I mean how did John let it get this serious?. If we were struggling 5/10 years ago why the hell didn't he try and find a buyer then? Why only now when we're on deaths door has he attempted to find a buyer! It's ridiculous he will now be known as the man who let Salford RLFC die!

Another thing what happened to the money from the sale of the willows to Goldman&watson homes? Probably in johns offshore account. If he really loved this club he would of hit the panic button a long time ago not countlessly borrow from the council! I just can't believe it it's disgraceful what has happened and I hope all the board are happy what they have done! R.I.P SALFORD RLFC!

The title was meant to say how have we got into this mess.

Please get your facts right. John was looking ready for retirement when 10 years ago he wasnt.

John bought the Willows many years ago and if you look at the Accounts the monies went into the club. You will also see from the Accounts the MILLIONS he has staked to prop up the club. Don`t blame our Chairman. All he has done is provide the likes of you & me with a great sporting interest for years. Instead of berating him I think you should offer him a bit of sympathy. If the Company goes to the wall he will have lost an absolute fortune.

The question should be "How do we get out of this mess?"

Bingo.

Basically with it taking too long to get into Barton, the Willows has slowly bled the club dry, unable to draw in the support you needed, and now short on time and cash to do the neccessary marketing

As for how you get out of it? , christ knows

It don't help when you give free tickets out very week to get people interested and it still did not increase. No matter what marketing we would have done people round Salford prefer football. But still think the club should have done more also alienating your own supporters by ignoring them as made this even worse as they have lost me. They were ignorent to think they would ever make targets. Anyone who does show interest will see there is not enough money coming into the club making it an unviable perchase

You say he's put millions into the club? Id like to know how many millions? Say hes put 10 million all in all, thats only over 300000 a year over the course of his 30 year reign I remember a Salford player once stating the wages the club pay out are just above minimum wage and you wonder why we never had any success!, I dont even believe he has put that much in, if anything He's made millions out of it. that variety centre was built to fund our RL team under Brian Snape,and for the last 30 years it's funded the Wilkinson family so he has made money out of the club, and to me now the money making has ended so has his intrest In the club!

ONLY £300,000 per year!! I know some other chairmen put in more than that but to berate a man for basically throwing away £300k a year is a little bit harsh IMO.

I feel sorry for the Salford fans, we have been there and it's not a nice place to be. I genuinely hope ypu find a way out of this mess that doesn't result in you losing your club.

Hopefully the RFL will show some consistency for once and actually help you out in the same way they did with Bradford.

Best wishes guys, I hope it gets sorted.

Totally agree. Good post

And the Red carpet will still be rolled out for him by the deluded lot. Their mindset is " ah well at least he provided us with a sporting interest over the years, without him we would of gone years ago, it's not his fault" That is just pure sand dwelling mentality. Believe me, he's earned his corn ouut of Salford over the years.

It didn't help that regular paying 'fans' were misusing the free ticket idea as a way to get in for nothing. For a struggling Club when your own fans start doing things like that there isn't really any hope. I agree with you on the Football part and in some part the communication from the Club which has always been selective.

You're very closely edging towards the best card in the deck in 'Imaginary Salford Supporters Top Trumps'

Special Ability: Repetition

Don't understand why a 'fan' would take great pleasure in seeing the demise of his own Club. I mean, why bother wasting your time on here if you already declared Salford Reds as a waste of time? Seems counter-intuitive to me. I really hate doughnuts but I don't go on ILoveDoughnuts.com and have a good whinge about it.

Not that it matters anymore as the lovely BLOCK option will now be chosen...

Tony

I'm not one bit surprised this has happened, it was inevitable, the club was riddled with a disease, you don't treat the symptoms for the disease you eradicate the source to progress forward. This is the same in Salford case. The board is the disease whats put this club on it's death bed FACT.

Shows how daft you are, TB says he's blocked you but still reply.
Same no doubt you'll reply to this despite you now being added to the block list.

Red League : please explain the morality of slamming a person who has put his OPWN money into a club to try to keep it alive.
Eccleswhatsit : please explain the stance of falling out with a chairman whose actions allowed you the liberty of supporting Salford until you decided otherwise. You condemn his actions even when those actions allowed you to support the club for several years.
Philyourbutt: oh whatever: you're happy now

Other than maybe one or two clubs, rugby league teams simply don't make money. Unless you have a backer who can absorb the losses, you're eventually going to become unstuck. It's finally become too much.

The whole sport needs a rethink on how it's clubs are run.

Didn't the Variety Centre get wound up? Or did I imagine that? Sounds more like something that will have cost money in the end to me.

Yes I'll explain! Wilkinson has made millions out of the Salford public and surrounding areas for the past 30 years through the variety centre's shows Christmas party's new years party's, dinners/awards evenings, weddings the lot! And what of that has he pumped into our team to make it successful? NOTHING! But his family have gained out of it big time! For gods sake our record transfer fee Is still 50000 for Gary broadbent, to be successful you have to speculate to accumulate and since 1982 that man has never spent the big bucks to compete not one season! I remember Neil baynes telling me that he was only pulling in £300 before tax, he said most of the team were on the same pay, that is what you call cheap! Like I said earlier the variety centre was built to raise funds for the team, wilkinson obviously forgotten all about that.

really GT? If you believe it actually went out of business you are naive.

OK. Sorry. I'll hide in the corner. How embarrassed am I?

Rightly or wrongly, I always felt secure at the Willows. We never seemed to go and spend beyond our means - which sometimes meant relegation, but almost a guaranteed promotion the year after - and I always felt we competed pretty well within our capabilities ie generally lower table finishes, with the odd decent scalp along the way. How could we have done much better on the size of the crowds we got? Major opportunites were missed following our decent seasons in recent times: 1997 = 6th, 1998 = 11th. 2006 = 5th, 2007 = 12th (and relegated).

The last two years or so, have been like a really bad dream, one from which we aren't seemingly going to wake up from. Scriptwriters from a certain other Salford based soap opera could surely not have come up with what we have been served up:

The sale of decent young talent eg Myler, Turner, Ratchford / McRae going on leave following stress / Alker getting sacked and the whole sorry saga involved with the dismissal of the hitherto iconic clubman / Vievers in / Vievers out / Parish in / Parish out / Vievers in / the shambolic lead up to the final game at the Willows and the potential to sell the new vision to a 10,000 crowd, spurned / a hopeless inept loss to Leigh at the first game at the new stadium / playing the first competitive game in an inch of snow / Sale move in before we've had a chance to warm the bed / Matty Smith sold with a third of the season remaining / players undermining the club on Twitter / a player taking the club to tribunal in an attempt to get out of his contract / a sponsor employed to help the club with their finances getting involved with a winding up petition against the club / players employed to help the club with their on-field performances getting involved with a winding up petition against the club / an extensively dragged-out 'financial rescue' which amounted to a failed attempt to get a loan to see us lurch on for another year...

I've no doubt missed out plenty of other issues which I've either forgotten or blanked from my memory to save further pain.

Less than one year on from the dawning of our new dream, we are faced with the ultimate nightmare: no club to support at all and the loss of our tired but beloved old ground. With no framed turf to help remember her by...

300 pound a week baynesy must of been having you at it mate, i know salford didnt pay the best money in the world but ill guarantee you that they would of been paying more than that, i know patten holdsworth feka and others were on 100k plus, plus simms money you could buy a few good ones with that

That answers the question in the title of the thread.

He wasn't having me on, he was telling me how the club pays bad wages, just shows a few years of paying big wages and we need council loans and player sales to carry on, if wilkinson hasn't got the money why did he stay in control all them years? I'll tell you why because that gold mine/variety centre kept the pound signs in his eyes! Keep the rugby club surviving on a shoe string budget while he made millions for his family, shows
Where his priorities really lie, and now he's looking to retire he cuts his losses and the willows variety centre gets wound up (takes his
Money and runs)

I'm not saying any of this is not true, but in the early 90's i know for a fact that players were on a lot more than that.