I agree in part that probably the potential was over egged.



I have posted my concerns many times, I thought when the Dr took over we would have at least maintained the levels of supporters who had made the original journey from the Willows to Barton. I was at Huddersfield on Sunday & they have a team who have been in the challenge cup final in recent year & have been knocking on the door of the top 4 for the few years, yet having a good team & being at the top does not automatically bring the fans charging through the gate.
The Dr has already warned he will not fund the club indefinitely, he his a business man & will want a return. I don't agree to the simple fact a successful team will have fans returning to Salford.
In recent time both Bradford & Wakefield have been on the verge of going under, quite rightly the towns of both clubs rallied around there respected club & gates increased, Salford went the opposite way.
I believe unless we can get the foundation right in the schools, which seems unlikely the Dr will need to widen his catchment to realise his return on his investment, unfortunately this is the reality whether we like it or not.

It is clear to me we have lost a great many older supporters who used to walk to the willows, I don't believe those will be coming back. Without the foundation of rugby being played in the local areas & in schools it is very difficult to see how we will ever make the numbers up to the magic 8000 without widening our attraction & branding.

That right there hits it perfectly on the head. The game in the last 25 years has dramatically changed. You just don't get the interest like you would unless you get in the schools and the community. However the years of being run so un-professionally at a time when not only the game of RL but all sports dramatically upped their games has put us massively on a back burner and one which could do to us as what happened to Swinton and we may never properly recover. When schools such as Moorside are playing Union as the main rugby game what chance do we have.

That's not to say there is not interest in the game at such a young age. At least two local teams are seeing great numbers, particular at the real young end from 4 upwards. The problem is where are Salford to put the muscle behind this and to get the kids apart of the local RL club. As a kid and i'm sure many from the late 80's and 90's of the same age, will have been a member of junior red devils. Free season tickets and events that we went too monthly where we won even the cheapest of merchandise but we got to meet our hero's as well at the same time. You felt part of the club. There is nothing like that and its such a shame because 25 years on, I am still a season ticket holder and bring my 2 kids along who are just as passionate about being involved but just don't get that unique experience which will hook them like it did me once the gimmicks and hero status wares away.

Like Huddersfield are showing, even being top of the tree doesn't assure the massive flock of supporters. It has to be built from the ground up for us to get it right.

As highlighted above, we've suffered two decades of negligence and neglect at the hands of a failed regime.

This, coupled with a changing world (more distractions, less population) and social/demographic changes in our home city mean that we're massively on the backfoot.

Unless Koukash invests significantly in the front office then the money he's splashing on players will be wasted.

I'm not sure whether the size and demographic of Salford is the real issue here. In general it seems like attendances throughout the league (with the exception of a handful of clubs) are particularly poor.

If we aspire to get more people flocking to the stadium, big changes need to be made at the very top of the sport. The RFL keep chopping/changing the rules and tweaking the league structure, which I honestly think has a detrimental effect and confuses a lot of people who might otherwise attend a few games every season.

In short - Rugby League itself needs a rebrand.

Hmmm, I'd suspect most of the uninitiated are blissfully unaware of league restructures etc.

I reckon the youth of Salford are more likely to be kept away by lack of awareness, manifold counter attractions and poor transport links.

The only way to assure a large dedicated following is to get RL ingrained into the fabric of the community. It's not an easy undertaking and will take many many years if at all. Those areas of the country that have RL woven into the fabric of their communities and history are the ones that continue to hold down the best fan retention figures. I fear that Salford has so much work to do in this respect that it will be almost impossible to make big inroads on increasing their hardcore support. It doesn't mean they shouldn't try though.

A mix of relentless bombardment of all things Salford into the communities, making them part of something, providing them with facilities and making themselves indispensable would be a start. Most Club sides in the NRL provide a host of services for the communities they serve. Restaurants, entertainment, gym's/classes, sporting facilities for amateur sport/RL etc etc. To be fair to Salford, the Willows centre when it was created was the closest thing British Clubs had to the Australian model. Probably no coincidence that the Club thrived when the Variety centre was at its peak. Of course, modern times require a modern take on the old idea.

You need to tell people who and where we are, to the unconverted.
Putting news, info on the Salford website, twitter and facebook is preaching to the converted. A big advertising campaign throughout the season is needed. this would cost a lot initially, ie advertising on TV, but with also a winning team playing entertaining rugby and star names. Salford needs to tell people we are here

agree to an extent. The trouble with this is that we dont currently have the product right on the pitch. It's all very well and good advertising us to the hills and back but if you have a team that are not competative, people are just not willing to part with the money more than once to watch a beaten team.

A big push like that can only come when the product is right.

There's no doubt about it, we need that feel good factor back around the stadium on a match day. When was the last time you genuinely enjoyed a match day experience at the Salford City Stadium? All too often last season and for the majority of this year the place has felt souless, barring the Bradford game and that day there was only 5100 there with what was a dire game.

I'm hoping the new signings and rebranding addresses this. Positive results on the pitch and a team worth paying to see will go a long way to getting us back to those 5,000 crowds and it's important we hang on to these in the first instance. Improve the match day experience, reduce car parking charges and ticket prices, get a decent mascot, an MC with a personality, better half time entertainment, pyrotechnics/fireworks before the terms emerge, banners in the South Stand and so forth. In conjunction with that we need some strong marketing and community work, constant bombardment of local schools particularly those in Irlam, Cadishead, Eccles etc.

It's going to be tough, but I have no doubt it's more than do-able.

As people having said growing crowds and support in the city of Salford will take far more than a name change (or name drop) but it is possible over a period of time if the right things are done.

I would stop going if the name Salford was dropped - it's the club's identity and to throw all that away after 134 years for perceived benefits that would undoubtedly not materialise would be criminal. Rugby League should embrace its heritage not trash it.

If Koukash/Matthews thinks the crowds are bad now they'll have a shock on their hands if they drop the name Salford.

www.reds.co.uk/rugby-news/reds-s ... -of-season

www.reds.co.uk/rugby-news/reds-s ... -of-season

My main concern about the rebranding is the potential for it to be a a massive disappointment.

How can it be a massive dissapointment, anything is better than we currently have.

Totally agree! Salford City Reds = FAILURE!

Regardless of naff our current branding is, if we pass up a chance to come up with something good and get something that is different but still naff, it will be a disappointment.

I agree. I'm really looking forward to the return of the Red Devils and will be really ed off if the logo looks tacky/amateurish.

Or Salford is dropped from it, like I'm led to believe.

I can live with Salford not being displayed on the logo as long as it looks professional.

The logo will be tacky to some of us no matter what is decided... opinions always differ.

Let's reserve judgement.

However, to remove Salford and simply call us The Red Devils is sure to cause brand confusion with our Old Trafford neighbours. A businessman of the good Doctor's knowledge will surely avoid that.

If the current parochial mentality persists Salford will end up like Huddersfield as suggested with a good team, crowds of 5,500 and an owner berating the local population for not being supportive enough. Huddersfield probably has a smaller catchment area and its last previous period of success was well before Salford's last but they along with Town are undisputedly the local sporting focal points. Salford will be forever hobbled by the fact that they are in the backyard of one behemoth called United and in close proximity of another potential behemoth called City. The modern city of Salford has a far less robust and defined sense of itself than the previous incarnation and a significant majority will not have the slightest idea who the ‘pride of the city’ (?) is. The support of the two football giants just exacerbates an already pretty fractured and fluid local identity – Salford is not a St Helens, Wigan or Warrington and i simply cannot ever see the Salford ever attracting the kind of the numbers these teams are capable of. Salford somehow, without major name changes and betraying their past, need to market themselves as Manchester’s premier RL team. An anathema to many perhaps but regular crowds of 8,000 paying punters delivered out of the immediate Salford area are years away if achievable at all.
Many of course might be happy with 5,500 but i doubt if Dr Koukash will be.

Is there any evidence in UK sport (or wider for that matter) that simply a name change is some kind of panacea?*


* Beyond 19th century name changes such as Newton Heath Loco ->MUFC

Fulham changed their name to London, and the rest is history!

And how on earth will they then make up the 2000 or so fans that won't turn up to watch a Manchester team? Branding ourselves as a Manchester will have the opposite effect, crowds will drop.

I think you probably over-estimate the amount of people who care enough not to turn up.

Maybe - But do you honestly think that as rebranding ourselves as a Manchester it will have a positive effect on crowds? It just will not happen, people are not going to travel from places like Moston, Collyhurst, Hulme ect to come and watch a Manchester team play in the City of Salford. We cannot get rid of the Salford name, even not adding the Manchester and just marketing as the Red Devils is ludicrous totally throws any sort of identity away.