All came from a Tommy O'Reily knock on with 3 minutes on the clock if i remember rightly

I always think of that season as being the one that started it all pretty sure I did most homes and aways as it was around the time I had a wolfpack season ticket (£20 bargain) main things that sitck out.

- Cullen coming in after chanting "we want Cullen" you just knew he would save us well I did at 13 anyway.

- Waiting for the scores after our match against Cas had finished

- Danny Halliwell's scoring form think he got 4 in his first 3 games or something.

- That try by Cardoza

- Super Sid and Darren Burns

This was also my first year watching the Wire too. I remember sitting in the car on the way back from Halifax after that win. My uncle turns me to me and goes "Well, that was some baptism into watching the Wire. You gonna come back next year?" And i just remember myself thinking that there really was nowhere else id rather be on a Sunday afternoon, despite us loosing alot of games!!

I remember Cullen's first game in charge was against Widnes and we lost 19-18 i think. Westwood got sent off towards the end if i remember rightly. I was very very gutted when we lost, but thought under Cullen that we were gonna stay up. But i have so many memories from that season and i really do appricate the good times that we have now. But my overriding memory from the season was thinking that Burns and Domic had kept us up. Two quality players that gave 100%!!

Great Post Sally Ive watched the Wire for many years and that was the worst i can remember for many of the reasons mentioned.

I really felt sorry for Mat Rodwell he really took the brunt from the wire fans, he came on the official site, he got loads of stick off our fans after Widnes beat us at home, he stayed on the pich after the game, think thats when some fans gave him and his family some grief after the game. That must have been the lowest point of his career.

We must have played Fax away twice that year as i remember us getting beat late on in the game, Briers must have dropped about 6 goal then near the end kicked straight into touch. Plange was incharge then.
The wire fans still went to the front of the stand and clapped the team off i remember being close to tears then.

me and my mate got in loads of trouble with our better halfs during this season as we had to drown our sorrows after the game quite frequently,we were terribly poor on the whole but in a couple of games we looked fantastic.
what sticks in my mind from that season was the immense queues at that little bar next to the food kiosk where that big lass used to serve,one home game the lager was that bad we threw 2 extra strong mints in our pints just to make it drinkable,
it was a cold,wet season but the entusiasm where we stood near the scoreboard never wavered,magic days.

Horrible, Horrible year!
There were points during that season I almost threw my season ticket into the mersey. Can talk about a couple of good points but there was so much unbelievable dross to manure 50 farmers fields

What year did Wire beat PSG in Biarritz?

I agree with much of what Paul Youanne said, that season we knew from the players that we had signed and also the rumours that the club was balancing on a high-wire financially that we where up against it and we would have a real battle on our hands.

Andersons plans looked fantastic on paper but in the real work just didn't work and Plange was anything but a coach but cloth was cut according to pennys in the bank.

My overiding memory of that year in particular was the support and how unwavering it was. Because everyone knew we where up against it, the support was fantastic even when we lost because the players even though some weren't the best they gave us everything week in week out and the fans responded with some fantastic support.

Hull at the Boulevard was a strange day, no more than 80 or 90 people there from Warrington and they where rewarded with a well ground out win and a good performance from Mat Rodwell to mention just one.

I missed the win away at Leeds but not the Cas game which kept us up, probably the most momentous day watching wire for me that was until this years visit to Wembley and winning the Challenge cup.

Was this 2002?

I THINK so, although actually i think our kit was all yellow in one year about that time. Id guess so but maybe someone could clarify

No that was 2003.

No it can't be 2002 because the kits are the 2003 kit. The poster seems to be a reference to the smelly Widnes poster which was 2003, so I would guess that was the year after.

Geordie makes a good point about the support. I thought 2002 and 2003 were the seasons when we had the most united support amongst the fans. I don't remember there being a big Plange out lobby, although the vitriol against Rodwell was unexplainable, once him and Anderson had gone, the fans got behind the players. Even the guys who weren't world beaters had the crowd on their side, we used to chant Tommy O'Reilly's name, and I can remember being on the touchline with fans shouting "gooone Leon lad", "gooone Dave lad" to Felton and Alstead, whereas the year before you'd have people shouting motivational comments like "Knott, yer s--t" while he was warming up to come off the bench.

Everybody was also united behind Cullen when he came in and for his first full season with the first dissenters appearing in 2004, and the real rifts in the support starting in 2006 (I moved to the Cullen out camp after the Challenge Cup defeat to Hull KR). On forums and even in the ground there was a nasty feeling between the supporters in Cullen's later years, the Cullenites probably felt that the anti- camp were sometimes quietly rejoicing in defeats hoping it would prove them right. I never rejoiced in a defeat but I can remember sometimes when a game was gone, hoping we would get slogged by 90 to accelerate change. There have also been more players that divided opinions in recent years, usually the Aussies, who split the fans. But in 2002 the support rallied round in adversity.

Its interesting to see how I started this by saying it was the most depressing year to be a Wire fan but many of the memories from the supporters are quite positive.

It was a bad year, but some good came out of it. The signings of Wood and Westwood were real positives as was the signing of Nick Fozzard, who was one of many that year drinking in the Last Chance Saloon. There were some odd selections, with Briers at Fullback and Penny on the Wing at one point. Had we been relegated I am of the opinion that we would not have got back into SL in a hurry.

i am sure 2002 was the year i came to hate Geordie's drum. It was the game at Halifax when we won if i remember rightly

lovely bloke but no no to the drums still in 2009-10

I think it was universally accepted in 02 that had we gone down we'd have gone bust. It seems to me most fans, the players & certainly Cullen when he came in realised the battle was for more than the saving of the season, it was for the saving of the club & of the town in many ways. The feel good factor following the Cup win this year, the publicity surrounding the move to the HJ, Simon Moranovich & his chequebook, Andrew Johns, Monaghan, King, Myler, Morley - NONE of this would have happened had we been relegated.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but there can be little doubt 2002 was one of if not the most pivotal seasons in Wire's history since the formation of the Northern Union. The seasons of cup wins were more momentous, but none have held the balance of the future of the club in its hands quite so precariously...

I'm not so sure y'know about this 'fans were more understanding'. Laughton got plenty around where I stood for one, as did plenty of others I can think of.

I can also remember walking out of the JJB, and literally thinking 'Crouthers & Cardoza will never play for us again' after they, well, basically showed themselves up in a dismal display at the JJB, we got beat by 50+, those two in particular just looked like they couldn't give a hoot. I think IIRC, Halliwell came shortly afterwards, those two at centre stank that night.

I also remember them copping some abuse at Salford, good friday, nip & tuck of a game, we were attacking, someone threw the ball on the floor, Pinkney went full length and we lost, I remember the fans being really angry. Rivett & Cardoza were stood near me, not playing, they thought ot was hilarious when we were losing, and some fans decided to tick them off.

i always thought 97 was much worse than 02.

I remember that game (Wigan) as the earliest i've left a match - so early i had to find a steward to let me out at half time. Highlights of that season were basically Sid Domic & Darren Burns.

i think thats the one im thinking of. was that the season where we had to win the last game of the season to stay up? i thought it may have been earlier than that though....

yeah we ended up having to beat paris down here at wilderspool which went all the way to the last minute with john hough(remember him) haviong made a comeback to the squad and scoring very late on,though we got some dodgy decisions off cummings that day.

97 was bad, really bad but 02 was something else

paris you say?? don't remember it being them, perhpas im going back even earlier. jeez, this thread is making me feel old, more than anything else! i remember walking over wilderspool causeway talking to the old man saying if we don't win this, we'll be playing runcorn instead of widnes in the future. i think the game i remember was oldham, but you're probably starting to grasp hpw bad my memory really is!

Not sure thats entirely true. I remember a few nervous questions along those lines being put to Neil Dowson at Squadbuilder meetings in 2002, he was saying although relegation would be a blow, the new stadium was happening whatever, it wasn't dependent on Super League, and we weren't going to go bust.

Salford ended up going down, they were no better off than us, their new stadium was hardly imminent, and they managed to retain a full time squad in the National League in 2003, this is what I reckon we would have done. Maybe if some of the bigger shareholders had lost interest in us after we were relegated, Simon Moran would have bought his majority share for less than he had to pay in 2004.

I reckon we would have lost players like Burns, Domic and Wood to other SL clubs and the 2003 team in National League One would have been basically the young players of the time, like Huddersfield had done in 2002 when they came up. Blokes like Steve Maden, Dave Alstead, Mike Callan etc might have had a chance if we'd been down in 2003. We would probably have come up and that would have made a great story, first game back in Super League and moving into a new stadium...

I think it would have been harder to start the big signing drive in 2004 though, if we were in our first season back.

That was 2003 Geordie, 2002 home shirt was white with a primrose and blue V. the away top is still my fav mistly yellow with blue sholders