Big Match Preview – Rochdale Hornets

The Reds kick off their season with an away trip to Spotland for the Northern Rail Cup clash with Rochdale Hornets, who are led by former Reds’ star Bobbie Goulding.

Salford will have everybody available apart from injured vice-captain Robbie Paul who has undergone successful surgery and is set to be released from hospital tonight (Thursday), before starting his rehabilitation within the next 48 hours.

Reds’ Head Coach Shaun McRae is convinced his new charges are ready for the occasion and said:

“We’re very much looking forward to the game on Sunday. We are hoping to build on an impressive performance against Warrington last weekend. This is the start of a long campaign that the team are well up for and we are definitely looking to come away positively from Spotland.”

Hornets’ bossGoulding has told his players to concentrate on their own games rather than worry about the capabilities of Salford’s squad.

Goudling said: “They’ve got three players in their squad who are on more money than the whole of my squad put together but I’m very happy with what I’ve got. I can’t expect anything else from my squad – they’ve given 120 per cent.

“In rugby league you don’t have friendlies and we showed some good signs against Oldham. We can only get better. That Oldham game is our base and we’ve got better.

“We have to concentrate on what we can do and what we’re capable of. I don’t worry about the opposition and I never did as a player.”

Rochdale Hornets v Salford City Reds
Spotland
Sunday 3 February, 3PM

Adults £12
Concessions £7
Juniors £2

Willows Opens Doors for Fans

2008 sees the famous Willows club throw open its doors once again to rugby fans as the Reds join the National League party.

With doors opening at 6pm on a match night the club can be accessed from within the ground and will be open before, during and after the action for fans to socialise, have a drink and meet up with their family and friends.

With a special section for the kids, complete with children’s entertainer and regular visits from Ignito, the bars will be open throughout the season, whether it be to warm the cockles on a freezing February night, or to enjoy a nice summer’s drink in the middle of August. Fans can even watch the action from the bars where a full range of alcoholic and soft drinks will be available.

Be sure to arrive early as action from the previous week will be shown on the big screen as well as pre-recorded interviews from training sessions with Shaun McRae and his key stars as we build up to the night’s big kick off.

Off duty players will be on hand to sign autographs and chat about the game ahead and Director of Football Steve Simms will give his weekly pre-match preview.

Reds’ Marketing Manager Paul McNally said: “We’ve worked long and hard with the team at The Willows to put these fans nights together and they have pulled out all the stops to get this on. We hope the fans will back this idea in numbers and come along and create a party atmosphere at each home game. We want to see a mix of home and away, young and old, male and female. We are throwing our doors open to absolutely everybody

“We love the atmosphere created under floodlights but we are aware that standing in sub-zero conditions with your kids is an acquired taste, we believe this will encourage people to come along and enjoy a hopefully successful season whatever the weather”, continued McNally.

After the game the bars will stay open until late and the Reds’ Man of the Match will be interviewed on stage by Steve Simms. Bar prices will also be the same as in the Tavern.
The venue will initially be open for a trial period of the first four games and all fans are urged to attend to help make it a great success.

Reds launch new Radio Show

Salford City Reds will take to the air tomorrow (30 January) in the first of a weekly show that will broadcast each Wednesday between 6pm – 7pm on Salford’s Community Radio.

Hosting the rugby hour will be Reds’ Marketing Manager, Paul McNally, who will be bringing a mix of rugby gossip and interviews, all interspersed with the best of local music in a show that should appeal to everybody with an interest in rugby league.

“This is the perfect opportunity for the club to talk directly to the fans. Working with Salford City Radio is an unmissable opportunity to widen our appeal throughout the city and also hopefully produce a unique hour of rugby related entertainment”, commented McNally

Launched in October 2007, Salford City Radio covers all aspects of Salford life, showcasing local talent, discussing local topics and focusing on sport in Salford, so it seems only logical that the city’s only professional sports club should take the opportunity to broadcast.

Salford Community Radio Station Manager, Steve Suttie, said,
“I am delighted that Salford City Reds has decided to come on board with Salford City Radio to create possibly one of the first shows of its kind in the UK.

“Rugby League is very dear to the people of Salford and this will give the fans a unique opportunity to interact with the club and get their voice heard.”

Salford City Radio can be received in the Salford area on 94.4 FM or via the internet on www.salfordcityradio.org

Early Optimism.

OK I’ll admit, no matter how good I thought our squad looked, I feared the worst against Warrington at the weekend. Having seen the Wire squad during the week and the team they proposed to start with. The squad including internationals like, Adrian Morley, Vinne & Louis Anderson, Paul Rauhihi, Martin Gleeson, Jon Clarke and of course the aussie sensation Matt King, throw in Michael Monaghan, Kevin Penny & Paul Johnson, I think you can see my point.

After all my initial fears we was treated to feast of quality rugby. The team had been rocked by two pieces of news that really won’t want, (I don’t think I need to go in to detail here), we had a bit of juggling to do regarding starting positions. The loss of Robbie Paul was always going to be a huge gap to fill but the lads who stepped up to the plate more than covered for the loss.

Youngsters Richard Myler and Stephan Ratchford didn’t look out of place against their illustrious opponents. Impressive debuts from Adam Sidlow, James Jiminez, Chris Borgese, Paul White, Craig Stapleton and Stephen Banister have given us even more reason to believe we can succeed in everything we hope to this season. I think everyone was taken aback by the size of Lee Jewitt, Luke Adamson and Steve Nash compared to last season.

  Myler, impessive debut

Big Phil Leuluai continued his impressive start for the club with another barnstorming appearance. And although it was only a friendly I’m sure even the Warrington fans were impressed by our performance. We competed in all departments, our defence looked solid even with all the interchanges and players swapping positions, our attack was fluent and in patches we showed Harlem Globetrotters style handling, which has been missing I recent years.

And just a quick comment on the attendance, I think 2008 was a decent turn out considering the game was only confirmed at lunch time on Friday along with the change of venue, is this a sign of things to come?

Now I’m sure we’re all looking forward to our first ‘Proper’ test against Rochdale at Spotland on Sunday.

See you there!

27/01/08: Reds 18-22 Warrington Wolves (Friendly)

The Willows, Salford
Sunday 27 January 2008, 3pm
Pre-Season Friendly

Salford City Reds only pre-season warm up ended in narrow defeat in the re-arranged friendly at The Willows this afternoon.

In a game that was originally scheduled to be played at the Halliwell Jones, both clubs agreed that the last minute switch was worth all the effort to get the game on after the recent downpours and the fixture was tranferred to Salford with only a couple of days to spare.

With Robbie Paul set for an operation on Tuesday the Reds were without their mercurial new star and left Stefan Ratchford and Richie Myler to fill the gap alongside John Wilshere.

With 58 minutes gone it looked as though the Reds would be starting the seaosn on a high as they led 18-6, but the Wolves hit back with three tries in nine minutes as both sides made a flurry of changes to their personnel before the season gets under way proper.

The Wolves had torn out of the blocks and gone into a 6-0 lead in only the 4th minute when Gleeson crossed for a try which Bridge converted.

By half time the Reds were level with a Stuart Littler try converted by the boot of Wilshere, and in fact could deem themselves unlucky as referee Ashley Klein had also ruled out two further Reds efforts.

The Reds continued to look impressive and when new boy Adam Sidlow collected the ball to crash over after a defensive error from a Wilshere bomb was followed up by a third try when Samoan star Phil Leuluai smashed his way over from close in the Reds were looking mighty fine.

It sprung the Wolves into life though and three tries from Bracek, Clarke and Rauhihi were enough to just about snatch the game with the Salford side probably leaving much the happier side of the two.

Brave New World

Hang on. What’s all this? Well ‘Blogging’ is finally about to arrive at Salford’s famous old rugby club.

Now you are possibly of the camp that know and embrace the theory of everybody has an opinion and a right to state that opinion no matter how offensive it may be. Now as marvelous an ideal that may be, it really isn’t practical for a professional sports club where emotions sometimes run high.

We were one of the last remaining sports clubs in the UK with a message forum and to be honest, other clubs thought we were a smidgen mad. “It’s a lawsuit” waiting to happen seemed to be the cry and eventually we had to agree. The net has matured and no longer are clubs in a position to allow potential libellous comments pass them by in this age of litigation. So at the end of last season after three very successful years, we pulled the shutters down on EVE, our message forum, and personally I breathed a sigh of mini-relief in a way.

Being at the mercy of any potential keyboard warrior from any club, especially with the season we were having, meant extra vigilance, especially on a match night to make sure no errant posts snuck through in the early post pub/club hours.

That left us with a dilemma and one that I believe this new section will go some way to resolving. We’re a family club – a close-knit bunch and the last thing we want with the move on the horizon is to lose touch with the people who have stuck by us through thin and thin. So here come the blogs – somewhere a little less formal to hang out and read opinion and also get a little more familiar with the people who work here.

To host them we have registered a new domain as the more beady-eyed may already have noticed, and this is something we hope to grow as sime marches by. Over the next few weeks more staff will join in as well as celebrity faces, some more unexpected than others. Most importantly perhaps we have given voice over to the fans. For starters a couple of key faces from Forever Reds have been approached and you can already read King of the Shed’s first musing but we are by no means against taking more views on board. All we ask is that they are considered, thoughtful viewpoints, spoken from the heart, but remembering what may be a throwaway statement to you could damge the club in a big way.

We are tweaking the look and technology behind the current www.reds.co.uk site as well and pretty soon posts from these blogs will appear in truncated form on there, to make it easier to spot when something new is worth reading. It would have been nice to get all this in place for one mega launch but as ever the clockhas caught me up and it’s kick off time, so watch this space.

Along the sides we have gathered local RSS feeds into the one page, I believe making this page the essential spot on the internet to find out what the press are saying about us. It will also be a place where you can find out any little useful bits of information that our various departments are up to. We’ll also be uploading all our images week in week out to our new Flickr resource and you’ll see them appear here. You can even post the articles on here to your Facebook acocunt or take part in regular polls. Personally i think it will be ace

If only blogs were the only thing I had to talk about it may not be so bad, but it’s half past midnight and time for my beauty sleep now so next time I’ll fill you in on my new radio show on Salford City Radio (Weds 6-7 94.4FM time fans!) and what you can expact from that.

I hope you enjoy what we are about to try here. As ever, we like to think we are up there at the forefront of net technolgy when it comes to sports clubs online.

Thanks for listening to the ramble.

Paul

Robbie Paul Set for Surgery

Salford City Reds can today confirm that Robbie Paul is set to undergo surgery to remove a troublesome disc, which will keep the Reds Vice Captain sidelined throughout the team’s Northern Rail Cup group stages.

The surgery comes as a result of a niggling injury that started up in early December, but flared up once again on the Reds annual warm weather training camp in Florida. After consultation with club medical staff and Robbie himself, the club have decided to have the surgery carried out sooner rather than later, due the pain Robbie was experiencing.

Football Director, Steve Simms said: “Robbie Paul is obviously very disappointed that the start of his Salford career has been put on hold, but having the surgery now means we will have his talent available at the business part of the season, when we begin the league in earnest.

“On a positive note, Robbie’s absence will enable one of our young up and coming stars the opportunity to step in and make their mark on a new season.”

Fans will get their first chance to see the new look Salford City Reds team in action this Sunday as they take on Warrington in the rearranged friendly that will now be at the Willows, KO 3pm.

Wolves Friendly Re-arranged

Salford City Reds’ friendly against Warrington Wolves scheduled for Sunday 27 January has been switched and will now be played at The Willows, subject to a pitch inspection on Friday.

Heavy rainfall caused the Warrington club to postpone the match in order to protect the pitch and the clubs are hopeful that the weather will be good enough to get the game on as planned, but now at Salford. Even though little rain is currently forecast there still needs to be a final check on the playing surface to ensure it is suitable.

Further details will be released on Friday if the game is set to go ahead.

A season to be cheerful?

Since 14^th September 2007 and the home defeat by Warrington and subsequently our final Super League game before relegation, I’ve been looking forward to 2008, and although it may mean a season in British RL’s 2^nd tier, I think we’ve reasons to be optimistic.

Having been thorough what happened last season I think we deserve a season of success. And haven’t the club gone the right way of insuring that this happens, what with the players we’ve managed to retain Alker, Fitzpatrick, Wilshere etc and the new guys Robbie Paul, Craig Stapleton, Paul White etc. We may, potentially, have a better-equipped squad than last year.

And what awaits us? Who will be our main challengers? Many have tipped Celtic Crusaders to go well, Leigh are always there or there about, we now have the resurgent Halifax who come off the back of their best season in some time. Whitehaven will be tough especially at the Rec; Widnes could well still put a decent team together following their recent trails and tribulations. Other than them I don’t envisage Dewsbury, Batley, Featherstone (Although our record there is poor) or Sheffield causing us too many problems (Famous last words).

Of course it all kicks off with the Northern Rail Cup and I don’t think we could have asked for a much better group. Oldham, Rochdale & Swinton, all 2^nd division and all virtually on our doorstep. Oldham appear to have signed quite well but I feel they’ll be some distance away from where we will be.

I’m really looking forward to visiting some of these grounds again and then again I’m dreading others.

So that’s both trophies wrapped up now just for the Challenge Cup, no pressure lads! Add to that the news about the imminent stadium building, things look bright, things look RED (s)

Stadium Update from John Wilkinson, OBE

Dear Supporter,

After last weekend’s fantastic announcement of backing from the NWDA, Red City Developments, along with myself would like to now explain exactly where we are with the development of the City of Salford Stadium.

The stadium scheme has taken a long time to progress but at each stage major milestones have had to be achieved. These are all preparation for the construction phase which we are now reaching.

We would like to make it clear at this point that:

The stadium will be constructed and opened in line with club’s Super League franchise ambition.

Fans will be involved in the detailed facilities discussions to ensure that stadium and amenities meet your needs and dreams.

Consultation and involvement of the wider community will be a key feature of the coming months as promised.

Recent Events
The scheme received unchallengeable consent in February 2007 and since then there has been work with tenants, operators and the design team to meet the many conditions that came with the planning permission.

The total costs of the scheme are in excess of £100m and therefore each condition at this stage is crucial.

Those who spotted activity on site before Christmas were correct as the process of construction on the site has to follow a set path:

Environmental and habitat checks

Managed clearance of above ground contaminants

Clearance of vegetation with securing of habitat to be monitored.

Detailed investigation of the current ground conditions along the lines of roads and foundations for approval for treatment – followed by amended detailed design (these have to be up to date near to the time of construction for statutory reasons).

Major earthworks, remediation and groundworks

Infrastructure

Construction

The first item was indeed completed before Christmas and items 2, 3 and 4 are about to take place. There will then be a couple of months before 5, 6 and 7 begin. Again this is the normal expected timescale and the NWDA’s timescales to look at the potential support to remediate the site is also in line with this.

This is a usual and expected programme for this type of construction scheme. Actual dates are not normally given at this stage. We do have a clear timeline and plan and are working in advance of that schedule currently.

There will be a detailed design event for supporters in the coming months. These activities will be running concurrently with the activities on site. Up until now major items have had to be resolved before the next major piece of work could be started. The project has moved into a different gear in the last few months.

We will have a visitor centre on site so that people can see what is happening and check the progress.

It is difficult to get the balance right between communicating what is going on behind the scenes and not compromising commercial and political discussions. Once the construction starts it is much easier to give people the level of information they are looking for.

Communication also has to take into account those who feel negatively effected by the project and be sensitive to their needs.

I hope this has gone some way to explaining the current position. We need your support now more than ever on the eve of our franchise application’s submission and we look forward to seeing you back in fine voice next month.

Yours in sport,
John A Wilkinson, OBE

Next Page »