The two things (marketing/match day experience v on-field performance) don’t have to be mutually exclusive but unfortunately we’re doing our best to make it look that way.

I agree
Stilt walkers, men in wolf costumes etc, aren't reasons we haven't won the championship. However, our CEO seems to be putting suchlike [ifront and centre [/i of his job, instead of getting a top notch coaching staff and assistants, and addressing where the club are going wrong.

Little 8 year old Kayne/Jaxon/Tyla Charlee will soon get bored of his team not winning trophies, while his second generation St Helens supporting schoolmates, are off to another GF.

I'll leave you to work that one out.

The match day experience should have more than just the rugby league, but we should also do the naffness test. If we want to be a global superstar brand like the biggest sporting brands in the world we should ask, if someone suggested this at Real Madrid, Dallas Cowboys etc, would they be laughed off the park. Would Dallas Cowboys have people running races against a man in a green gimp suit etc. We do seem a bit Benny Hill.

Also remember in the early days of Super League, Bradford were seen as the leaders of match day marketing and looking to the future, trying to attract a new generation with Bullmania and all that. I remember going to Odsal or Valley Parade and thinking how much things had changed in a few years....they'd gone from an ageing audience of flat cappers to having families, loads of teenagers, especially girls. But how long did they stay, after the team went in to decline? You would have expected them to have a huge bulge of fans in their 30s now, probably with kids who they had started bringing to Odsal. Where did they all go?

Now I expect Bradford actually has a big latent support base in the town, of people who are familiar with rugby league from their teenage days but haven't been for a while. If they got some good investment in, and got back into Super League and landed a couple of major signings, I wouldn't be surprised if RL became big again there. But the excitement ultimately comes from the team and its performances and the drama of competing for trophies.

It has been like this since Gatcliffe left. When Roger Draper was here, everything was about the matchday/customer experience, and 'modernising' the badge and brand. This focus on the off-field stuff has continued with KF but while we've been focusing on this our eye has come off the ball for recruitment of players and coaches - which has been poor since around the point Gatcliffe left.

The irony here is, I think the club's 'brand' was stronger under Gatcliffe, who was more understated and didn't make all these performative gestures with the badge and talking to the media. When Gatcliffe took over, I think our club brand was associated with middling mediocrity, usually having some financial crisis, and being supported by grumpy men from the Fletcher Street End and pondlife corner. Then during the Gatcliffe era, the brand became much more of us being a big time club, with modern facilities, well-known in Australia due to signings of top NRL players, with a more diverse fan base.

Over the past few years, I think our brand has become tarnished with being a bit of a joke, with this Always Our Year stuff, and the number of times we've tried to wind up other clubs or made public boasts about what we are going to do and then failed to deliver. I don't look at our current badge and compare it to the old badge and think "we have a stronger brand now", I think it has gone in the opposite direction. Not the fault of the badge itself but I do think some of the efforts to build a brand have been counterproductive and I prefer the approach of Gatcliffe who had a more humble, quiet persona but ran the club well.

Except there are generations who didn’t see us win anything. Just like the majority of teams. If someone only supports a team in the hope that they will win a trophy they are either in for constant disappointment or should consider a regular switch of allegiance.

I haven't actually seen us be officially crowned champions . I was four in 1955 & in 1985/6 i had to work on final day ,although i recorded it to watch the following day. However , our lack of silverware in Championship terms has been made up for in CC wins & watching the roller coaster that is the Wire, & i have no urge to start watching Saints or Wigan.

And so that’s my point about fan entertainment and trying to get new fans to attend, when it all went tits up for Bradford the fans went to, I’ve been to Bradford in the 20000 plus crowd days and after it all went down hill, yes they still had fans but nothing like there glory days. Fan entertainment only works if your team is winning more than it loses. Bradford have proven that.

Exactly 9A, karetaker you surprise me by giving a thumbs up. This seems to be the opposite of your normal stance (unless it was about not supporting Saints/Wigan).

So there are generations who didn't see us win anything (I consider myself one of them, from my first season ticket in 83, a Lancs Cup, a Regal Trophy and a Prem until 2009 is hardly being greedy) makes it OK, does it.? A simple shrug of the shoulders, and accept our fate in life. St Helens were similar in the same period, until the birth of SL, where they refused to accept second best, and grew a ruthless streak.
I'll repeat myself. We (I imagine) are spending upto full salary cap. We have 2 marquee players, and a host of International standard players, and we've gone out at the first round of the playoffs, two years running. For our outlay for the last 15 years, we should have lat least 1 GF win. Top sides DO NOT accept mediocrity. They act. Our club, and some of its supporters seem to accept this.

Procastinatus on Winwick Roadius should be the club motto

Do you not feel you are now going round in circles with this, it doesn’t matter how many time and different ways we say this we have to accept some people are just happy with the way it is /sighs.

It looks like I'll never convert the [ihappy with my lot[/i brigade.

Another season of

"Hendo" putting the cones out
"Briersy" growing his beard longer, and
"Pricey" saying "I know what kind of footy team we've got, here"

Once more into mediocrity, dear friends, once more
Or close the turnstiles up, with our Happy Clappers

Fitzies our Leader

The show must go on

MWGA

I think the match day experience is great for newcomers and family members who aren't overall there for the rugby. However the team. Playing entertaining rugby is what will keep the punters coming back. I doubt that a special light show is going to bring in more fans in the long term but an. Entertaining rugby side and a great crowd atmosphere will.

I also think if we we’re going to have this “controversial”social media strategy we’re going to have to start backing it up on the pitch. We just end up inviting ridicule when we get beat because the club have been “giving it all that” beforehand.

I don’t actually mind our marketing/match day approach. I’m happy that we’re trying something different. However it’s secondary to what’s happening on the pitch.

"Fitzies our Leader"..............Hopefully NOT for much longer.

I'm still non the wiser
I'll have to go to Bletchley Park to decode

Our brand of rugby is appalling. Simple. You could give every speccie a can of ale and meat pie at half time but, ultimately it is the product on the pitch that brings supporters in. Remembering Tony Smith and hid way of playing with nostalgia.

No, it’s not ok. But you are moving the goal posts. Your position started off as criticism of the match day experience. It developed into “well if we don’t win anything the kids will move on”. To then accepting that you watched us for years without us winning anything.
Now you have moved onto “ but we should be winning things”. I don’t suppose anyone will disagree. I’m sure we have discussed that particular topic ad infinitude. Now we seem to be onto if you don’t take every opportunity to repeat how we should be winning things then you’re accepting mediocrity, which I don’t accept as a premise.
As it happens I wasn’t excited by Price’s appointment and I would have let him go at the end of last season. Nevertheless I do find the constant repetition of the same point tedious.
Yes, I could ignore the posts, but this is a forum and I feel strongly enough to respond, in just the same way that you undoubtedly do.

This totally demonstrates that you have totally missed my point, and I refer to my earlier post. But if it keeps you and your acolyte happy, carry on as you are.

But surely everyone will agree that if we change nothing then nothing will change.

If we retain Price then something else has to change, whether it's roles and responsibilities in the backroom, training regime, team selection, opportunities for younger players.

The reason many, including myself, want Price out is because otherwise nothing will change and we genuinely will get more of the same unless we fluke a GF win. Price has shown himself to be a very unimaginative, conservative, risk and change averse coach - if people thought he had the steel to demote some of the serial flops and give the youngsters a prolonged chance, or freshen up the backroom or give Paul Anderson (for example) more match day input then we might look to 2021 with a [ilittle[/i more optimism.

1) I'd rather someone else be head coach for 2021.
2) I'd like to see us win a GF.
3) I'd like to see us get the best from our playing squad.
4) I'd like to see us play with more creativity, especially within our opponents 25 yd area.
5) I'd like to see more tangible benefit from our player recruitment.

I could go on, but this wish list is something that I'm not expecting to receive in time for Xmas. I'll have to just be thankful that we still have RL to watch, albeit on TV if that's the way it is. I share everyone's frustration, but change will happen, just maybe not quick enough, and that is something we'll all have to accept. It might suck to be a Wire at the end of this unusual season, however, we should show a little patience, and hope that when change does come, it comes for the better.

A Leg end in his own lunch time that lad.

Holds more Directorships than many have had hot dinners today.

A pillar of our institution, going nowhere, fast.

My understanding was this topic wasn’t meant to just re hash all the other topics on how cr*p our coach is and how we need to change something.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the CEO doesn’t give a shiny poop about on field performances. He’ll be to busy planning Wolfies next stunt to take any notice. You only have to spend 5 minutes in his company to realise that. It’s all about ‘the brand’. He’s hopeless.

Time for bed said Zebedee ............ and it was.