...with the uptake on season tickets at Salford, stating that Widnes, Wakefield and Bradford have all sold more. Marwen needs to realise that it's going to be a very long haul, there's no easy fix. I also think that he's insulting the three clubs he mentions.

Given his considerable marketing efforts, and on-field expenditure (compared to those clubs named) I don't thinks it's an unreasonable comparison, and is therefore in no way insulting.

Salford fans have been disheartened over the years. Perhaps it's got to a point where now seen is believing.

Salford have never been well supported Splashthecash will spit his dummy after a couple of seasons n Salford will be no more !

He's also coming into a era of general fan disillusionment, fixtures being messed around with on a regular basis and a club that had a small fanbase to start off with. In a stadium on the edge of town not in the heart of it.

If he gets the results on the field he'll see it slowly drip into the crowd numbers.

This is a bad move from Koukash.

Salford don't have a latent group of lapsed fans like say Bradford did, who watched a few years ago when they were good but have been waiting for them to get good again. Salford's fan base is small but it is pretty constant and loyal and has put up with a lot of seasons of rubbish. To grow the crowds in Salford, Koukash has to be reaching out to non fans in the area, to get them interested.

But when he says he's "disappointed in the response from the fans" he has to think of who his audience is.....'the fans' are the ones that have been buying the season tickets and have been there through years of rubbish. They are quickly going to get insulted.

I remember Simon Moran bringing up the issue of crowds in a much more diplomatic way, in 2005 or so, he made a comment to the Warrington Guardian along the lines of "if we were able to get our average gate up to such and such an amount we could spend maximum salary cap". He created the idea of a target with an incentive at the end that would get people to encourage their friends to come along to get us towards the target, without any implication that 'the fans' were not pulling their weight.

Rule one in any involvement with a sports club is don't insult the fans. Koukash is one of those owners like you sometimes see in football that likes the sound of his own voice too much in the media and embarrasses himself. His money is good for the game but he would do better if he followed Simon Moran's more professional approach.

Whilst he might be disappointed, what did he really expect? Salford have never been a massive club in terms of support and I'm not having a go, but, I remember the 70's when Snape invested in the team and the Willows and I don't seem to recall never ending queues along Weaste Lane on a matchday.

He surely needs to get 'old' fanbase back before he expands and as for them drawing on Greater Manchester as a whole well.....

BTW I've not been too impressed with our general level of support given the recent upturn in our fortunes and the fact that Warrington is a bit more defined as an RL town which presumably is easier to market

Most RL clubs, and fans of those clubs, have experienced as many dark days as bright during their history and what keeps fans coming back, or attracts reticent followers back, is the promise of a return to glory days or a large, hardcore fanbase who will stick with them through thick and thin.

Salford have neither, in many ways they are building from scratch on and off-field. The move to Barton alienated a lot of their long-term fans, they haven't enjoyed tangible success for decades and their crowds were never huge to begin with. Allied to this, I suspect season tickets in the game as a whole are flat-lining or down, as fans become more discerning about which games they attend, and Salford's catchment area of new supporters have footballs in between their ears.

Northern folk are discerning, canny individuals and it take a while to convince Salford speccies of the latest new dawn at Salford. Racehorses on the other hand tend to do as they are told, as Koukash may be ruefully reflecting.

Koukash probably has as much knowledge about the history of top flight RL in this country as Vincent Tan has about the prem.

Which is a good think (not the Tan bit) because he doesn't live in the past, something that our game struggles to shrug off.

His predecessor lived and breathed rugby league, so what is your point?

On the one hand I am not necessarily too concerned that may of may not know too much about RL but brings new money and hopefully new ideas and business acumen. The likes of Wakefiled, London, Castleford, Bradford have all struggled in recent times and perhaps need a bit of a shake up and get somebody to take over who knows how to run a business properly.

My only real concern with the Doc is if he builds something based on sand and it all collapses when he gets frustrated when not winning every pot in front of 50.000 speccys and walks away.

I mean if RU in its unenviable position of being one of the most tedious sports imaginable can generate buckets of cash, admittedly with more support form the 'establishment' we should be able to do something.

Good grief I should learn to proof read before submitting, hopefully it still makes some kind of sense.

The past is important to the game.

If a revolutionary thinker came in and suggested merging Warrington and St Helens into a super club that played league and union I'm sure the dinosaurs would oppose it.

Granted, but we've lived in the past too long and it's getting us no where.

So you don't think Super League is a good product and we have higher attendances than we ever did in the 70s, 80s, 90s and most of the 2000s...?

Odsal pulled 190,000 for the cup replay. And that's not counting the extra estimated 10,000+ who snuck in. That was before Superleague. You'd think that we'd average that now for a home game...

You're being obtuse and you know it, you're a smart person, smarter than the majority on the whole site, you're aware of problems not related to RL, socioeconomic problems and others to boot.
The old way of working isn't sustainable now and you know that as well and if you don't, then maybe you're not as smart as I think you are, despite the majority of your well read, well versed eloquent posts.

I feel I'm being set up, as I always do with your posts, I feel your directing me into a path with no way of escaping, your posts can sometimes be like a game of chess and you're the white pieces.


Do I think SL is a good product, on the field yes I do, off it it would seem an unmitigated disaster with 8 possibly 9 clubs financially well off but how many of those are due to business plans and self sustainability and not just rich owners, how many clubs have we lost/losing or are on the brink, how many crowds beyond SL are 4 figures in numbers.
There's some slight positivity in that the London amateur scene ia flourishing although no one seems to be doing anything about it.

I know Koukash is another rich owner that isn't running a sustainable plan but that is here and now, I'm sure his long term aim is to be self sustainable.

We live in an age in which everything competes for your money, things are at your fingertips, society isn't as tight knit and communities are fractured. Crowds of 100k are unrealistic even for football, the national sport.



I'll give you something Sally you're one of the few that can bring my serious side out on here

1954 Halifax v Warrington.
I don't think it was that many?
Less than 105,000 officially? Estimates at around 120,000 as many scaled a wall.

It's a fair point IMO Ganson's as there is nothing wrong with knowledge based on background and history as it can provide stability through a bit of patience and reality.

Ultimately, Wilkinson ran out of ideas and of course cash. He must have pumped in quite a few quid over the years and just because it was a failed regime can that failure can't be laid solely at his door? I would suggest not, it seems the move to Barton was his last throw of the dice to get 'his' Salford operating on a different leval and raise a bit of interest in the Salford Club .

I get the idea that he was activley looking for investment partners which is quite difficult and I'm convinced that he would have handed over the reigns to someone else without his hand being forced his reputation more in tact.

Without that Wilkiinson orchestrated move from the Willows would Koukash have looked at Salford in the same way? Obviously, his supposed interest in Swinton is based on his love of Rugby League.

I'm all for investment in new ideas and innovation, but, these concepts and stability aren't mutually exclusive and I know who I'd want running our club, someone with a proven vested intetrest and a long term plan than a wham bam thank you mam approach.

It's no sleight on Salford, good luck to them or Koukash but would RL benefit by having every club run this way and we've only seen the positives for now yet he's apparently disappointed before a ball has been passed and the first gate receipts have been counted?

In all fairness, we've still shifted 2,500 season tickets to date for the new season. When you consider many people will have been saving for Christmas, currently experiencing the skint month of January and in addition this season our games are spread out across Thursday's, Friday's and Sunday's thus meaning many people cant attend all games and which therefore makes the cost benefit of owning a season ticket redundant, it isnt infact a bad figure.

Last year we failed to achieve homes attendances greater than 2,500 on 6 occasions.

I anticipate our walk up crowd to be of a reasonable number next season, plus with games against Yorkshire clubs now moved to Sundays to entice bigger away support we should get some decent attendances next season. If we can get off to a good start (first two games vs Wakefield and London) which on paper is possible, then I think the momentum will build and people will be enticed back to watching Salford RLFC.

We can all understand Marwan's dissapointments and frustrations, he's spent a lot of money and obviously expected a bigger response but 99% of our fans are happy with the season ticket sales for 2014. He just needs to remain patient and have faith in what he is doing, the general public of Salford have been built up and let down far to often in the past and this season the club need to prove it's different from previous years. Actions speak louder than a words, an impressive league campaign and reasonable cup run should fill enough optimism for even bigger season ticket sales in 2015.

Agree fully with this, it will take time to build the squad into challengers and the fans will come in time.

Shouldn't we concerntrate more on the inabilty to get 15,000 in our own ground on a regular basis, given that we are now a (more) successful team ?

I say good luck to you, i've been keeping an eye on some of the threads on your board, and hopefully this does start a revival or re-birth or whatever. We need strong clubs.

That said i'm not a huge fan of the Dr and his 'loud noises' approach, i understand why he's going down that route but i think it's slightly misguided in its approach. and i say that from having seen our growth over the previous 15 years, if you bare in mind we were a basketcase of a club in 2000-02, the club went out and did a ridiculous amount of community work in the schools (Wilderschool project adn other events) and despite the poor product on the field over those three years slowly but surely we built the interest up in[u new[/u customers and speccies so that when we did move to the new stadium a lot of peoples interests had been piqued and people were ready to take the jump and get involved.

Now, i know you're not even twelve month down the line under Marwan, but if i were him as well as the high profile signings i'd be letter bombing every street in the surroudning 3 miles, i'd be getting players and community workers in the schools, get the locals involved and be on their minds as much as poss.

this here is the challenge.

As an aside to that, i do hope that those who have bought ST's adn the people that do turn up even if you dont' top the table

you at least have a much more enjoyable season than you're used to.

I pulled the figure from my head somewhere, I'm most likely wrong. Although looking at the photos it looks way over 120,000. Everyone was shoulder to shoulder. From on the pitch all the way up the hill and back. That's a lot of space to fill, especially when everyone is so tightly packed.