The Widnes Vikings’ first Members’ Monday meeting of the 2024 season took place on Monday, October 30th, and gave the fans in attendance a huge insight into the club’s current rude health, a breakdown of the recently-announced IMG gradings, and an extended interview with incoming head coach, Allan Coleman.
Over 150 tickets were booked to the event, which was open for anyone to attend, and the Bridge Suite of the DCBL Stadium was packed with fans eager to hear the club’s reflections on the 2023 campaign and plans going forward into 2024.
The big question leading into the night surrounded the RFL and IMG’s new grading system, which ranks clubs based on a variety of five categories, taking both on and off-field criteria into account.
With the 2021-2023 rankings announced by the RFL in recent days, the Vikings sat in 16th place of the 35 professional clubs, with a total of 10.17 out of 20 possible points.
In the five categories, the Vikings ranked as follows:
Performance: 1.72/5
Fandom: 3.3/5
Finances: 2.25/4.5
Stadium: 1.9/3
Community: 1/2.5
These five scores amounted to our total of 10.17, with the Vikings ranked 5th of all clubs competing in the 2024 Betfred Championship. Our most impressive element of the gradings was the ‘Fandom’ category, and we’d like to thank you the fans directly for that!
The club was ranked within the top 10 of all clubs for digital engagements on our social media platforms, higher than several Super League sides, and with season ticket sales continuing throughout the next few weeks, we have no doubt that your support will help us to push further towards the top next season!
Questions from the floor followed, with Director of Operations Chris Hamilton and Chairman Stuart Murphy answering queries aplenty regarding IMG’s plans for the game, several current aspects of the club, and the potential restructuring of the Championship and League 1 next season, for which talks are still ongoing at the time of writing.
Following a quick break halfway through the evening, the Vikings’ new head coach Allan Coleman then took to the stage, outlining his vision for the coming 2024 season, and the impact he wants to make both on the club, and with it.
Further questions from the fans followed for Allan and Chris, ranging from his own experiences as a coach so far in his career to the make-up of the playing squad and the competition for places in the matchday 17.
All in all, the evening was informative and gave everyone involved with the club plenty of optimism ahead of the new campaign!
Footage of the fans Q&A with head coach Allan Coleman will follow in due course.
