Quote Father Ted="Father Ted"I still like them despite some trivial questions.
For decades the management of Wigan RL treated supporters as turnstile fodder with the attitude of turn up, pay up and shut up!
We now have an owner who thinks quite the opposite and wants to hear the views of fans, the questions they ask will indicate how they are feeling and the matters that concern them.
Whilst the club does still have shareholders, supporters are being treated as stakeholders and great efforts have been made to make fans feels they are wanted and needed if Wigan RL is to be great again on the field. The forums are part of this. They were welcomed when they first started and I do still value them.
Compared to what went on decades ago, to say IL and his crew are an improvement is a real understatement..'"
Well it depends doesn't it. If the communication coming form the club is sanitized and scripted it just looks like they are treating the fans better but if they have their own agenda and stick to it then the fans forum is a PR exercise which there is nothing wrong with provided you recognise it for what it is.
That said I think the club will listen where it think it is "safe" to do so. For example opinions were asked for about the new club web site content but try and have a searching discussion about the Hock situation and I doubt you would get very far. All the stuff you really want to know isn't really for public consumption now just as it wasn't decades ago. The difference is within the marketing side IMO where the club is open to suggestions but the nitty gritty stuff like contracts and signings are just as off limits now as they ever were except when spoken about in general trams where the obvious gets stated (we will sign a top class player if we can fit him under the cap just about sums it up).
As to what went on decades ago there wasn't the Internet and it really was a different era with different expectations. That said whenever I bothered to contact Mo over anything I always got a reply. We also had people like West working behind the scenes before he became coach and he could not do enough to help so it wasn't all bad. It just wasn't as professionally run in terms of the marketing but of course the first steps toward the modern Super League "experience" we have now that raises our expectations of the club off field as well as on field and all that this entails were instigated by Mo.
Dave