I'm one of the few who are season ticket holders with both clubs, I think the viewpoint you hold is naive, more wishful thinking than based on reality.Whelley Warrior wrote:Our day will come when it all ends in tears and their crowds revert back to normal.
Uncle Dave will not be around for ever to bale them out by converting debts to shares and giving low season ticket and admission prices.
The sad thing is that many are only going to watch Premier League football and are not real supporters of them.
I don't know if Latics being relegated would affect the rugby club, I doubt it as the figures involved are nominal when compared to football income. Even in the Championship a team can earn tens of millions while the typical SL club is looking at significantly less.
Talk of Latics crowds "reverting back to normal", I don't know what that's supposed to mean, presumably your looking at crowds from 20+ years back. Even 10 years ago, as a new Championship team, Latics crowds were in the same ball park as we are getting today in SL. To suggest it's not possible to grow a teams support is depressing, not least for ourselves and all SL, who have to grow or face an uncertain future.
In the case of Latics, the football support has always been in the town but they didn't all follow Latics. Even today you won't find many who've switched teams, the bigger crowds are down to kids watching, Latics are their first (and only) team. If you assume most people become regular match goers around age 10, the people who are in their early 20's and below will have only seen Latics as a Premier or Championship club, those a little older will have seen them winning the old 2nd division. Us older fans may still remember Central Park and Springy, for those younger people it's history, like a walkman or VHS player!
The pronouncement Latics are propped up and bailed out by Whelan, this certainly was the case, but today you'll see Latics are ran as a self-sufficient business. Not only because Whelan doesn't want to keep pouring money in, there's new rules which limit debt, the percentage size of your wage bill and other such restrictions.
The last point about many only watching because it's Premier footbal, they must be a strange breed to watch for 8 years with little success. I'd say those with such a mentality left pretty sharpish, there's no longer any problems getting a ticket at the bigger clubs, and every game can be watched in the pub or online. While our season tickets are reasonable, paying £28-£30 minimum for the higher category games is hardly pocket money.
We (as in Wigan RL) do ourselves a disservice hoping Latics won't be a factor if relegated. It seems obvious to me the club is only catching up ground it lost by not getting league football before the late 70's, in reality it's no different to a West Brom or whatever, they could quite confidently build in the Championship, maybe be a yo, yo club. But as with most things in life, if well run, you usually have success (on/off field), and Latics have the infrastructure and catchment area to do that. It's a time thing, waiting for the generations to come through.
Here at Wigan RL we need to look towards ourselves, why, with the best team for 10 years (relative to the competition) are our crowds down 1500-2000 from recent seasons. Good Friday glossed over the fan apathy thats all too apparent, we played tonight and there's barely a post on any Wigan board which to me says everything.
It's as if SL success is tinged with sadness at the state and future prospects of the game. We could win for the next decade but is it satisfying, when standards are dropping and players upping sticks for bigger pay packets.