Quote ="Chief Stinkwort"Agree with this. The match-day experience at the Willows was amateurish but streets ahead of what you have now.
Just a few examples:
Not all the food bars in the stands are open. The one in the West stand near the Leeds end ran out of milk.
The announcer has absolutely no charisma and sounds more like a fan than an announcer.
The ground is difficult to get into and the car park hard to get out of.
The ticketing is all to cock, and the stewards/ticket office generally haven't a clue what's going on.
Too many stewards and not enough friendly faces from the club around the ground. At the cup game it actually seemed like you had more stewards than supporters.
No Mascot...Ignito may have been a bit of a laughing stock with opposition supporters but at least he added to the experience.
The stadium is characterless.
It's not easy I know, especially if money is an issue, but some things don't cost anything. Even clubs like Hunslet and Batley have regular kids matches as curtain-raisers or half-time entertainment.
Maybe I've been a bit spoilt by going to Headingley where pre-match and half-time is outsourced to a professional events company working closely with the Rhinos community team, but I'm sure that even on a limited budget Salford could do much better.'"
As with most sporting venues, success on the field would help to draw folk and create some atmosphere, but how this is going to happen within the current two-tier Super League system, with haves and have nots, is difficult to envisage. Being unable to serve hot drinks at half time to an easy-to-predict 2,000 visiting supporters on a cold and wet day was a joke in terms of customer service and commerce. And yes, your announcer needs some training. When things are going badly on the field or in terms of attendance, he does not need to be drawing attention to them. And some of his attempts at humour are cringeworthy. I understand a second road out of the car park may be built eventually, but in the meantime the parking situation is actually causing some would-be attendees to stay away.