Salford Red Devils wound up by HMRC

I acknowledge that I cried just now when I read the news on the BBC website. My local club, my brother's favourite he used to watch them a lot and his first home used to overlook their old ground. We could watch the match from his back bedroom window..... although he never did, he was in the ground.:-)
Attended lots of concerts and dances etc at the old ground and our Union meetings were held there until it was closed.
I was invited by one of the Salford Council departments to a match in a box with a meal etc at the new ground, so even though Rugby is (obviously) not my favourite sport it is close to my heart.
A lot of reasons for the demise but I don't think Salford Council come out of it smelling of roses. :-(
 
Eccles Blue said:
I acknowledge that I cried just now when I read the news on the BBC website. My local club, my brother's favourite he used to watch them a lot and his first home used to overlook their old ground. We could watch the match from his back bedroom window..... although he never did, he was in the ground.:-)
Attended lots of concerts and dances etc at the old ground and our Union meetings were held there until it was closed.
I was invited by one of the Salford Council departments to a match in a box with a meal etc at the new ground, so even though Rugby is (obviously) not my favourite sport it is close to my heart.
A lot of reasons for the demise but I don't think Salford Council come out of it smelling of roses. :-(
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It’s a shame. Someone I used to work with had a Down syndrome nephew who loved SRDs. The club were amazing with him and gave him all sorts of behind the scenes access and made him mascot a fair few times.

Hope they can rise like a phoenix.
 
A club with over a century of a half of history, crowned Champions six times, they are the reason that United have the ‘Red Devils’ nickname after the 1930s Salford team toured France and the French press gave them the name Les Diables Rouge (the Rags then pinched that a few decades later).

Hopefully their new iteration can start at a decent level and move up over the seasons.
 
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Eccles Blue said:
I acknowledge that I cried just now when I read the news on the BBC website. My local club, my brother's favourite he used to watch them a lot and his first home used to overlook their old ground. We could watch the match from his back bedroom window..... although he never did, he was in the ground.:-)
Attended lots of concerts and dances etc at the old ground and our Union meetings were held there until it was closed.
I was invited by one of the Salford Council departments to a match in a box with a meal etc at the new ground, so even though Rugby is (obviously) not my favourite sport it is close to my heart.
A lot of reasons for the demise but I don't think Salford Council come out of it smelling of roses. :-(
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Sad news indeed She, I used to go to the Willows 1966/72 if it didn’t interfere with going to watch city home and away. I went to watch City in the FA Cup final against Leicester and Salford against Castleford both at Wembley in 1969.


Hope you are keeping well.
 
BrianW said:
A historic club - gone.

Sadly, I think club Rugby in general (both codes) is in the toilet.

What would Eddie Waring say?
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In this country, club level rugby is struggling somewhat.

Although this season just gone was the best attended SL season for years.

www.superleague.co.uk

Betfred Super League Sets Historic Attendance Record as 2025 Regular Season Concludes

www.superleague.co.uk www.superleague.co.uk

Also, Warrington have just landed the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in SL history.

www.cityam.com

Exclusive: Warrington Wolves to announce record shirt deal

Super League side Warrington Wolves are today expected to announce a record sponsorship deal, City AM can reveal.
www.cityam.com www.cityam.com

So not all bad.

And rugby league has never been bigger in Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands.

www.theguardian.com

NRL announces $62.3m surplus as rugby league stakes ‘indisputable’ claim to be No 1 sport

The NRL is revelling in a record-breaking 2024 season, which it says is the most lucrative in the game’s history in Australia
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

The NRL has grown and is growing massively. There are two new clubs coming into the league in Perth (2027) and Papua New Guinea (2028), the broadcasting deal for the league is always getting bigger and there’s even talk of the NRL getting involved with Super League to drag us along with their success.

Without a big worldwide daytripper culture like the PL has, Canterbury got a few attendances this season up at 56k, 59k and 65k and Brisbane sold out Suncorpe Stadium a few times (capacity 53k), had an average attendance of 42k for the season and for their semifinal the other month it said on commentary that they had over 60k trying to get tickets.
 
I don't know the ins and outs of the finances, then or now. But I'll say one thing for the Doctor, he was hands on and did his best to generate interest and support.

He used to regularly tour the pubs of Salford, with handfuls of free tickets, chatting to locals and trying to get them interested.

I wouldn't worry too much anyway. They'll be starting a new club tomorrow called Salford 2025, or something.

-------------------

Sorry, I was trying to quote the post talking about Marwan Koukash here, but I didn't quite manage it
 
Sad. I used to go when i was younger for 4 seasons. My dad's mate used to work on the gate so he used to open it and let us in free in exchange for a pie from the van. Won the league 1st year but not promoted and then again the year after so promoted to super league.
 
I'm always surprised that cities the size of Manchester and Liverpool don't have successful Rugby League teams. I can't believe that, with such large populations, there isn't a market for it.
 
RiversideBlue said:
I'm always surprised that cities the size of Manchester and Liverpool don't have successful Rugby League teams. I can't believe that, with such large populations, there isn't a market for it.
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Recently, we had Manchester Rangers (a reïmagining of the old Broughton/Belle Vue Rangers, one of the original founder member of the Northern Union, crowned Champions once and Challenge Cup winners twice) playing at the athletics stadium at Etihad Campus. With the RFL moving its headquarters to Etihad Campus, you’d think it was a great opportunity to get a big Manchester club going with the idea to drive rugby league in this country forward by having another major city as well as Leeds with a big rugby club.

With the Grand Final played in Manchester, the RFL moving to Manchester, you’d think they’d have wanted to make Manchester the capital of rugby league.

Rangers were already getting 300-400 attendances in about the 9th tier of rugby league. They had big backers and applied for a Championship 2 (or whatever it was called then) professional licence. However, the RFL knocked them back, deciding to give it to Toronto instead.

With that, the backers pulled out (what was the point in hanging around an amateur club?) and Rangers folded.

With 600,000 people live in the borough of Manchester alone. Never mind neighbouring Trafford and Tameside where Salford, Oldham and Rochdale have little presence. The potential for the amount of rugby playing lads across that amount of people is huge. Not all lads have footballer physiques, nor do they all like playing football, a lot of people like more of a physical battle than football can give you and you also have to take into account how hard it is to become a top level footballer compared to the pathway to becoming a top level rugby player.

With where they were playing you could have tied fixtures in with City games and either had them before or after City home games and maybe things like discounted tickets if you had a City season ticket to get any RL fans from the football crowd in to games.

Given 25 years to grow Manchester Rangers could have gained a fanbase and player pool that could have driven rugby league in this country forward.

In the end Toronto had to leave Super League during Covid so we had no Toronto, no daft Canada ideas going forward, but also no Manchester Rangers when Manchester was the more exciting prospect in the first place.

The NRL are big on getting city clubs going. V’Landys has said how important having a London club doing well in Super League could be. Had they been sniffing around back then like they are now, Manchester Rangers could have been pushed on as a club.

I’m still angry with the RFL over this and it was last decade it happened. I am a Warrington fan but, despite being a Wire, I’m not a Warringtonian, I’m a Mancunian, and I’d have loved a Manchester rugby league team to support. I would have been a Manchester Rangers regular attendee.
 
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RiversideBlue said:
I'm always surprised that cities the size of Manchester and Liverpool don't have successful Rugby League teams. I can't believe that, with such large populations, there isn't a market for it.
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I think Franny Lee was talking about setting up a Manchester RL club at Maine Road at one point.

There's certainly a lot of people in Manchester, and Liverpool for that matter who are RL fans. I guess the trouble with starting up a brand new team is that everyone already supports a team, so are unlikely to suddenly switch to a new team, even if it was local.
 
Extremely depressing news, but it was always coming. The (former) owners are disgusting asset strippers, but hopefully the phoenix club will be able to rise back up the ranks.

I think moving from the Willows was always the biggest blow to the club to be in the arse end of nowhere in Irlam, but between Koukash and the last owners of the club, outside some extremely surprising challenge cup and playoff runs, the club was in the doldrums for years.

I think any phoenix team need to stay away from the AJ Bell or whatever it's called these days, perhaps even consider a groundshare with Swinton Lions at a new locale. Maybe see if they can play Leigh Sports Village til they're sorted.
 
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