BEING able to work on the development of a big new stadium attracted me to Warrington Wolves as their chief executive.

Our current situation is this. We have had one holding company meeting for the club and at that meeting we had a look at various sites for our new stadium.

My trip to Australia this week (more details further on) allied to further discussions will hopefully lead to us announcing towards the end of the year where we're going to go.

I think there's a lot of criticism levied at Wilderspool Stadium, some of it justified but a lot of it unjustified.

I have been working in Rugby Union for two seasons and when you compare it to the Allied Dunbar Premiership, Union's equivalent to Super League, Wilderspool is a better stadium than half of theirs.

I do understand, however, that the minimium requirement is 10,000 capacity so we will have to work hard during the summer to get our capacity up to as close to the mark as we can. I am now actively working with the rest of the Warrington staff and with the safety committee looking at ways of increasing our capacity.

We must not kid ourselves either. We've got to be at Wilderspool for the next few seasons, two possibly three, depending on how this summer's planning goes for the new stadium.

So, let's make Wilderspool comfy, it's our home, it's our heritage. This ground has seen some great moments and we should show it courtesy and respect. We should clean it up and let's talk it up instead of talking it down.

Even though we need to increase the capacity to meet the minimum standards, if we're going to increase our fan base then we're going to have to increase the capacity anyway.

I think with the competitive nature of Super League this year - where seven or eight clubs will be going at it tooth and nail every week - and with our team being competitive against the likes of Bradford, Leeds, Wigan and St. Helens, then there is going to be extra demand. And this is before you take into consideration what we are going to do proactively in the community.

The difference I had at Bradford and Saracens was that I had stadiums where I had higher capacity. I don't have it here, there is little extra room to play with but creating high demand will help us to drive up the value of what we've got. We need to increase the perceived value of what we've got but the real value will be if we have 5,000 season ticket holders with slack for 2,000 to 3,000 fans from the likes of Wigan, St. Helens, Bradford and Leeds on match day, then we'll be looking as though we have a nice, healthy full ground every home game. This is what we need to work towards.

As I previously mentioned, I am on a trip to Australia this week which has great significance because of our desire to create and develop something very special in Warrington to be the new home of Warrington Rugby League Club.

The trip is fundamentally to witness the opening of Stadium Australia (new Olympic stadium) and I am looking at spectator facilities, concession areas, corporate hospitality areas, parking, retail support and development and catering.

I'm also looking at the new North Sydney Oval which is being built at Gosforth on the central coast. They are building a 20,000 all-seater purpose-built stadium. This is more allied towards the size we're going to be.

I am also meeting up with some people who I hope will, in future, be involved with this club and at the same time I'll hopefully have a beer with my old mate from Bradford, Brian Smith.

I am also going to catch up with his Parrammatta club generally because we've just traded correspondence and agreed to do a nice tie-up between our clubs.

This link with Parramatta is the first of a number of strategic partnerships being set up. We are talking with NFL club Green Bay Packers in America.

This is not just in terms of coaching, but also on the marketing side so that there can be an exchange of ideas.

It has all come about from the fact that Warrington's head coach Darryl Van de Velde has already been down to a Saracens game and I have talked to the Saracens coaching staff who would also like to set things up together.

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