Alffi 7

I agree but I find it increasingly difficult to persuade people to come along when our team aren’t involved. Seems these events are generating less interest than they used to for the neutral supporter - amongst our group anyway. I’ll be going with one or two others and as usual I’m really looking forward to it, but feel like the interest just doesn’t seem to be as strong as it once was.

Yeah know what you mean, think the North Stand extension is favoured as it allows another row of boxes. I’m sure it would be more expensive, the last extension was £1.2m I believe. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/10493365.hj-stadium-capacity-could-be-extended-beyond-20000/

The corners are step 4 of a 4 part plan. North stand extra tier (inc an extra row of hospitality boxes) seated tier on top of the south stand. Hotel in the NE corner were all supposed to be before the West end corners being filled. The pans are in place for capacity to go up to around 22k I believe. Should the demand warrant it.

They have certainly got as far as Lymm, my mate is taking his mrs and 2 kids - got their tickets from a Lymm primary school. On the other hand, didn’t see my sons school in Grappenhall advertising it despite me emailing them about it.

The event has been branded ‘schools day.’ Schools had to register with the club to be part of it, then tickets were sold child £1 adults £5 I believe for the otherwise empty West stand. I’m not sure whether schools outside the Warrington area were targeted or not TBH. You weren’t allowed the cheap tickets unless they were bought through a registered school. I think they also went in to schools and helped with school projects Such as school children performing back office duties such as marketing/media/entertainment etc around the event and competitions such as being the stadium announcer for the day.

Yes, great initiative. Would have been good on a Saturday / Sunday, but a great effort and hopefully an initiative we build on year on year.

I think it’s unrealistic to expect a massive change in commercial performance a few weeks in to a new campaign. We are only a few games in, but the product seems better - faster certainly - hopefully that will equate to bigger attendances and TV viewers. The social Media side seems to have improved, there’s certainly a greater presence on Facebook that I’ve noticed. If we can improve the narrative around some of the elite players we could potentially start to see improvements in Commercial Performance off the back of that from 2020. Need to get a move on though, new TV contract negotiations will start shortly no doubt, so they need to push forward.

Part of me agrees. However there were enough clubs over the past couple of years to make it work. Unfortunately because it wasn’t an official comp there were loads of games cancelled because one of the sides cried off. Warrington went weeks on end without a fixture. An official comp will see fixtures completed and clubs to put plans in place for squad sizes and competition rules etc.

Warrington, Wigan & Saints have all been very vocal of their support for a reserves comp. They will only compete in an official RFL comp though as they didn’t feel the current set up was fit for purpose.

It’s just good salary cap management, we’re paying Widdop to be mascot as well as play. Was the only way we could get him over early and under the cap.

Fairing pretty well at Warrington - have done for a couple of years now. Slightly concerned that may change now Jon Clarke has left...? Ben Currie looks likely to miss the first few, Ben Murdoch-Masila is touch and go for the first game and Jack Johnson still recovering from his broken leg 12 months ago. Daryl Clark seems to be back to fitness following his dislocated ribs playing for England. So pretty good all in all really.

I believe he and Tony Smith were fairly close after Smith spent some time with him observing the England football set up. Smith then invited him to Warrington and it developed from there. He was a guest for a few days at the preseason Malaga? Training camp in 2017 I think. Was photographed on his way to a City game recently with a Wire coat on, so is certainly a fan.

Widdop has confirmed he’ll play on in 2019, I assume he’ll be over for the 2020 season.

Leeds wouldn’t have a marquee spot would they?

As a Wire fan both my parents and the in laws aren’t going specifically because they don’t like the atmosphere of Old Trafford on Grand Final night, they say it’s a bit ‘edgy’ for them. I can understand that to an extent - i considered not taking our 7 year old for the same reason, he’s coming though. They both wouldn’t dream of missing Wembley though despite the addditional cost of travel and staying over. id also agree that the number of finals we’ve been in over the last few years does have an effect. Plenty of my extended family aren’t going this time as the novelty factor has worn off a bit. I wouldn’t miss it for the world