Quote ="Dropkick Murphy"I honestly don't think Warrington is a "rugby town" in the true sense of the term, and I've always said the same. It might have become slightly moreso since the move to the HJ and the recent Wembley successes, but as a kid I always new far more kids (and their parents) who were into football than rugby.
Where I lived (Old Hall) I didn't know a single person who supported Warrington, but everyone supported a football team (Liverpool, Everton or Man United - there was no Man City at the time, and certainly no Chelsea, Arsenal or anyone else). At school there was a few Wires, but they all supported a football team as well (again one of the same three), and there were others who liked football but not rugby. I didn't know anyone who was the other way round (and in real life, outside of this internet world, I still don't).
In St. Helens and Wigan I always got the feeling it was very much the other way round, and rugby came first. Not in Warrington though, and that's despite there being no professional football club in the town itself at any time. You can magnify that situation by a thousand in Salford where Man United lie on the boundary of the city itself and firmly within the local conurbation.
I personally only got into the game at the age of 14 when it became something to do with my mates from school. We couldn't go to the football together because we supported different teams, and those of us who supported the same weren't all allowed to just go and catch a train to Liverpool, but we were all allowed to go to Wilderspool. This will be a bigger attraction for kids now because football is more out of reach to them from a match going perspective than it has ever been for a variety of reasons but primarily financial.
If you can target the new town areas like Chapelford and get kids interested in their local team that they can go and watch with their mates rather than relying on disinterested parents (neither of mine have been in either ground in the 32 years they have lived in Warrington) then that's where the future of our support lies and will grow.'"
I had pretty much this exact conversation with a Salford fan (who used to live in Old Hall) after the game on Sunday. I live in Whittle Hall and growing up nobody in the area that I knew followed the sport, very few people at school had an interest and those who did tended to support Saints. I think during all my time in school we must have played RL no more than five times.
I think the problem is that Sankey, Westbrook, Callands etc are very much 'new town' areas. A lot of families like mine come from Liverpool, and still identify themselves with the city more. I only got into the sport when I was 16 when a mate from college asked me to go and I thought why not. I have been to most games since! No reason why other people won't be the same, especially as things are a lot better at the club than when I started watching.
Like you say, Warrington has never really felt like a rugby town in the way that neighbouring St Helens, Wigan and even Leigh do. I think that is starting to change and the clubs image has improved a lot lately, someone on here or the VT quoted Peter Deakin recently saying that making the back pages isn't enough, you have to be getting towards the front of the paper too and establish the club at the heart of the community. I would have a stall in that new Sainsburys on Chapelford with Wolfie and the cup handing out offers etc and freebies, get folk interested.
