Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:36 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

Has he?

My experience of ‘Nicko’ (not WAFC related) is that he knows very little on topics he claims to be ‘ITK’ on.
I wouldn’t trust the bloke to warm my tea up. Mind you, he wouldn’t have time to do that. He’s usually too busy blocking folk on Twitter isn’t he?

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:26 am  

Azul wrote:

My experience of ‘Nicko’ (not WAFC related) is that he knows very little on topics he claims to be ‘ITK’ on.
I wouldn’t trust the bloke to warm my tea up. Mind you, he wouldn’t have time to do that. He’s usually too busy blocking folk on Twitter isn’t he?

Pretty much my experiences also. Absolute joke of a journo.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 10:31 am  

Cruncher wrote:

Wigan is still the brand name to look out for. I agree with that.

Also, I don't dispute that it's frustrating about our lack of semi-finals, internationals etc. I suspect there are a couple of reasons for that. The first was Whelan's ridiculous insistence that his pitch remain sacrosanct - this was the same pitch that turned to crap the moment footballers started slide-tackling all over it. Whether the new owners, whoever they end up being, can afford to continue with that folly remains to be seen. The second is surely the inability of many once-attractive fixtures to bring in huge crowds. For whatever reason, Cup semis are minor events these days, and it's less embarrassing to host them at small venues. The DW would look empty. I'm less sure that would be an issue for Test matches between GB and Australia, but these days those fixtures seem rarer than rocking-horse doodah.

The Challenge Cup Semi Finals were never minor events when they were held on a regular basis at Central Park and Headingley because you got the many supporters of the two best supported clubs going to the games even when their own clubs were not involved,

All went downhill when they started to take the Semi Finals to the bigger football ground in the belief that they would get bigger crowds,

From 1970 when I started to support the club, I like many other Wigan supporters never missed a Semi Final at Central Park, irrespective of what clubs were involved as they always had a great atmosphere.

And it was the same at Headingley on the many occasions I went there to watch Wigan play in a Semi Final or even a Final.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 10:42 am  

Moving to football grounds has nothing to do with it.

Wigan failed to sell an allocation at Widnes against Warrington.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:10 pm  

Ruddy Duck wrote:

The Challenge Cup Semi Finals were never minor events when they were held on a regular basis at Central Park and Headingley because you got the many supporters of the two best supported clubs going to the games even when their own clubs were not involved,

All went downhill when they started to take the Semi Finals to the bigger football ground in the belief that they would get bigger crowds,

From 1970 when I started to support the club, I like many other Wigan supporters never missed a Semi Final at Central Park, irrespective of what clubs were involved as they always had a great atmosphere.

And it was the same at Headingley on the many occasions I went there to watch Wigan play in a Semi Final or even a Final.

No argument with this, except to say that it's irrelevant. You refer to another era and another culture.

For whatever reason, and there are probably lots, those days have long gone.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:20 pm  

Ruddy Duck wrote:

The Challenge Cup Semi Finals were never minor events when they were held on a regular basis at Central Park and Headingley because you got the many supporters of the two best supported clubs going to the games even when their own clubs were not involved,

All went downhill when they started to take the Semi Finals to the bigger football ground in the belief that they would get bigger crowds,

From 1970 when I started to support the club, I like many other Wigan supporters never missed a Semi Final at Central Park, irrespective of what clubs were involved as they always had a great atmosphere.

And it was the same at Headingley on the many occasions I went there to watch Wigan play in a Semi Final or even a Final.

Agree but you can't compare that era with today. The Challenge Cup has become an "add on" We've gone to having double/triple header semi finals because we struggle to get figure crowds to cup games. Even the Challenge Cup Final can't get much more than 60K if that.

Fans don't want to pay for play off games either, the whole fan culture needs changing.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:35 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Fans don't want to pay for play off games either, the whole fan culture needs changing.

You can't stop the changing attitudes of people - whether good, or bad.

I'm sure you'll (rightly) say that if fan culture doesn't change, the future of the game is in jeopardy. People aren't going to change however, so the game needs to find different ways to fill the gaps left by the decline of the cup.

I'd argue that in many ways it's tried to do that. Events like the Magic Weekend, when done right, are an example of new ways of thinking.

Make people want to go, don't just expect them to attend.

I'm a firm believer in atmosphere and making something exclusive, or must see. I'd rather see Wigan Vs Saints CC semi final at Warrington with a capacity of 15k & an intense atmosphere, than have it at a 50k stadium with no atmosphere. I get there's money to be made, but still think it doesn't help long term.

Same goes for SL. I'd rather have 10 teams, who can produce games like the recent Wigan Vs Saints matches than 12 or 14 teams with a poor standard and poor crowds.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:49 pm  

The constant changing of the format hasn't helped with fans. I know plenty of fans who have started to pick and choose because games don't have the same intensity etc.

As for playoffs and cup games, fans just don't pay anymore. There is a small group though that won't pay for a semi final but will demand the best access to final tickets and will complain when ticket prices go up.

The 2nd Salford semi in 2019 was a prime example. Had we won that there would have been more people in the queue come 9am the following morning than there were on the ground.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 1:00 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

The constant changing of the format hasn't helped with fans. I know plenty of fans who have started to pick and choose because games don't have the same intensity etc.

I'll fully admit that I'm one of those fans. Some games just don't appeal to me and I'd rather meet some mates, who don't follow rugby, for a few pints in town.

ATEOTD going to a match is supposed to be enjoyable. Going to watch Wigan Vs Hudds with 12k on, with no away support and little merit/need to win doesn't appeal to me as much as meeting friends.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:26 pm  

One of the problems, I think, is that we are still haunted by what was basically a halcyon age.

The Gang of Four gambled on bringing the crowds back to Wigan by bringing in a galaxy of stars. The timing couldn't have been better because the huge crowds that had watched Boston, Ashton etc were still around, albeit still raw from the dog days of the 1970s when we put out poor teams and won very little. But they flocked back when the likes of Hanley and Edwards were wearing Cherry and White. Suddenly, Wigan was the centre of the RL universe again. We even beat the Aussies champions on their own pad. For a short time, the best players on Earth were coming to the UK. Not just to Wigan. The likes of Davies, Offiah etc going to our rivals, that overrated but very expensive Kiwi fullback to Leeds, etc. After years in the international doldrums, we were almost on a par with the Aussies again.

Ultimately, though, we paid the price. There were lots of reasons why we lost Central Park and fell into Whelan's grasp, but one of them was our overspending in previous seasons. Another price we had to pay was that it set a bar that was almost artificially high. Those fans who were there still remember that era and have had to judge everything that's come afterwards and found it wanting. I know a whole bunch of guys who used to stand with me at Central Park, who will not go any more because they consider that we offer substandard entertainment by comparison. IL is a very sensible administrator who cuts his cloth accordingly, keeps us afloat in dark times and continues to deliver silverware. He's the best chairman we've had during my lifetime. But for all these reasons, it's a safe bet that he will never go on the kind of mega spending splurges that Mo did ... and that will be enough to keep some people away. They're impressed by stars not value for money.

The end of Wigan's dominance also coincided with the arrival of lots of other attractions ... multiple entertainment platforms, DVDs, the internet etc. It's surely no surprise that other upsurges of enthusiasm, the likes of Bullmania at Bradford, turned out to be brief. I'm sure a lot of this lies at the root of British RL's many problems. There are just too many other things to distract the fans. To counter that you need a competition like the NRL, packed with big names and high-octane action. In that regard, the RFL's imposition of a strict salary cap could not have come at a worse time, but in an age when half the so-called elite-status clubs still can't even pay that much, what realistic alternative is there? I think now more than ever before, it is dawning on people just how skint British RL really is.

But all this is history now. When Covid is finally over, I fear we're going to have far more complex problems than trying to work out why people don't turn up for Cup semis anymore.