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Widnes - A Club in Limbo?


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This is not a direct dig at Widnes, indeed it was a club I followed very closely growing up during that golden period. Despite not supporting them, I even still have the famous ICI shirt from the late 80s/early 90s. They were a glamour side for a young Scubby lol.

However, I look from afar these days and the club looks completely lost. Season in, season out - too good to go down, not good enough to challenge the top clubs. Renovated stadium but crowds have been static (the core starting to decline somewhat). Everyone knows what the crowd at Widnes will be on any given occasion. They will have good days and good crowds but are still very reliant on those big derbies. I have not seen the club try any big initiative to try and fill the stadium - even for a one off.

It must be tough going for that core of loyal fans. Do you buy a season ticket knowing there is a 50/50 chance you will be in the middle 8s (or just meandering in 7/8th for the last 7 games) or save your cash and pick your games?

Betts seems to typify exactly what is going on. He must have been there for 8 years now, doing an okay job. Too good to be in trouble and not good enough to challenge. I remember the Widnes licence application being dynamic, irresistable and exciting back in the day. Something needs to be done IMO, those core 5.5k fans now down to 4-4.5k. I'm not advocating #### and bust Dougie Laughton style but there must be a way to drag the club out of its apparent trance-like state?

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1 hour ago, Mumby Magic said:

I agree with you Scubby they do look a little lost. However they also seem to be a club that has a budget and sticks to it!!!

Pretty tough to do that and inspire the fans too mate. I think that is the tough challenge for where they are at currently.

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Think Widnes fans are bored of being in Super League, and just 'making up the numbers' never challenging for the top 4, or even a decent challenge cup run. They used to get over 3K when they were in the division below....The town has lost interest, when I used to go to games with my Dad in the late 70's & 80's, Naughton Park always looked at least 3/4 full. Glory days I know, but still, 3700 ?? Bradford Bulls are getting bigger crowds in the 3rd Division, and my team Leigh are averaging around 3300 v championship sides, with no away support.

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Being a Widnes season ticket holder, On the field seems to be the least of the problems. Whilst the board are very stringent with money, I feel like many of the fans would be content with that if the board had any connections with its fans. No communication, no updates, nothing.

I think what is necessary, as sections of the Widnes fans is 'Betts Out' and sections aren't, the board need to update us and tell us whether they have faith in Betts. Me, personally, i don't think even Ivan Cleary or Wayne Bennett can do anything with this squad, How is Betts able to pull off top 8 with half the squad thats never been able to pull off a pct over .500 since coming back into super league and half the squad consisted of the academy. 

Any Hull fan who was there Thursday would of told you the state of the atmosphere in that crowd. Even before the game it looked like we were deflated. Widnes fans are so divided at the moment. A record low super league crowd for the Halton Stadium was at Salford, 4,007 i believe. So... as the kids were on half term on Thursday, why didn't they do something like kids get in free if an adult buys a ticket. Screw the money, lets face it, the mean age of the widnes crowd is above retirement age anyway and this would have been a great way of getting families there who couldnt afford to take the kids out during half term, we live in a working class town and this is a working class game, maybe something they should of thought about. What we didnt need was another record low crowd. Many will say that its a thursday night and maybe wigan or wire would have brought more away fans. But Hull turned up well IMO, i have seen alot worse.

I think 2 unlucky seasons with injuries, divided fans, probably lowest average age squad and no communication from board to fans are all the problems with Widnes.

Also half-back pairing Mellor and Gilmore has been a talking point of the fans. I believe squads should have one conservative half back and one half back with flair. Brown and Mellor complemented eachother perfectly, when we needed to calm things down, Mellor took over, when we needed to ramp things up, Brown was the main guy. However Mellor and Gilmore don't seem to work well together because they have similar assets of skill. GIlmore gets much of the criticism because he is the 'replacement' of Brown and the pressure on the kid is unfair. 

The one thing that will solve the crisis, Championship rugby, i like the championship and thoroughly enjoyed it when i was a kid before we got back. The 'transition' that is happening that includes implementing 7/8/9 academy players per round will only be better in the championship, give them some confidence, i know they can do well, they just need time before playing against senior players and especially in 'must-win' games when the pressure is at its maximum, they just dont have experience to go the distance. This is what turns away fans, when must-win games, i.e Hull KR last week are lost. And fans just look at the scoreline (31-12) and think wow if we cant beat KR then how do we beat FC. Well 12-10 up with 15 to go and all 4 subs injured and you expect academy players to go and win away in that muvch of a tense game. No chance. 

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Seems to me that much of the focus of the club is on really embedding themselves in the community - all the recent NHS stuff being the latest example. They seem to have any number of initiatives promoting things for the elderly, stuff around mental health, things going on in schools, lots of events at the stadium for local groups.

Filling the stadium through marketing promotions doesn't seem to be high on the agenda. They did create a bit of buzz with the PNG signings, but it's fizzled out quickly. As others have pointed out, Widnes have a playing budget and stick to it - and it simply isn't enough to be regularly top 4. The academy production line of yesteryear does slowly seem to coming back to life though, starting to see ex-Widnes academy players at quite a few other SL clubs. And of course, any club would have struggled with the injury situation last year; this year is shaping up the same way.

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They appear to be stable, at least. If the academy starts producing decent talent over the next few years, they may be able to move steadily upwards without excessive spending.

Face it, given some clubs' histories, we all know that things could be a lot worse than a few years of mid-table malaise.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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9 hours ago, Scubby said:

This is not a direct dig at Widnes, indeed it was a club I followed very closely growing up during that golden period. Despite not supporting them, I even still have the famous ICI shirt from the late 80s/early 90s. They were a glamour side for a young Scubby lol.

However, I look from afar these days and the club looks completely lost. Season in, season out - too good to go down, not good enough to challenge the top clubs. Renovated stadium but crowds have been static (the core starting to decline somewhat). Everyone knows what the crowd at Widnes will be on any given occasion. They will have good days and good crowds but are still very reliant on those big derbies. I have not seen the club try any big initiative to try and fill the stadium - even for a one off.

It must be tough going for that core of loyal fans. Do you buy a season ticket knowing there is a 50/50 chance you will be in the middle 8s (or just meandering in 7/8th for the last 7 games) or save your cash and pick your games?

Betts seems to typify exactly what is going on. He must have been there for 8 years now, doing an okay job. Too good to be in trouble and not good enough to challenge. I remember the Widnes licence application being dynamic, irresistable and exciting back in the day. Something needs to be done IMO, those core 5.5k fans now down to 4-4.5k. I'm not advocating #### and bust Dougie Laughton style but there must be a way to drag the club out of its apparent trance-like state?

Sadly Scubby I suspect you've been quite generous in your analysis, I've stated in previous threads that I fear more for Widnes now than at any time in my life except for maybe briefly in 2008. I'll try and keep this as brief as possible.

There are external factors as well as internal ones affecting us at the moment. I think Widnes are being affected in a similar way to other lower clubs such as Salford and Huddersfield. There is a definite stagnant feel to the game at the moment across the board. However, I'll focus mainly on the internal factors.

RL in Widnes has lived off the glory days of the late 80s/early 90s for most of my life. Even when crowds fell and we were relegated, there was a latent support in the town that was pretty easily tapped into when needed. As soon as we started to look like we could get promoted, these fans came out of the woodwork and the quest for our rightful place in SL was something that united and motivated the fans.

Our first stint in SL had its successes and there are many fond memories of that first season. We grew with SL and the year we were relegated (with games to spare) was the year of our highest average crowds. In reality things have never been quite the same since then. Whilst crowds stayed relatively high in the Championship, they didn't have the same dynamism that they had done pre-promotion. I didn't think we would recover from going bust so to put a decent bid forth in 2008 was a surprise and although we were accepted in 2011 there was significant decline in attendance prior to our SL entry.

The second stint represented a real opportunity for RL in Widnes but was completely blown by the inability to create a half-decent squad ready to compete. Whilst things have improved from those shocking early days, we have still never truly competed. This feeds into our current problems. The club and the fans are at a stalemate. The club asks the fans to commit to season tickets so that they can build a decent squad and the fans expect them to build a decent squad so they'll commit to season tickets. The club then signs next to no one (and nobody of any quality) and the implication is that it's the fans fault. Those that then haven't bought STs pick and choose their games or simply find other things to do; once you're out the habit of going every week, it's hard to get back in it. I genuinely think the final straw for many was the selling of Kevin Brown and then not using the money to sign anybody to replace him. The stark reality is that we have been tipped to finish bottom for 3 years in a row yet the club seems to think that the first 7 games of 2016 was the real situation and it is only injuries that have held us back.

Make no bones about it we are hemorrhaging fans and it has accelerated in the last couple of years. We've gone from being a middle-sized SL club to one of the smaller clubs. The main reason I'm concerned is that I'm not sure we can win them back and that the latent support is much reduced; I think we're down to an ever dwindling number of diehards. The novelty of SL has well and truly worn off and our glory days are now 30 years past and not something most of the people in Widnes experienced. I've followed many Widnes fans on Twitter and the number over the years that now never mention the club is depressing. 

Things are not quite terminal yet but I think we might be done as a SL club unless something changes and even then it might be too late without external improvement in the game. There was a rumour that Betts had quit last week and I was relieved for us and him, it's like groundhog day at the minute with literally no prospect of improvement. 

 

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5 hours ago, JonM said:

Seems to me that much of the focus of the club is on really embedding themselves in the community - all the recent NHS stuff being the latest example. They seem to have any number of initiatives promoting things for the elderly, stuff around mental health, things going on in schools, lots of events at the stadium for local groups.

Filling the stadium through marketing promotions doesn't seem to be high on the agenda. They did create a bit of buzz with the PNG signings, but it's fizzled out quickly. As others have pointed out, Widnes have a playing budget and stick to it - and it simply isn't enough to be regularly top 4. The academy production line of yesteryear does slowly seem to coming back to life though, starting to see ex-Widnes academy players at quite a few other SL clubs. And of course, any club would have struggled with the injury situation last year; this year is shaping up the same way.

We've always got an injury crisis, having a god awful squad doesn't help.

The club does great stuff in the community but it seems to have little impact. They release a raft of videos on YouTube most with views in the low hundreds.

A couple of seasons ago I was in corporate and James Rule was giving a pre-game speech. In it he talked about a big promotion that we'd done and in his opinion it had had a minimal impact on the crowd. No doubt this has affected the clubs approach since then.

The academy sounds great but I'm skeptical as to how many will actually progress to senior first team players. The likelihood is that even if they do, they'll probably be poached.

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4 minutes ago, marklaspalmas said:

TBF sub the name Widnes for Hudds, Wakey, Salford, HKR.

Only five clubs have any money outside SKY and Cas are where they are while DP works his magic.

Catalans are SL's most determined lemmings this year.

I get what you are saying but I picked Widnes in particular as they have been pretty much stuck in the same place for a number of years. Huddersfield have won the league leader's shield recently (and slumped) and Wakefield have challenged the four in the last 12 months. Salford is a different case altogether as it did have an injection of investment but completely failed to capitalise.

Widnes have simply meandered along. As I said, too good to go down and not good enough to compete. RL groundhog.

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2 minutes ago, Scubby said:

I get what you are saying but I picked Widnes in particular as they have been pretty much stuck in the same place for a number of years. Huddersfield have won the league leader's shield recently (and slumped) and Wakefield have challenged the four in the last 12 months. Salford is a different case altogether as it did have an injection of investment but completely failed to capitalise.

Widnes have simply meandered along. As I said, too good to go down and not good enough to compete. RL groundhog.

The too good to go down tag has been completely lost over the last few years.

To give a case in point, our Easter Monday crowd against Saints (our likely 2nd biggest crowd of the year) was our average crowd in 2005.

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8 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

The too good to go down tag has been completely lost over the last few years.

To give a case in point, our Easter Monday crowd against Saints (our likely 2nd biggest crowd of the year) was our average crowd in 2005.

Wow. The system of a likely final third against Championship sides cannot help season ticket sales either MD. There is a big difference between surviving relegation with a big win over Saints or Leeds than scraping past a London or Halifax. 

I must admit my eyes rolled when you appointed Rule as CEO. It just cried out unambitious. When I continue to see the likes of Stefan Marsh running around in a Widnes shirt (as hard as the lad tries) it just confirms the level to which they are aspiring. A cup run is something that could really help this year at least but not sure how many of those out of touch fans will be pulled back in?

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A good run in the Challenge Cup would surely help Widnes, and bring back a few fans..!. Back in the day there were so many competitions, John Player Trophy, Lancashire/Yorkshire cups. BBC2 floodlit trophy, and the premiership (top 8 play-offs) Now it's mainly Super league, and the challenge cup is very much 2nd best, until you get to the semi finals ! A sad state of affairs. Even though I'm a Leyther, and when we were rubbish (it did happen honest) I used to enjoy going to Naughton Park in the late 70's/80's, watching the likes of Sorenson, Offiah, Jonathan Davies, Tony Myler,  Elwell, Mick Burke etc, and even Brimah Kebbie (ha ha) Widnes were pioneers of RL back then, signing some fantastic players from Rugby Union, and also producing their own talent...and even my old school buddie Darren Wright.

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3 minutes ago, clogdance said:

A good run in the Challenge Cup would surely help Widnes, and bring back a few fans..!. Back in the day there were so many competitions, John Player Trophy, Lancashire/Yorkshire cups. BBC2 floodlit trophy, and the premiership (top 8 play-offs) Now it's mainly Super league, and the challenge cup is very much 2nd best, until you get to the semi finals ! A sad state of affairs. Even though I'm a Leyther, and when we were rubbish (it did happen honest) I used to enjoy going to Naughton Park in the late 70's/80's, watching the likes of Sorenson, Offiah, Jonathan Davies, Tony Myler,  Elwell, Mick Burke etc, and even Brimah Kebbie (ha ha) Widnes were pioneers of RL back then, signing some fantastic players from Rugby Union, and also producing their own talent...and even my old school buddie Darren Wright.

We had a pretty decent cup run a few years back and it only papers over the cracks.

To be fair, Leigh are the best argument against us being finished. There's been a few times over the last 20 years I've thought that Leigh were finished as a top flight side. Last year, despite relegation, you did better attendance wise than nearly any year we've had in SL and we always got bigger crowds than you guys when we were both in the Championship.

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9 minutes ago, Scubby said:

Wow. The system of a likely final third against Championship sides cannot help season ticket sales either MD. There is a big difference between surviving relegation with a big win over Saints or Leeds than scraping past a London or Halifax. 

I must admit my eyes rolled when you appointed Rule as CEO. It just cried out unambitious. When I continue to see the likes of Stefan Marsh running around in a Widnes shirt (as hard as the lad tries) it just confirms the level to which they are aspiring. A cup run is something that could really help this year at least but not sure how many of those out of touch fans will be pulled back in?

In theory I always thought that an increase in competitiveness would be good for SL. Even thought we're about as average a squad as you could imagine, there are few home games that are lost before they begin. This didn't used to be the case.

It's also not only us, I think there are bigger problems in the game. I remember we played Wire in a friendly prior to our first year in SL and being amazed by the wall of sound coming from their fans. Even when clubs bring a lot now there isn't the same enthusiasm in my opinion.

The ST culture is what fueled growth in SL crowds but I think it is now part of the problem as fans that don't invest in the ST get out of the habit of going.

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Sad state of affairs, our crowds are only averaging around 3500 this season, because of our ST sales, on the basis that "we have a better squad than last season" Only 900 down on our Super League sales. But for those, we would be around the 2500 mark i reckon. Our home game against London in the challenge cup v London will reflect this. Who will get the lower crowd, us, or Widnes v Coventry Bears (With a combined total of maybe 50 away fans) :shout:

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9 minutes ago, clogdance said:

Sad state of affairs, our crowds are only averaging around 3500 this season, because of our ST sales, on the basis that "we have a better squad than last season" Only 900 down on our Super League sales. But for those, we would be around the 2500 mark i reckon. Our home game against London in the challenge cup v London will reflect this. Who will get the lower crowd, us, or Widnes v Coventry Bears (With a combined total of maybe 50 away fans) :shout:

We'll do well to break 1000.

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17 hours ago, Mumby Magic said:

I agree with you Scubby they do look a little lost. However they also seem to be a club that has a budget and sticks to it!!!

The budget is the issue. When O'Connor took over he made it plain he would not be a "rich owner" and the fans who craved SL needed to respond to his efforts and do their bit. He actually stated a level of support the Widnes Public needed to provide to enable the club to spend the full cap. It may have been around 7,000. Therefore on current gates it's all they can do to survive and the academy is clearly their route to trying to keep the playing strength up in a competition short on quality players who will and do as has been said above, gravitate to the bigger richer clubs. Betts performance on such a low budget is heroic.

Salford are now in the same position if not worse. They are covered for the time being by Koukash's benevolence of spending on stars and on leaving, allowing the club to not have to repay his investments. As players gently get picked off and come to the end of contracts then the Reds will also be on Widnes type budgets they have already set as reported, but the bigger issue is they have no academy and are therefore in much more dire straits longer term.

SL recently lamented the lack of enough quality players available to SL, and proposed a 10 club top division and gave Leigh a  £500K parachute payment. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together here. The SL bosses realise there's probably only enough playing strength and private investment to sustain 11 clubs and if they want P & R which they do then they need someone credible to challenge for it, so going down to a 10 club league - considered several years ago - and backing Leigh (who will need to open an academy) financially, ends up being the answer at least in the short term. 

The other issue will be clawing back all the TV money they feel (and probably is) wasted in the Championships. Thus only 10 clubs are being proposed for a future  championship, or "SL2" as they like to call it to make it sound like they are actually going forwards not backwards.

 

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22 minutes ago, The Parksider said:

SL recently lamented the lack of enough quality players available to SL, and proposed a 10 club top division and gave Leigh a  £500K parachute payment. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together here. The SL bosses realise there's probably only enough playing strength and private investment to sustain 11 clubs and if they want P & R which they do then they need someone credible to challenge for it, so going down to a 10 club league - considered several years ago - and backing Leigh (who will need to open an academy) financially, ends up being the answer at least in the short term. 

That shows why we need someone like Eddie Hearn running the game. We have Toronto, Catalan and Toulouse in the ladder. We have Coventry and York showing promise. London are showing signs of resurgence, leigh are seemingly not a nine-day-wonder. There are going to be some decent stadiums in the lower divisions. We have two Welsh teams. We have one of the 5 biggest clubs in the sport playing in League 1.

And the current administration wants to shrink Superleague.:dry:

As ever, we should follow the lead of the NFL and abandon P&R and have 24 teams in 2 conferences, each of 2 divisions. The Cup should be completed by May to generate early-season interest and then there would be opportunities for clubs to win division, conference and Grand Final titles. We should big-up the Cheerleader profiles to make the game attractive to young girls and their parents.

The complaints about player-standards is a red herring. Bulls fans watch their team knowing its  quality  is only a fraction of earlier line-ups. Whilst I wish we were back in Superleague, I have enjoyed our period in the Championship and League 1.

We are the superstars of League 1 but only just beat York, got turned over by Workington and it will be a real struggle against Doncaster. Hunslet  have been pretty rubbish for years but it's always a pleasant experience going there and enjoying the company of their fans. I  doubt if any fans of the other teams in League 1 really think their team can stop the Bulls getting promotion but they'll all  enjoy their team pulling out the stops against  us. I bet they all hope that we don't get embarrassed against Warrington in the Cup, because we are effectively representing League 1.

This is a family sport and the administrators should think about the family, not just Superleague.

Under Scrutiny by the Right-On Thought Police

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18 hours ago, Wolford6 said:

And the current administration wants to shrink Superleague.:dry:

As ever, we should follow the lead of the NFL and abandon P&R and have 24 teams in 2 conferences, each of 2 divisions. 

The complaints about player-standards is a red herring. Bulls fans watch their team knowing its  quality  is only a fraction of earlier line-ups.

This is a family sport and the administrators should think about the family, not just Superleague.

The "earlier line-ups" attracted as many as 23,000 fans so Bulls fans have abandoned the club in droves so what your saying isn't what is happening. Player standards are extremely important, those clubs with the top stars attract top TV audiences like Bulls used to and don't any more, the likes of Widnes and Salford are not attractive to TV audiences.

It's TV audiences that pay for the game to be professional, £200M came in to the game thanks to that. We cannot offer a watered down competition to TV in which under your plan Swinton and Doncaster may well be on TV. As much as you love RL at any level like I do the fact is that most people only like it played at a decent professional level and won't pay up for anything less.

17 hours ago, eclecticsheep said:

quite an attitude is that...may even kill the game long term...

I haven't got an "attitude" just a modicum of business nouse. What would kill the game is the loss of the SKY or any equivalent contract. Without professional clubs crowds would nosedive exactly as has happened at Bradford, and quality Rugby players would gravitate to Union.

We had this anti-SL stuff on here years ago and after a long debate the dewy eyed sentimental fans craving for the past had to admit that without the Professional game the decline of our sport would be terminal.

Get a map out and colour in the places where Rugby League has some strength, then put an "X" where there is a superleague club and you will soon find out that these match up and prove Superleague and the TV contract is the saviour of the game. Without that it would kill the game long term.

The TV money is set to be halved if you check out the thread on this and the supporting articles. Of course SL has to cut it's cloth and that probably means dropping to 10 pro clubs - especially as the SL bosses have ALREADY spoken about this. It has to cut the money going from the TV contract into players pockets at clubs that do not contribute anything at all to the SKY contract.

Back to the OP and Widnes and Salford do not work as SL clubs minus a rich owner, so Leigh become the obvious replacement, hence they got a parachute payment from the SL clubs.

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