Yes I did see the irony in your reply. You were obviously shocked and surprised to see a post from 'a visiting opposition supporter with a brain' as you put it. As a supporter of RL in general I am genuinely interested in the Salford renaissance story coupled with the fact that there are some ex and current Wigan players in your team whose progress I am interested to follow. It is good that Salford are on the up and now have a new stadium. It is good the game as well as Salford.

Could we persuade you to go to Castleford to do some missionary work?

No thanks. I only go to Castleford when I really have to! Lol

Doing penance?

I read it as a compliment too.

As regards ridiculing dissenting comments, we don't actually get too much dissenting comment. It would be nice if we did because, personally, I don't mind discussions on the sport with fans of other clubs. Unfortunately, what we get is ill-informed clarts from people who seem incapable of doing even the most basic fact checking, and its that that gets ridiculed. We had a few months of it from Cas fans during the Marc Sneyd saga, and it only really tailed off when he showed his love of Cas by joining Hull. Now we just get the occasional visit from 'newgroundb4wakey', but they just bring to mind a scene from Father Ted where Ted is trying to explain to Dougal the difference between things that happen in his head and things that happen outside in the real world.

We also had a steady flow of similarly ill-informed visits from fans of another club (I forget which one) who seemed to have such a chubby for trying to show that everything Marwan does is wrong that they'd already reached the vinegar strokes before they'd had chance to check what they were saying was actually true. Fortunately, they've tailed off too, although it's a little disappointing to note that some contributors to their forum still can't bring themselves to use the man's correct name, and prefer some asinine variation on it. It demeans us all because it makes us all look as childish as they are. It also stifles any real debate about him, because it's indicative of someone who's already made their mind up. A mind is like a parachute: it only really works when it's open. (You can thank Frank Zappa for that one.)

I don't think it's trolling, and I don't think the responses to it are necessarily indicative of a siege mentality. They're just ignorant comments by ill-informed people really. Trolling is what we get off that buffoon from Widnes whose name escapes me. Why people can't just ignore it is utterly baffling.

As for the 'always the victim' conspiracy theory stuff, I just cringe when I see it on here. It would be interesting to know if the people who think that way are also followers of Manchester United and have picked up the Alex Ferguson habit of seeing unfairness everywhere except when they're the beneficiaries of it.

I heard more people than ever before talking about Salford last night in various pubs, unfortunately a couple of the people were saying that's why they don't really go to games as Salford are hot and cold.

More than ever we need to focus on winning all the remaining games and working on a feel good factor too boost season ticket sales, if we take the collective foot of the gas we will suffer with fewer bums on seats next season.

I really do think we are at the crossroads here and we could go either way. If we win, say 3 of our last 4 matches and have a good start to next season, I think we are up and running as genuine top 4 contenders. If we have a poor end to the season and a poor start next year, then we will be our usual sorry selves. As for 'always the victim' theory, I think nothing substantiates that more than O'Louglin's dreadful trip on Rangi on Thursday. That was blatant. That was deliberate. That needed a red card and a long ban. Instead, it resulted in a try for Wigan and game over within 5 minutes. If it had been Hock doing a sliding, feet first tackle, they would have locked him up and thrown away the key. Is it any wonder we have the 'always the victim' theory.

Yes, the O'Loughlin incident was at least a penalty (not sure it was a red card because I'm not sure it was deliberate) and yes, if it had been Gareth Hock the pitchforks would have been out. It only leads to the 'always the victim' mentality if you're prepared to ignore the things that go our way. We played Leeds when they were without their talismanic captain and leader. If there was really a conspiracy against us, he'd have been given sending off sufficient so he could play against us. We played Wigan after they'd had a four day turnaround compared to our six. The examples are there if you're prepared to see them, and that's why I find the conspiracy theory nonsense to be, well, nonsense.

As for the rest of what you say, I agree (although I'm not sure about top 4: we're still a bit light in the front row for me). I think we need to go into next season on the back of a few wins and, despite Thursday's setback, I think it's still within us. I'm not sure top 8 is a possibility now, but it's really only a 'nice to have' rather than an essential.

I think we should campaign for this to be added too the Oxford English dictionary.

This post is a thing of beauty.

We will have to agree to disagree on the O'loughlin incident. If it had happened at the other end of the pitch after a kick through, I'm sure it would have been a red card and a penalty try. But even a penalty at that stage if the game would have made a huge difference. Instead of which, Wigan scored two tries in the next two sets which killed the game.

As for the future, I think we can both agree that we need some good performances for the rest of this season and at the start of next season to get some momentum going. I'm certainly confident of a top four finish next year with the players we have coming in.

As many will have noticed I haven't posted on here for some time for one reason or another, the main reason as pointed out by Red John, due to the amount of numpties that started posting on here mostly from other clubs but even a selection of our own. However, I just have to say John, that was a first class post and the best thing I've read on here in a long time.

You will get other posters on here for a variety of reasons.... not least because of your giddy numpties at the start of the season going on other boards, talking about a top 8 finish... And after a game against a particular team, you can expect people from that team coming here too... BTW, your team looked absolutely buggered the last 20-25 of the game...

Do you have any links so we can see who those giddy numpties were?

It's true that people from other clubs come on here both shortly before and shortly after we play them. That's to be expected, and it's often pretty reasonable stuff. What we're talking about here is the regular blobs of wipe that get spattered on here from followers of clubs that we aren't playing any time soon or haven't played recently. Fact free streams of consciousness from halfwits who seem desperate to prove that Marwan is the root of all evil and that we're all deluded, and who believe it's something they need to share.

And they did look knackered in the last 20.

If I recall, the numpties in question don't post much anymore, if at all. REDLEAGUE was one (He had a few guises too). I'd hazard a guess ex-salfordian is another. Others will probably recall better than me.

Ive just bought a Redjohn Dictionary of Putdowns. Its available on Amazon @ £3.99 post free. A good read.

Re Numpties. I think we should have a Top 10 for the year.

Red League & ex Salfordian would be in the 10, Terry Kelly (Leigh) & Brian Bradys Sidestep I think it was from Wire plus many others no doubt other Forumites may remember.

Don't forget the Castleford fan who did a passable impression of Perry Mason by telling us Chase wouldn't get a Visa.

Well, this is why I was asking. I'm quite prepared to accept that I could be wrong, but my recollection is that people were reasonably well behaved at the start of the season. I think by then Red League had his tail between his legs over the Danny Kirmond thing and wasn't posting much other than to pretend that Mike87 was a completely different person. Also, ex-salfordian is more likely to have predicted that we'd finish bottom and then fold owing billions to orphans than he would a top 4 finish.

As I say, I could be wrong, but I'd be interested to see who the numpties were.

Funnily enough I've often thought that, apart from Red League and his aliases, there isn't a great deal of evidence of 'Salford fans bigging-themselves up'. At least not on RLFans. Social media is a different animal though. Twitter should be renamed 'Official RL Arseclart Centre' and not just for Salford fans either. I genuinely think that a lot of opposition fans read Twitter and FB, become dumber due to it, then presume to label us all under the numb as a -stone brigade. One glance at MK's twitter feed would be enough for anyone to presume that Castleford is populated with RL fans suffering from 'Marwanism' whereby when you put on a Cas jersey you start foaming at the mouth whenever you see someone with a box-beard, bald head, or someone calls you 'mate' too much. Of course, Castleford has plenty of reasonable and knowledgeable fans too. It's just that social media seems to be a mouthpiece for the idiotic sections of RL. Something that opposition supporters should remember too when coming across our own collection of Salford sub-normals. When grouped together they form a 'Clart' of supporters. (Thanks again for the wonderful term forever immortalised by yourself

)

You're right with regards to ex-salfordian. His forte is resoundingly in the negative when it comes to the Club so I'm probably doing him a disservice in labeling him in with the dreamers.

A great many of the culprits are on my sig below.

Good post, Red John, but:



I doubt football allegiances have anything to do with it. Some people just see themselves/their club as victims regardless. I know a few people who don't even follow football who've acted like that about Salford. I think it's an inevitable part of being down the bottom for years on end. Supporters of all "smaller" clubs start to think that way across all sports. To continue the United analogy, look at the amount of people who've claimed they never get a decision at OT. It's a siege mentality that comes from supporting an unsuccessful club.

Then again, it's also a rugby league supporter trait to think that every official is turd and out to get you. Have a gander at the RL Meltdown account on Twitter...

Some great posting and some real perspective.

On a positive note I have seen larger numbers of Salford supporters having a pre/après match beer in new West Didsbury (Monton) which is a good thing. I don't know how this visibility has been reflected in your gates, but, there is certainly a little bit of a buzz going on as far as I can make out.

A strong finish this year rather than the season petering out would be good for your club and good for the league we need more strong teams for a better comp

I mentioned Untied because I think this was where it changed from being something the more deluded fans did into something that was almost club policy. It seems Alex Ferguson rarely saw United lose a game fairly, but only because of dark forces behind the scenes. Apologists would try to explain it with the anodyne "Fergie's mind games", when the real explanation - the one they never used - was "Ferguson's being a dick again". It makes me wonder if this was a tipping point and why we seem to see the conspiracies more often nowadays.

It happens across football (Arsene Wenger - "I did not see the incident"icon_wink.gif and sport (often "Salford only won because we were sh*t"icon_wink.gif. It's a modern day symptom of professional sport and the analysis, scrutiny and pressure people are under, not a symptom of supporting a particular club.