I've just as golfers do who often play on spec on their own had a round with a guy from Cleveland Ohio who is over visiting his daughter who's a student here and had turned up at the Marriott for a game. After a few holes I asked him if he was a Browns fan and he said he was but that he's seen something yesterday that blew his mind - on a whim he'd gone to watch us play London and in his words "those guys as are crazy".

He couldn't believe that he'd never had any exposure to rugby in America as it was a brilliant spectacle to watch and that the players did all that without pads. Goes too show that the sport needs better marketing as if one random visitor sees us play and thinks it's the Bee's can you imagine if a bar full of them watched a SOO or Wigan V Saints game and the ripple effect that might bring.

Couple of points really struck me though, he commented that it was incredibly cheap for a fun afternoon out and that everyone was incredibly friendly. So puts our complaints about the prices of the sludge and stewards into perspective.

Sadly though he did ask if the players were only semi professional as there wasn't many people there. I explained about London already being relegated (which he didn't get the concept of at all) and that they are now the best followed team. He did say he wished he'd seen a game with a bigger crowd as the atmosphere was very good in the bleachers.

We might all be on a bit of a downer about not making the 8 but if a random visitor thinks so highly about one game how lucky are we that we get it week in week out.

We don't normally do good news stories on here !
Glad he enjoyed it.
We sat behind a London fan who travelled ,on his own,by train from Ipswich.
Deserves a medal.
Felt sorry for him,apart from the last 15 minutes.

i think we all feel extremely lucky to have a rugby team that have in fairness have competed well but only in parts this season. I think that chap is correct MR, the attendance is and has been woeful this year and my biggest fear is if the attendance stays at similar next year, how long before the Marwan pulls the plug on this project? So how do we get people involved and the stay aways back, I truly cannot believe we cannot muster 8k attendances from a city so big.

They've been woeful, yet we still have the largest % increase in super league. Our attendances are around 50% up on last season, to me thats good progress considering the team have yet again let us down.

We saw at the start of the year that a bit of optimism and positive PR will get crowds in. The problem was that we didn't maintain it and the sizeable number of lapsed fans/interested people/occasional fans who were prepared to check us out to see whether or not it was another false dawn saw a team that played well for 40 minutes of the first 3 home games. That's when the rot started to set in with the crowds - those who'd bought the 3-game taster ticket probably decided that they didn't like this season's flavour.

We can get good crowds when we're playing well and winning or competing. The problem is, you only get one shot a major relaunch, and we blew it. The build up from this time last year to the start of the season got people interested. The club now has the job of trying to generate attention and get people buying into the notion that 2014 was a stepping stone and that 2015 is what "the Devilution" is all about.

it's good progress but nowhere near the revenue to support what Marwan has invested. I know its been covered a million times but that GMR interview I heard the other day where MK basically stated he loved the club but needs the support or it will not work got me a bit worried, is it the first signs of maybe I cannot make this work?

It is faintly depressing when a bunch of has-been footballers and a team from the lower reaches can sell out the stadium though.
Over the years I've brought a number of people, new to RL, to watch, both at The Willows & at the new ground but have had a 100% failure rate in getting them to attend again - it could be that my sparkling personality, good humour and wit isn't quite what I thought it was but on a very small scale I think it shows the difficulty of converting football spectators into RL watchers.
I'm sure some success and consistency will see an increase but it is an uphill struggle to find a genuinely new clientèle for the product and as Iain has just pointed out the lapsed fans who may have given it a try at some point this season are likely to be even more cynical.
There really has to be a big build up and marketing push in the run up to the start of next season and that needs to be matched by performances on the pitch too!

Ultimately it's about the second part of the above quote , not the 1st . As for all the positivity hardcore fans can generate , there is twice as much negativity directed at the club , from local press in relation to the stadium & it's present / past dealings with the council , from RL due the ambition of the owner, and the less than auspicious season that resulted.
Only when we have a balanced focused squad delivering on the field week in week out will we overide this, far too many lapsed fans have heard the rallying cries season after season , all the early season optimism evaporated after reality bit and the loses to Saints & Warrington, marketing ticketing impetus seemed to die off too. as did the promises of a dedicated web TV channel ( Leigh can manage one FFS , how hard can it be . . ? ) .
Salford will now have to work twice as hard to sell the prospect of the Salford Red Devils as a nailed on top 8 club for 2015.

Why again has a thread started with a bit of good news descended into doom and gloom?

There have been bigger improvements this year than pretty much any other. And I doubt very much if this will not continue next season also.

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First time posting so hello everyone.

I don't wish to add to the negativity after such a positive post but did anything ever get done to those people who started the fight after the Leeds match? After years of not going to Salford I took my family to the Leeds match, my wife and daughter were literally yards away from getting punched and kicked by some drunken idiots. When I suggest to the family that we go to another match my daughter literally shakes with fear, if I can prove to her that something was done about it she may want to go again, until then I will probably be the only one back. I guess my family were not the only ones put off by what happened after that game?

Unfortunately, for every positive that comes with following Salford, the negatives are currently outweighing them..

Since 2008, I've lost count of the number of new people that I've introduced to RL, and to be honest, none of them became followers of Salford.

This season, I decided to purchase a spare VIP ST with a hope of converting a few, but alas, the 1st part of the season killed it... Since the upturn in latter part of season, it's the embarrasing social media rantings of Marwan that has prevented me from gaining any interest in my spare ticket, which has left an empty seat for probably 50% of home games..
Saying that, I've still kept the optimism and for next season, will again have my spare VIP ticket and hope it will be used more...

I'm now going to semi-rant about Marwan, and yes I know he saved us from oblivion and none of us should ever forget that, however, that does not give him any right to publicly slate or interfere with the playing/coaching side of things, behind closed doors is another matter but in all honesty, leave the coaching team to do their jobs!!!!

Sunday was the final straw for me with MK - after killing what should've been a fantastic day for fans to applaud the squad for their efforts in a difficult season with "our" player of the year awards, he decides to conga through the west stand and into south stand to prove he is a true fan... As Karl Pilkington would say "BullSh@t"... it was a show of "I've got the power and can rub everyones noses in it" that's my view on it anyway - Nobody is bigger than the club, and that includes him, and it's about time MK stopped throwing his teddy

Rant over