I know an amateur club where the chairman lies through his back teeth and has a nack of peeing people off, consequently volunteers have dropped off and people fall away etc, etc, it's the same principle that happened at WTW.
Your roots are your history. and your ex players bring back the memories. I once heard that Leeds offer free season tickets to ex players. this swells the crown and creates revenue in the bars.
To add to Feline's idea, every home game, introduce a couple of ex players to the crowd, from all eras, and make them club guests for the day. e.g. Where are Juliff, Diamond and Barwood these days? The Rayne twins, Idle and Skerret, etc.