only against Saints really or important games. Wednesday nights never attracted large crowds

You may be right about the numbers, but supporters at least made the effort to go to them without any moaning about having to get up in the morning for work or kids being at school.

And there was a better and more noisy atmosphere at Central Park than what we get at Whelans Folly. At some games, visiting supporters make more noise than us and we only get behind the team if they get well in front and even then, some are too busy looking at a mobile phone.

The fact that most weeks we rattle round in a ground double the size we need doesn’t help and the club really need to do something about making the atmosphere better and getting the home and away support sat closer together. There is only a need to open the North Stand when Saints come to town and maybe the odd isolated occasion other than that but for 95% of the games I really think we should consider housing eve away fans in the first couple of blocks of the East stand, down towards the South Stand. Some people go to a game to experience an atmosphere, to have banter with opposition fans and by having them sat rattling around miles away from any home support isn’t helping.

It would be a small step in the right direction for me. It wouldn’t improve crowds at the drop of a hat but if you get more of an atmosphere going and it’s a better experience going to games, that spreads and people enjoy themselves and want to go more.

thats because they are all in the same place, we are very noisy away. If it was on tv on wednesdays my dad wouldnt have taken me as it would have been better due to school and travel etc. In them days you didnt have RL on TV unless it was large cup games

Only way you'll get a lot of lapsed Wigan fans back now is if we have our own stadium. I'd rather stand on a grass verge at Robin Park Arena than sit in a soulless dump like the DW. Come on Lenners lad, announce Robin Park.

Both my late parents went together to that match and said, it was that crowded, their feet hardly touched the ground after the match till they got to Standishgate.

Reputations are hard won and easily lost. So are ST holders. IL has taken them for granted for a few years with some disasterous PR stunts - Millwall, Hull in Oz, Edwards, Bateman re-signing etc. It will take more than a couple of signings to rebuild the trust between the club and the former ST holders.

If NONE of those things had happened - I would suggest we would be in virtually the same position we are now
Said it previously,
People blame IL for not buying big names - We buy big names and nothing changes
People Blame the stadium - But we've averaged crowds at this stadium bigger than anything we had at Central Park
We had Big names in the early 00's - Rubbish crowds
We have had teams with average players - Big Crowds

We've had success - Rubbish crowds
We've had periods of mediocrity and had Great crowds

People have seen my previous thoughts on this subject and ultimately I do believe that the club do need to "Market"/Promote the club better than it does especially in the last year or 2 - But I also believe that the fans/casual watchers or whatever do need to decide if we want the club to remain at the top of RL hierarchy. It's a 2 way street and I have also said that some of the Fans negativity towards it's chairman, coach, players, stadium etc.. over the last 7/8 years or so through what I would argue relatively speaking is one of the most successful periods in the clubs history is remarkable!
And the trouble with that is that through Social Media reach the most dissenting voices get heard more and over a wider audience and it affects other peoples perceptions creating even more negativity.
We seem very happy to criticise the smallest thing, but unwilling to praise what are sometimes fantastic achievements.

Agree.

Casual fans have too many excuses not to show up these days. The two playoff crowds against Salford were abysmal and not far short of embarrassing especially when you consider what the queue for OT tickets would have looked like first thing Saturday morning.

The "official" crowds may be better at the DW Stadium because it is a more secure Stadium with full length turnstyles instead of small turnstyles where kids could be handed over, climb over or crawl under and no accessible walls to climb like there was at Central Park.

If the club and some supporters think that the signing of Hastings, George Burgess, Bibby and Clarke are big signings, they are poor compared to some of the signings of other clubs and have not inspire, from what I gather, a mad rush for season tickets.

As for the marketing of games, you only have to look at the lack of pre match publicity at many non season ticket games games like Challenge Cup ties and play off games like last seasons Play Off Semi Final, even for the recent Liam Farrell Testimonial game.

And what success the club has had in the last 7/8 years is nothing compared to the time that the "gang of four" ran the club, especially when Maurice Lindsay was the Chairman.

Even the club website is out of date. The season starts next week and unlike other top clubs, we still do not know the names of the players who will be in the squads of the Under 18, Under 16 Academies or the Women's team.

Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, the marketing and publicity of the club has gone downhill in the last few seasons especially since good administration staff like Simon, Graham and Paul have left the club.

Don't know where to start?

I can't compare crowds at the DW to Central Park as some kids may have crawled under a turnstyle or climbed over a wall? Ok

Current Man of Steel signed this year plus an International Ex NRL Experienced Prop - A previous Man of Steel the previous year - But our recruitment isn't as good as other clubs
And bear in mind, without any financial restrictions that the current Regime need to deal with the Gang of 4 also signed Billy McGinty, Neil Cowie, Barrie McDermott, Terry O'Connor, Sam Panapa, Ged Byrne, Martin Hall None of which were superstars but went on to "Play their Part" in the success we had.

As for the success of the Gang of 4 - Maybe that's part of the reason were playing at the DW? Didn't end too well did it?
And if You or anyone else want to continually refer to the success of the 85-95 period as a Benchmark to judge all other Era's/owners/coaches/players by then I'm afraid you will continually be disappointed (And maybe that's where the problem lies).
Rightly or Wrongly the current regime have to play by the rules/situation of today - Salary Cap, NRL Increased Salary Cap, Professional RU/Summer Rugby etc.
If the Gang of 4 had to deal with any of those never mind all 4 or more they wouldn't have been able to do what they did.
The last 10 years or so In my opinion the success that the club have achieved has been fantastic. The players we've had the privilege of watching especially some of the Home grown such as Sam Tomkins/Oilver Gildart/George Williams and one of the 3/4 wingers that have come through not to mention some of the young forwards has been great.

But it appears None of that is good enough for some people
And if you read my post I do mention that the club need to market things better, but I also say that the club needs to cut it's cloth
When we allegedly didn't buy top names and we brought youth through they were criticised
Were buying better names and they're criticised
But I also mentioned that even if it's not in the playing department that cuts need to be made then they will need to be made "Somewhere". And maybe that's where? Marketing, youth development etc.

.... add to that in recent seasons:

Women's team.
PDRL team.
Community Work.
College Courses & other further education initiatives.
Kids camps.

The gang of 4 never even looked into anything other than what we saw on the playing field.

The gang of 4 couldn't even bear the thought of Wigan Athletic being allowed to play an important FA cup game against Liverpool at Central Park (even though some gate receipts revenue would have filtered through to Wigan RL). Madness and short-sighted.

The mid eighties to mid nineties were a period I will always remember with great fondness but looking back you can't help but notice that grave mistakes were made along the way.

The gang of four never looked into what you have said because at the time Women playing rugby or even football was looked upon as not being right. In fact for many years, the FA actually had a ban of women playing their game while many supporters of our game treated women playing rugby as a joke. The club at the time did some community work with players visiting schools, day centres for the handicapped etc. They also had no involvement in education as the Council did not at the time do joint projects like the one at the former Pemberton High School and they did not consider things like kids camps just to make money.

The gang of four and rightly so, cared only about providing supporters with success, top class signings, but did make mistakes, the biggest of which was selling Central Park to Tesco without first of all getting plans for a new Stadium passed by the Council.

The crowds at the DW Stadium may be bigger as there is not the same way of getting in free as there was at Central Park.

And the signings of Bibby, George Burgess, Clarke and even Hastings can hardly be described as big signings like those even of the Madge couple of seasons. One a average /winger, a prop forward at the end of his career and a player Castleford sent out on loan to Leigh. Only Hastings has played anything like a top player and I reserve judgement of him until I see how he performs for us in a few games.

The best signings I have seen since the signing of Bateman have been the elevation of Academy players like Byrne, Gildart, Partington, Smith and Smithies, together with Bevan French and Zak Hardacre

I wish people would stop drawing comparisons with the late 80s / early 90s.

That was a golden age for Wigan, but it was also only manageable because we had no salary cap, the NRL played at a different time of year and RU was still a joke game wherein the bottomless pockets were only available when it came to restocking club chairmen's drinks cabinets.

No one can surely believe that the likes of Hanley, Edwards, Lydon, Offiah, Connolly, Inga etc would have been at Wigan under today's circumstances.

There is no like for like between now and that era, and anyone who keeps using it as a benchmark for what Wigan Warriors can be is doomed to be disappointed. Either that, or they are being deliberately mischievous.

Correct about there being no salary cap and the NRL being played at a different time, but the fact remains that clubs had more big names from down under and Union, the rugby was better and played in a better atmosphere at Central Park and indeed many other grounds on a Sunday Afternoon in the company of a crowd who were more vocal after spending a couple of hours or so before a game in one or more of the pubs at many of the grounds.

Those were the days of far more interest, enjoyment and visiting supporters in watching a game unlike today.

Perhaps, being a all seating stadium like those at Huddersfield and Hull and the lack of many pubs and clubs near some new stadiums may have something to do with the lack of the same atmosphere at those grounds.

Times have changed. I don't particularly agree with all of Wire's social media Tomfoolery but it has to be said, our attendances are on the up.

With American culture now rife in the UK with more and more people invested in American sports (Why I have no idea) the kids these days don't just go to watch the game, they go for an event.

It started years ago. We'd be stood in our usual peg. The age group watching it would be mostly 25+. But then there would be teenage girls with no interest in the game stood around on their phones, messing around, play fighting ect and otherwise being annoying as f*ck. They went because I assume they fancied the small collection of teenage lads who mostly stood behind us. In conclusion the average age was much older on the terraces, the kids weren't interested in RL, they were more interested in computer games and loitering in local parks.

Since Wire's embracement of American sport culture and all the gimmick crap that goes with it, when you now walk around town there are Wire shirts everywhere. you go into a local and there's 3 or 4 people wearing them on non game days, when you go to the games the average age is much lower and the annoying kids are now turning up wearing colours and actually engaged in the game and not their phones. the ground fills up way before kick off and not 10 minutes before.

We might not like it but that's what interests the young people of today and if the game is to survive and flourish its what it needs. Blue Chip sponsors love it. Wigan attendances will always look small even averaging 14,000 because of the size of the stadium. The natural interest of the average person in RL in Wigan is probably the best in the UK, aside from Hull perhaps. If Wigan could embrace the gimmicky Americanisation of the game day 'experience' and how they market games then attendances would improve much better than what we have seen.

Warrington have to fight for local people to take up an interest in RL, In Wigan you don't. All that needs to be done for you lot is to convince people that they're missing out on something massive if they don't go. That you're not just paying to see a game of low intensity mid season RL, they're paying for a major event where the entertainment isn't just the RL its the build up, the half time show and the events taking place in the concourse before and after kick off.

I'd never pretend that all in the British RL garden is rosy. It's far from that. But beware of falling into the nostalgia trap.

Central Park would not have lasted much longer without major work being done on it, which would have caused huge disruption and given how broke the club was, would probably not have been possible without Whelan, who - being the arch schemer he was - would then have forced us to share it with his football club (imagine that). Also, things weren't always great back then. Facilities were often poor, and winter rugby was terrible a lot of the time, with foul weather, no covers at some grounds (Leigh, Cas, Wakey for example), and pitches that turned into quagmires.

There are issues now for sure, mainly about finance, and a lot of that can be put down to the mismanagement of the RFL, who's agenda seems to have been to maintain the M62 corridor at all costs and to keep certain clubs 'professional' who really don't merit that status. The salary cap has been a disaster in my view. As you say, the best players in the world once graced our pitches. Now, we can't even keep hold of average players. But that's not the worst problem; more damaging is that it's allowed the minnows in the game - the tail that relentlessly wags the dog - to keep trundling along without feeling any need to improve their situation, thus pegging the rest of us back until we've become the poor man's game.

The SL breakaway can't come soon enough for me, but I feel it may be too late.

Just go into the pubs around the Wigan area on Thursday. You'll see and hear all the experts giving their opinions whilst supping their cheap bitter. Then if Wigan lose they will be the first posting on social media about poor performance and lack of atmosphere.

It's very frustrating. I alone know maybe a dozen guys or more who used to be Central Park regulars and yet who haven't been for years now. And when you ask them why, they can't really say.

I still think there are certain signings that would make even that group sit up and take notice, but they aren't possible in the British game's current climate.

Wigan attracted big support from the Swinley area at Central Park. I know loads of Swinley folk who think it's a trek going to Wigan Central for a pint and have not/probably never will venture down to Marsh Green for the rugby. Most insular district of Wigan bar none.

It's a 20-minute walk tops.

Like my mates who don't know why they don't go anymore, I'd treat that excuse with the contempt it deserves if I were you.

But shouldn't the Swinley based fans have been replaced with those from Marsh Green, Pemberton, Norley Hall etc as they are closer to the New Stadium.
As Cruncher has said, excuses, excuses, excuses!!!

If there was no salary cap, most of the clubs would find it harder to continue playing as like in normal life, you cannot pay out more than what you are getting in income. You would also have a situation where the best players would be playing for just three or four clubs, more so than at present with a salary cap.

As for not being able to attract top players in this country, that is because of Rugby Union going professional in the mid nighties which stop the flow of their top players coming to League as a result of getting far bigger TV contracts from Sky and the BBC which our game will never get even if the was no salary cap.

That was the era you appeared to be harking back to in your OP. Fair enough if you've changed your mind.