HOPEFULLY fans can now see that we are delivering. It's not just talk, the new stadium is real. This organisation delivers on its

promises.

We've certainly delivered a major initiative. This is going to be big. We saw on Sky on Friday night how Headingley looked in the big game atmosphere and we're not far away from that day.

We're all delighted at the Wolves that we've managed to secure a deal with McAlpine who will be our preferred developer (see page one).

Now we have to work hard at increasing the numbers, not only the financial numbers to make things stack up, but also the fan base too.

We have got two two seasons left at Wilderspool to look to increasing the numbers towards a decent average attendance for our new stadium. It's no good going into a 15,000 capacity stadium if you're only averaging 5,500. We want to be building our fan base.

Certainly the team has shown that it can compete. Yes, we have had lapses but everyone has lapses. We know where we have to generally improve but I'm sure there's not a fair-minded fan out there that hasn't seen significant strides made on the field this season. We know we're short of some players and some depth but that will be put right.

We still have to try and earn fans fully committing themselves to us but we have gone forward. We want the fans to come forward with us and show us some respect for what we've done and say 'Yeah, they're worth a punt!'

We've got lots of things coming up in October/November. We're going to have a major season ticket drive pre-Christmas. And I've got planned an extra special offer for all of the fans and some special promotions to help us through all the winter months.

We can all look forward to September/October and our community project starting. This will help us to push our numbers up from an attendance standpoint.

This is just the start. Hopefully, through the GUARDIAN, over the next few months we can announce a lot of other major initiatives which will benefit the club substantially and I am looking forward to sharing all of this with the fans.

But I want the fans to show the Rugby League world that they can turn out in numbers at Wilderspool in the build-up to that great day when we come to open the stadium - and it will be a great day. That will be the culmination of an incredible amount of hard work by a lot of people.

This is the fans' club, whether it be in a new stadium or at Wilderspool - it's still your club. We need you to really get behind the club for the next two seasons and I know we're going to have a lot of fun doing it.

We're going to be extending the capacity at Wilderspool well over the 10,000 mark, which will fit us in with Framing the Future. This will be done in October, once the current season has finished, as the work needed to be done to raise the capacity will take two to three weeks to complete.

And we'll upgrade the facilities a little bit. The coaching staff have moved out to William Beamont High School and we will be rehashing the whole office environment.

What has been the weights room downstairs will become a learning centre. We really have got some incredible things we are looking to do.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.