Madge couple of seasons. One a average /winger, a prop forward at the end of his career and a player Castleford sent out on loan to Leigh. Only Hastings has played anything like a top player and I reserve judgement of him until I see how he performs for us in a few games.

The best signings I have seen since the signing of Bateman have been the elevation of Academy players like Byrne, Gildart, Partington, Smith and Smithies, together with Bevan French and Zak Hardacre

I wish people would stop drawing comparisons with the late 80s / early 90s.

That was a golden age for Wigan, but it was also only manageable because we had no salary cap, the NRL played at a different time of year and RU was still a joke game wherein the bottomless pockets were only available when it came to restocking club chairmen's drinks cabinets.

No one can surely believe that the likes of Hanley, Edwards, Lydon, Offiah, Connolly, Inga etc would have been at Wigan under today's circumstances.

There is no like for like between now and that era, and anyone who keeps using it as a benchmark for what Wigan Warriors can be is doomed to be disappointed. Either that, or they are being deliberately mischievous.