On Tuesday I had a meeting at the club. The meeting was with Paul Highton who as we know has been installed as the clubs new Welfare officer... which is now seen as a compulsory position for each club in Super League.

The meeting was for my new company regarding what players do with regards to retirement and pension plans.

Listening to Paul speak about his plans for the role, I have to say that I finally walked away from the ground feeling good about something. This hasn't happened for a good while... 2 or 3 years maybe... could be even longer.

We all have the utmost respect for Paul Highton. He never took a backward step in a Red shirt and it seems to me he has no intention of doing that in this new role.

Paul's theory is that they must do their best to look after the players at the club, both while they play at Salford, and afterwards. Give players a reason for wanting to be there. If they are taken care of, we have a better chance of making a good name for ourselves and attracting a better standard of player... as he wants the word to get out that... 'Salford look after their players'. At the moment he doesn't feel like that has been there... not now.. perhaps not ever. A happy player performs better... and he wants that as much as any fan I know.

He really wants to change the perception of the club from the ground up, and that intention alone was something I needed to hear.

So while all the doom and gloom is surrounding the club, I felt it was important to let people know on here of something good being done by somebody who I see as one of our own. Paul loves the club and it can be seen from a mile off with the passion I saw in the fella... I'm sure we will all back this.

(I'll also post this on Facebook as I feel it deserves a wider audience)

That's positive news and who better than a former player to understand the welfare needs of other players. One small piece of advice I could give Paul in his new role is to address the players social networking behaviour by introducing some guidelines. Players hanging their dirty washing out on twitter reflects very poorly on the player and the club in my opinion. This said I think two of the biggest culprits are gone thankfully.

Great to read something positive for a change, so thanks for that LoyalFan.

I bumped into Paul at a supermarket a couple of weeks ago as he lives on the same estate, and he approached me due to him noticing me wearing our colours and we had an interesting chat about his new role. He seemed extremely excited to begin this new chapter and you could just sense how passionate he felt about our beloved club.

IMO we could do with more people around our club who share the same sentiments.

A player welfare officer has to be a positive move however, i'd like to give TheRedshed a tip. If the club was being professionally run, players wouldn't refer to social media to hang out their washing like most players DON'T elsewhere.

So you state players from other clubs (which you frequently point to as being more professionally run than Salford) "hang out their washing".
As you state this is a practice our players do, then we must be very professionally run.

At last, you praise Salford!

Here we go again turning some positive news into an assault on the club.



I find it quite amusing how player A was so instrumental in getting his mate player B to join us in 2011 by telling him what a fantastic club Salford is.

Then when player A was tapped up (with the offer of more money from his former boss) by another club and player B started to show his true colours because he was going home, both Player A & B started a media attack on the club because player A wanted to pi$$ his employers off and get an early release from his contract. Work it out it's not hard.

Call me a beach boy for not sharing your (and a few others) obsession in running the club down at every opportunity but you are nothing more than an extremely naive and prejudiced individual.

Not wishing to provoke a massive slanging match here, but are people still going with line that the club has been really well run? The financial problems, customer service problems and player complaints (by more than the A and B mentioned above) are all bitter individuals?

If your going to troll you really must try harder.

But hasn't s/he got a point?

This is getting ridiculous as usual!! Im delighted we have taken Paul on, have met him a few times and comes across as a real nice fella. Im sure he will have both the players and the clubs best interests at heart.

It would be a superb point to raise on a thread titled "This club's been really well run" or even on this thread in response to someone stating "this club's been really well run". Since that didn't arise, it's quite a pointless point.

You've skipped over the "professionally run" posts, then? I know you can't help getting involved, but come on.

This idea that Luke Patten, one of the most respected men in rugby league, came to Salford and immediately became a bad egg who was intent on disrupting things is ridiculous. Maybe he saw the club for what it is and thought it better to get things out in the open, than let things fester as they have been for years.

It's strange how Salford seems to have internal strife within the playing staff every single season, yet people's first reactions is always to blame the players themselves and not the one thing they have in common, which is playing for Salford. A lack of leadership at the top always leads to problems lower down the chain.

Well done to Highto - if he is doing the good job you suggest. Hopefully, this in time will help reduce some of the problems we have encountered in the past.

I'm still struggling. Could you kindly quote me the posts that are celebrating how well the club's run?

I didn't say anything was celebrating it, did I? Well done for putting words in my mouth though, that can go alongside the times you've formed my opinions for me.



Just after a post suggesting that, if the club was professionally run, we wouldn't have to do what we're doing.

So, whether or not you agree with it, whether or not HR was slightly tounge-in-cheek or not, the post by Chester J Lampwick is not a completely random thought with nothing to do with any posts in the thread.

Anyway, we are, once again and needlessly, drifting away from the point and into an argument. This move is a good one by the club and can only be applauded. As Walshovski has said, hopefully this will go a long way to correcting the errors of the past.

So Chester misinterprets a post, retorts with a lazy comment based on that misinterpretation and is credited with having 'a point'.

Bless this forum.

I wish I was right all the time, rather than being a big anti-club toss-pot.

Enjoy the rest of the thread.