But do you seriously think Salford, as currently constituted, can sustain the running costs of that stadium alone? Partnership, in some shape or form (not necessarily Sale) just has to be the way forward.

Just about everyone on this forum agrees we need new ideas, it seems clear that there is no new owner prepared to put in the small fortune that is needed, so be creative look to learn from others, look for partnerships that can deliver benefits to both sides, stop being frightened of change

Yeah when we were offered Maine Rd etc?

Best of luck with that, however be prepared for an hour of JW talking about himself and leaving with the feeling that you achieved nothing.

I too would be intrigued to hear some of your ideas, I would also like to know if Mr Wilkinson is actually actively involved in the 'launch' of the new stadium or is that all now down to the stadium management team?

I guess many supporters, myself included are deflated of ideas as the new stadium is not owned by Salford City Reds or its supporters and we appear to have no basis for consultation on anything? Blue seats/Sale RU? The club are merely tennents.

Very interesting....maybe thats the problem then if Wilkys stuck in his ways the club maybe won't ever turn things around under him. (Before the protectors of his lords relm jump on me I respect wilky and what he's done for us its just a thought. I'll just go and get my prayer mat!)

Welcome salford lady

Well if it was me…


I would be pushing for a return to being referred to as “Rugby’s Red Devils” to give us an identity which we lack as what is a “red?”, id look at changing our badge to look more like the 1993 version with the devil and the posts and the ball or perhaps a Red fork with Salford City reds written in it would do the job.

He will probably jump in a say that its will cost too much money to change the badge this season but next season with better planning why not? We need identity go thought the other clubs in the division they all have identity apart from us.

Keep Ignito, id build a character better and should me used more, with pictures and videos of him doing stuff promoting the club, going to hospitals, schools ect
If he isnt on the walk to the new stadium on the 27th then its a golden opportunity lost for me

He will proably jump and say the bloke cant do everyday he only does match days, it doesnt matter there are people who work for the club who could be ignito in that situation, clever editing of videos and picures will fix this

I also say we need to be seen more in the community and get more air time on Tv and radio, local magazines , the salford foundation do lots of work but it doesn’t necessarily get highlighted to the general pubic, invite newspapers and local tv and sky to events interview players, as these people use to help on a match day as “staff” this shouldn’t happen now the stadium are running the show so they will have more time to do that kind of thing highlighting the club and their efforts

The work they do on Twitter and facebook is good but more is needed on the website with interviews and stories and blogs from people within the club,, it needs to be consistent lots of stuff happen early in the season and die away after a few weeks not good enough in my book.

Reaily it’s the lack of planning that is letting us down in my book
The boat has sailed for Christmas and shirts out as prezzies this should have been organised straight after the season finished now its should be aiming for January when the new season is going to be upon us, players in schools / colleges NOT FREE TICKETS just get the message out that Salford City Reds are YOUR TEAM in YOUR AREA and they need YOU pitch it as £13 a ticket if you buy a membership @ £50 rather than £20+ on the door

I would look at the supporter pubs in the area and look at which ones were actually used and perhaps centre the efforts round them, perhaps posters in pubs, trams advertising the club not particular matches, target students better from local schools/ colleges / universities “Bored on a Friday night on a street corner…come to the rugby” ect

Send letters to local rugby and fooball kids clubs offering them chance to mascot as a group for the day for THEIR local rugby club and advise them about kids deals with season tickets and how a discount for adults ones can be negotiated.

This kind of thing NEEDS to be done NOW so come January its all on, we know what’s going on and we can move forward.
And when they are up and running they need to be continued to run rather than diched after 6 weeks for somthing else

There will be more soon when I complete my list…

Sounds like a fantastic opportunity to spread some new thinking. Asking the perrenial moaning ar$e$ on here for ideas [ishould[/i reap some answers, but I see already your request is being glossed-over in preference of an opportune whinge.

Faith restored!

And yet as ever you bring nothing to the table except to be the "Defensive Whinger" .

As I put on the attendance thread

Market yourselves

Or die , it really is that simple

Slagging others for not contributing ideas, then not making any yourself is a new low, even by your standards.

In response to the person who is meeting Wilky, for the first time in ages we have a chance to make it almost seen as fashionable to be a Salford fan. This is only gonna last til the novelty of the new stadium wears off, thats why it is so important to hit the ground running when we move into the stadium. Please try an put this across, probably in a much better way than I can. We need to get into the schools and get posters up with the fixtures on. Get some free tickets in there as well. We did this when we first entered superleague and it was a success. Need to do it again, or at least do cheaper kids tickets at around £5 per game. The younger element is gonna be the future of our support at Barton. Not gonna attract many charging £10-£12 per game, and can't expect them to committ to a season ticket straight away if they have never been to a game before.

No it's not - ultimately you have to have a product to market, and that's what we are all worried about, we've lived on scraps for a long time, just smoke and mirrors even with the greatest marketing effort won't do any more

Every kid under the age of 13 should be formally invited to a match at Barton , with free tickets including parents , all done through the schools of the borough ,

I presume your club as done this,was it a success?

No they gave a away a family ticket Mum, sister, daughter and aunty on one ticket and then Dad, brother and Uncle on the other - Six for the price of two

No we didn't , that's why our attendances didn't rise when we moved , hopefully things will change

I'll ignore the idiot posting previously to this

No it wasn't, an honest hard fact was given by 1 poster and I replied asking for the ideas salfordlady83 had already spoken to Mr Wilkinson about and the fact we as supporters currently have NO consultation when it come to the stadium.

As has been mentioned I see you bring nothing atall. Do you think that it was a random post off salfordlady83 and she hadn't already read how supporters feel? You really are an idiot!

When it was 1st announced that we had got the go ahead to build our own iconic stadium i like thousands of us reds were over the moon,now just on verge of moving in i feel like ive been gazzumped,and worse still a gang of squatters have moved in and claimed it from me,nothing,not a chance in hell have i got any rights to fight back,that is whats so galling not being able to put over your point without somebody saying its ok,we will be alright,NO we will not be alright were in deep sh.

Its a bit weird reaily its like so many of us are suffering from a kind of "burnout" regarding the club and the direction it is heading, all this rumours and hearsay doesnt reaily help eather because being a salford fan after being let down time after time you instantly imagine the worst.
Personally ill feel a lot better when i hear matt parishes 1st interview since he has returned we have seen him do a few video interviews with salfords media man at his short time at the willows so i think we will gage what is going on by the way he is.

I remember in 2008 in the 2nd divison i could (and probably would) have given up the ghost if we hadnt got our superleague franchise im not ashamed to admit that i felt like i was suffering a kind of "burnout", the rugby was rubbish, the atmosphere was rubbish, i didnt particually enjoy going home and away at that point it became a chore, Feverstone away was proabably the worst i felt frustrated with both the playing staff and the way the club was run.
Luckly for me we got our franchise which helped, Wilshire kicking the goal in the final and the 20 minutes of madness that followed, we got permission to build the stadium, i stopped going doing "aways" on a regular basis due to other events in my life, Mcrae left eventually and with Vievers then Parish arrived and slowly i feel the hunger and the fire in the belly has returned.

I dont see Barton as a negative at all, its a new platform for the club to try and perform as a proffessional rugby league club, its easy to hide in the back streets of weaste blaming lack of passing trade, when we move to Barton THERE IS NO HIDING PLACE ANYMORE its do or die for everyone who is lucky enough to work in the club be that the tea boy or the Cheif exec
Sale proabably sharing our space will mean we have to up our game just to stand still which in a way a succesful business is run.

The club in many ways the club have their finger on the pulse of so many good things (twitter, facebook, phone alerts ect) but struggle with touching the comman man (or woman) on the street with general infomation about the club and thats the frustrating thing they just arnt able to connect with the average joe.
They reaily have to look at trying to go to the people in the local community of salford and manchester and say "WE ARE YOUR TEAM"

Money is an issue but its not the be all and end all, the club should be doing some kind of market research with local business in the area to say what would you want from your local rugby team, we help you..you can help us and together we can move forward

I dont believe in free tickets it devalues the product, perhaps discounted tickets for adults who have kids who sign up for rugby classes or fun days is the way to go, instead of treating us fans like mushrooms and not telling us anything the club reaily need to reach out to the community and try and make this a success, without us the existing fans Salford RL dies its as simple as that.

I just hope that JW listens to Salford Ladys ideas and puts them into place, he is the man who can make it happen, leading from the front, id rather us go out of business trying to make this a success than standing still and slipping of the radar never to be seen again, least the club can say they tried

A new stadium will mean changes, perhaps not today, not this week, perhaps not this year but soon the club will need to evolve to continue to grow, the people who did a job for us in the back streets of weaste will be replaced if they are unable to go to the next level.

At the moment lost of people can see what is coming like a car crash, our offield departments arnt communicating very well with the outside world (our potential fan bace) sale will march in with their juggernaught marketing and communication skills and steal would could be our new fans thats the concern i feel deep down for a lot of our fans.

As for Salford RL i agree with the wigan fan, i didnt fall in love with the willows all them years ago, its the rollercoaster ride of watching a team which sometimes can and sometimes cant achieve did it for me, you just never know with salford what your going to get with salford be that playing or admin,

At the end of the darkest day the light will begin to shine though and tomorrow will be a lot brighter im sure of it, us fans will feel a lot better about the direction of the club is taking and the love will return i can guarantee...if you still want it...



Thats the kind of crazy bonkers plan id expect from salford

Just a few things are troubling me about this, doesn't the club already pay someone to do this job? There are two reasons I ask, firstly if I were that person and I read that my boss was speaking to someone on matters of my position I'd be A) inquisitive as to why the Chairman would speak to someone from the "outside" about things that are under my remit, B) Does that mean that the Chairman has no far in me and C) a bit peeved. On the other hand why does the chairman see it fit to speak to someone regarding the failings of one of his own members of staff rather than either speak to that person directly regarding his concerns about the way I operate or to my line manage (i.e. the chief exec) and tell him to make sure I up my game. If the chairman is aware that the person in his employment is doing their job to a sufficient standard then either tell them or fire them. This all appears a little sneaky to me.

This isn't a dig at salfordlady83 and in fact I wish you all the best as the clubs performance on this matter is appalling and action needs to be taken but if someone isn't doing their job then get rid.

What you tend to get when ' Marketing ' is mentioned at sports clubs , is the reply that " we've sold the sponsorship and the corporate sales are going well "

That's it , very rarely does the conversation come round to getting the paying spectator through the turnstiles , it just doesn't enter their mindset

John Wilkinson is a fantastic bloke , one of the nicest you could ever meet , but I doubt that John has ever in his businesses had to market his products to the general public , and I'd suggest that he would be of the opinion like many on here , that the only way of building a bigger fan base would be a ' winning team '

Well unfortunatly those ideas are 20/30 years out of date , and nobody can provide a winning team consistently enough to work that way

Salford HAVE to build a fan base with a mediocre team on the pitch , if the team plays well and wins , that is a bonus , but the assumption has to be that it has to be done without help from the team

Why do i get the feeling that we are clutching at every straw,ive wrote to wilky and i`m there thursday about player recruitment.

Perhaps he want to see how salfordlady83 runs a successful ship and what we as a club can do differently, presumably the budgets are poles apart so its what we can do on a budget

Or just make it an interview for the role!

I've not posted on here in years but felt compelled to do so tonight.

As someone who's lived outside the city for many years (but still used to travel home and away for games) I was looking forward to attending matches on a regular basis again at the new stadium.

However, after attending the final game at the willows doubt began to set in again. As someone who also has a background in media, marketing and PR, I couldn't get my head round quite how badly the whole event was botched or how so-called professionals could fail to implement even the most rudimentary measures such as data capture when faced with 8-9000 potential new customers.

Today's news is the final nail in the coffin for me. Nothing more than the proverbial (scarlet) turkeys voting for Xmas.

Next year was to be my little lad's first year of regularly going to games; we were all set to purchase season tickets for Barton. However, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I don't think I can face inflicting such a poorly run club on him. Unlike his dad, I want him to enjoy his rugby, not see it as an obligation. There's a successful, well run club on our doorstep who all his school pals support anyway and, much as it'll pain me, I'd sooner take him there.

As for the infield stuff, I think some on here are being duped in the same way as several super league chairman have been. The fad for employing unheard of NRL assistants will be short-lived. Wigan were fortuitous to unearth Michael Maguire, I honestly think the likes of ourselves and Hull KR will end up with egg on our faces really quickly (particularly given some of the things I've been told by people Very close to the pro game).

Apologies if this post doesn't fit the agenda that some on here wish to propagate but that's how I see it. I'd love to be proven wrong though.