Just following on from the point made towards the end of [url=http://viewtopic.php?t=405480&start=15this[/url what exactly made wilderspool, 'the zoo'. What qualities, behaviour, attitude etc, contributed to the reputation of wilderspool and which made opposition teams fear it to an extent.

Is it at all possible to re-create such an experience now bearin in mind the constant reminders of "community stadium, foul and abusive language" and of course it being a family game now?

part of the atmosphere was our unique 3 sided stadium.
a gnats fart would reverberate at Wilderspool.

HJ just leeks sound, i think that they should put some glass walls at the 4 corners so that the stadium isn't as open

Bit of a tough one this i also remember gettin "house of pain "t-shirts off a bloke in the mersey (pub not the river) i think with wilderspool with it being a very tight ground if you like everyone was pitchside and very vocal opposing teams wasnt made very welcome,for me you would think 10,000 in the halliwell jones could create a better atmosphere than 5,000 inside wilderspool but we still struggle with the atmosphere at the hj (imo)the last time the roof was raised at the hj would have to be when johns made his debut against leeds we have not recreated that since,but for some reason wilderspool raised the roof every home game.

I think i can count on the fingers of one hand the times that HJ has come near to approaching the atmosphere of the big Wilderspool games.
This isn't just looking at things through rose-tinted spectacles either. 'Something' was lost in transition, and I have no idea how it could be re-achieved.
(Although it does annoy me that the acoustics in the away end are significantly better than anywhere else in the ground! Either that or they sing louder)!

would making the south stand lower tier standing and upper tier seating. then the east stand standing room only not make it better.

Love standing and prefer being behind the sticks (with my own fans) rules out west.

I doubt it.

It being a family game is a commercial gimmick. As far as I'm concerned it always has been. I started going to games as a child. I took my son from the age of two. There were always kids sat along the walls and the barriers. My son learnt his first swear words at Wilderspool! How many of you started going as nippers with mum and dad?

I think at Wilderspool everyone stood together. From the Fletcher Street end to the Bevan side, with the opposition crammed into the railway end (until half time when we all swapped ends!) The new stands are seperate. There's no uniting corner like the scoreboard corner at Wilderspool, where the fans just went in a continuous flow down the side. Everyone is split up and spread around - north, east, south and even west.

I was people watching on Monday, a small group in the south east corner, Geordie banging away at his drum and about 10 people clapping along. Hardly a murmur elsewhere in the ground (a few groans and a few expletives aside!). What's happening on the pitch doesn't really help, but even when the crowd does get behind the players it's fragmented. There have been very few times that fans in all four stands have been chanting as one.

And of course, everyone at 'the zoo' is older now!

Wilderspool had the reputation of being very intimidating, I think mainly because the crowd were so closer to the pitch than at the HJ and it was very compact.. Players and officials coud hear more of the chants /obsenneties/gestures etc from the fans which made it a ground away teams didn't like playing at.

I read an article about the reverred referee Fred Lindop who had a few run ins with players coaches and fans at Wilderspool, from memory he said something like it was the most intimidating place to referee a game.

One thing I have noticed since the move to HJ is that once the South Stand get on a roll the East and North join in, now I don't recall that at Wldersppol it always seemed to be the Fletcher end or Railway end (if they changed ends) that were singing/chanting.

That is the crux of the matter. You could stand in the Fletch with no women in there pretending to be interested in the game and no kids ar$ing about. It was like a gentlemens club but without wing chairs and wagers.

LOL remember it well. The smell of the unwashed masses mixed with beer fumes and pie steam, bad teeth, heaving guts, rustic agricultural language and ablution facilities more basic than those fashioned at Ypres. Lovely days.*

* Most of the above was just myself.

Too true, my friend and I had the same spec (behind the Fletcher St posts-slightly to the left) for nigh on 10 years, you could look around it would be the same blokes in there around you, all with their respective specs.

It's funny that you would be on nodding acquaintance with pretty much all of them simply down to the fact that you would see them week in week out, despite never actually speaking to them direct.

my spot was Fletch end top row leaning on the corrugated metal with little holes in. you could see the warrington fans coming up the road (before the game). close to the white metal bars. Always remember the guy shouting "rip his spleeeeeeeen out"

quality days

"Go on Fearless"

Used to love the Fletcher Street end, that baying mass of Warringtonian passion. The South Stand unfortunately doesn't even come close.

Stadium leaks sound, the stands are too far away from the pitch, with no dedicated place for the die hard fans to stand...without being surrounded by the idiots.

What made Wilderspool the Zoo ?? The fans !!

What has happened to this feeling ?? I think the whole club - players / fans / board - have become complacent. The move to the HJ should have been the start, it appears to have been an end point for some. We can't be ar$ed when the 'lesser' clubs turn up, even (especially) the fans, we expect to win without the effort (on and off the pitch).

Atmosphere is certainly at the HJ but only for the big 2 or 3 and then only when we give them a decent contest. I think that turning the place into a bowl would help the atmosphere - shouldn't cost too much to put up a bit of roofing in each corner and then contain the whole stadium, will look much better as well - I get fed up of watching the game and then watching folk parking up for Tesco or buses passing by.

Everyone needs to have a good hard think about what they want from this rugby club, we are as much a (if not a bigger) part of this club than the players. We need to put in the effort to support in a positive way and make the HJ a fortress / a place to be feared. Maybe we reduce the size of the away dressing room and stick the away fans in a corner of the terracing rather than allowing them the comfort of the whole standing area.

A bit rambling but there are my thoughts.

Too many JCL's at the HJ.
When we moved there, everyone wanted to be part of 'rugby', because of the Rah Rah World Cup and the positive season in 2003, both of which brought with it a feel good factor that people wanted to be part of who hadn't previously been.
It perhaps wasn't that bad until 2006, either, to be completely honest. But now, I don't even have a 'regular spec' and don't know half of the people around me when I do stand somewhere with some regularity. That is a shame, because going to the match used to be a minor social gathering, where you'd meet up with like-minded friends and have some good banter.

what it should be

east stand all standing merging into the south stand being all standing up to about the half way when it can be seating
North stand- family and all seating (nothing changing) but link it to the east stand
West stand - away support( nothing changing)

that would probably improve the atmosphere
but it would never happen

Maybe the HJ should be renamed as 'The Poo'



it would be very apt if not a tad silly.

Was only talking about the zoo the other day and how I miss it.

Get away Mark! I stood in the same place on the Fletch for over 15 years and my sister and her friends were there longer than that.



However I do recall my enjoyment being ruined by two women who moved into our spot for the last 18 months, who shouted rubbish in a high pitch squeal throughout and demonstrated very little interest or knowledge in the game. We were forced to move from our spot just to get away from them (either that or my volatile sister would have chinned her!).

The Happy Jovial stadium

Yeah let's get rid of the Johnny Come Latelys and their unwanted revenue and support. Actually, thinking about it, you must have been a JCL at one point in time surely...?

Its people like Hitman that will drive the club into the ground with that mindset.

Does he not remember how close the club came to going bust?

don t know what it was about standing in the old fletcher end,
but you would always see that bloke who dropped a fart,
every other week without fail............usuallly the same time as well..

Johhny Warbo and the inane whistle, the guy with long blond locks who looked like a viking who once stood on top of the crowd barrier at a Hull FC challenge cup 1/4 final in the 80's orchestrating the crowd, and the morbidly obese guy, pie in hand, with about 300-400 RL/Wire related pin badges on his sky blue denim jacket reeking of body odour/faeces. I am going misty eyed just thinking about them all.