After today’s news Wednesday’s show will obviously be a special one. Featuring interviews with John Wilkinson, David Tarry, Shaun McRae and Malcolm Alker it’s going to be well worth listening in.

Also McRae tells us the latest news on the Paul Cooke rumour…

If you miss it for whatever reason the full show will be available on our podcast on Thursday Although if you go down that particular path you don’t get the finest of tunes and also can’t participate by emailing us!

If you have any messages of congrats or otherwise email them in to radio@reds.co.uk or studio@salfordcityradio.org before the show starts.

Look forward to hearing from you….

Okay, so Tuesday 22 July 2008 may not be as big a day for the sport as when the Northern Union broke away in 1895 to form what eventually become the game we all watch today, but for some clubs, this date is set to become etched in their history as the day things changed forever.

Now whether you are a believer in the licence system or promotion and relegation - and you can hear vociferous arguments for both in pubs around grounds and internet forums the land over - one thing is for sure, at 10am on Tuesday, at certain clubs the air is going to turn very quickly blue, then dark grey and then probably descend into shocked silence before somebody’s work really begins.

Played out simultaneously, and hopefully here at The Willows, scenes of triumphant joy and no doubt a fair bit of a-whooping and a-hollering and plenty of back-slapping all round will be on display as club’s applications and efforts are vindicated.

Whatever the outcome here, and believe me I’m hoping to have my back slapped big time, personally, in the back of my mind I hope the successful clubs can spare a thought for the unsuccessful ones and I especially hope the fans of each will do the same to each other as people may well be fearing what the future might hold.

This process has been a long one and over the last six weeks or so an air of ‘licence weariness’ has crept in among supporters, staff, players, rugby league journalists right throughout our game but these last few days has seen a change and people I speak to are out-and-out nervous. This isn’t just fans but friends I have working at other clubs are having last minute nerves and in a way it will bizarre to think that in just a few hours everybody will at least know where they stand and what they have to do in the immediate future.

If the Reds are successful I am excited by the opportunity to build for the next three years, knowing that the Stadium will arrive well in time for the next application, which if our business continues to be run as well as it has been for the past quarter century and beyond, will help immeasurably when it comes to the work that needs to be done by all in 2011.

I personally believe the game is being shaken up for the better. What happens on Tuesday isn’t just about the next three seasons, it is about the next 30 and beyond. Fundamentally we have to look past the “why did they get in, they only get a few thousand fans etc” - you all know the arguments that rage, I don’t need to go on - we have to look at what the likes of the Dragons have achieved in just three years - the length of a licence in fact.

Everybody will tell you they want what’s good for the game but often that’s only if it includes what they actually want in it.

Twenty20 cricket in India made a bold move and can look back at a hugely successful inaugural season, with media frenzy following it everywhere. I think Twenty20 in this country has just made a muted, half-hearted attempt at change and we’ll have to see how well it works but given the choice I would have gone, as a sports fan too, for the more extreme idea that was on offer.

I believe the Licensing system is another such bold move, and to that end, deserves success and, perhaps more importantly, to be respected enough not to be judged in just two or three years.

So here’s to Tuesday, I look forward to seeing plenty of you down here for a moment of history.

Now try and get some sleep this weekend

Paul

Salford City Reds have delivered their application for a 2009 Super League Licence to the RFL in Leeds on Monday afternoon.

Angela Powers and Sky Sports were there and if you want to see the Reds’ bid arrive, check out Boots n All on Wednesday.

Well, that’s it. Dave Tarry has just set off to deliver our Licence Application to RFL Headquarters in Leeds. Deadline is 5pm, so hopefully he won’t meet any horrendous traffic or get a flat tyre or something!

Here are some Licence Facts for you:

We have to supply six printed copies and a single electronic version to the RFL.

Our Application consists of seven separate documents. These are:

1) The actual application document (part of which you have seen on Sky Sports, but there is a lot more to it than those 10 points!). This is basically an actual application form, which has been filled in and signed by the Reds Directors to state that we are applying and that the information contained within is true.

2) A Marketing Strategy document - this details all aspects of how the Reds are marketed, both now and when we move, and includes in-depth business plans from the Marketing, Media, Ticketing, Community and Commercial departments detailing, amongst other things, how we intend to continue increasing our attendances over the next three years. It also includes independent market research on both the new stadium (with, and again I stress the word independent, research that backs up what David Tarry said about our attendances when we go to the new stadium in 2010 - no, he hasn’t just plucked that figure out of thin air!) as well as a customer service report.

3 & 4) Finance & Business Management details - This comes in two parts.
Part one deals with the RFL’s financial assessment criteria (again, similar lines to what Boots N All have been covering, but as far as I know this section hasn’t been made public). Things the RFL want to know include answers and explanations to all their questions, financial accounts back to 2005 to demonstrate a solid financial history and a three year, forward looking business plan (again, independently verified by one of the biggest accountancy firms in the country) that covers budgets, projections and other accounting stuff that you would really need to ask Financial Director Paul Snape about to understand! Part 2 of this section is an appendix, dealing with the RFL’s request for evidence relating to the answers given in part 1. It contains examples of contracts to prove compliance with RFL regulations, ground safety information, even the lease for our remaining years at The Willows. It also provides details of the policies the club follows in terms of things like equal opportunities, child welfare, HR Development and various other things.

5) Playing Strengths - Again, there were a slew of criteria in this section that haven’t been made as high profile as the ones you all know about, but are just as, if not more important. There is information about the first team squad in there, but the focus is definitely on Player Development, and the club are very lucky to have someone as capable as Alan Hunte in charge of this for us as our Player Performance Manager. The document includes detailed answers to the RFL’s questions on all the playing squads, and provides examples of the philosophy of the department, including evidence of lectures on subjects such as nutrition, behaviour, rehab and strength & conditioning.

6) Current Facilities - As we will still be at The Willows for the first year of the Licence term we have provided two facilities documents. The first details The Willows and covers whether or not it meets the Super League minimum standards (which it actually does in almost all areas).
Again, there are criteria laid down by the RFL, and this document deals with those as well as issues such as safety certificates, structural surveys and other stuff like that. It also covers our agreements with the training facility providers (Sedgley Park for the first team, Parrenthorn for the Academy and Phillips High for the Scholarship) along with details of the facilities provided and supporting photographic evidence.

7) The City of Salford Stadium - This document was the only one not produced in-house (showing the strength of the back room staff at the Reds - not all clubs had the capability to produce their own application and had to outsource) and was produced by Red City Developments and Project Managers Drivers Jonas. It includes an overview of the project from Red City, a current status update from Drivers Jonas, the very latest (and almost final) detailed plans dated 25/3/2008 and the latest Project Schedule showing all aspects of the development and showing whether they are running ahead or behind (currently all green for on time!). Also included in the Appendix of this document are details on the companies who are now on-board to actually deliver the development. It is a very impressive list of collaborators who, between them, seem to have worked on just about every major development in the last ten years!

And that’s it. Apart from a very smart looking CD containing the electronic version so even if David has amishap and it all goes spilling across the M62 if his boot flies open we’re still covered!

In total, one single copy of the Salford City Reds 2009 Super League Licence Application totals 1566 pages (spread pretty evenly throughout the seven documents - we haven’t just submitted 1450 pages of the planning enquiry stuff! In fact, that isn’t included at all!).

Multiply that by six copies and we are actually submitting 9396 pages to the RFL today - all relevant to what they asked us to provide, no waffle and no wastage.

Work began four months ago and the final touches were put in on Saturday morning. The Directors signed the application at Batley yesterday.

It’s exciting today, but we need to remember it could be three months before we hear anything else about this now! All we can say is that the application is hugely comprehensive, and really is the club laid bare for the RFL to judge.

PS - We did consider a horribly inappropriate April Fool’s joke for tomorrow morning, whereby we posted that David had been delayed, hadn’t arrived until 5.05pm and therefore our application had been rejected, but Robin reckoned that a) it would be too cruel, and b) I would probably get strung up at the next Forever Red’s meeting, so we won’t be doing that!
Someone will update later when he’s actually arrived and lodged the application!

Here we go folks