Sometimes there's just too much to do to save things. Like I said, he made mistakes, everyone does, but I know how committed he was in trying to save the club when it was is in the crap and I firmly believe that if he had been at the club from 2007 rather than a certain other person whose initials would be Dreadfully Tiresome to mention, things would have been a lot better. Perhaps some of the same errors would have been made but you can be rest assured that a sponsorship deal with stupid conditions wouldn't have been signed and the marketing for Super League would have started in July 2008 not December.
No it's not just Mike up there, he's mainly the sponsorship and marketing guru now, something he does best as can be seen from previous clubs. The good thing about the Crusaders now is that there are at least three times the staff doing things from the marketing, media and administration.
The other things that are going well up there compared to Bridgend are...
Wrexham having a dedicated local daily paper - Bridgend may have had the Gazette which was very supportive but it was a weekly and if it's in a daily it's thrust home more. There was the Echo but it's Cardiff-based and had other priorities. Up in Wrexham, The Leader gives the Crusaders front and back page on a semi-regular basis and are very supportive.
The council - The Wrexham council saw Super League as an event straight away and immediately promoted the Leeds game around their town with banners, posters and flyers etc. They even did a mailshot and have seconded one of their media guys to assist in writing articles and organise match days. The Bridgend Council allegedly refused to do this as "they didn't see Super League as an event".
Lack of competition - in South Wales, there are eight more full-time professional clubs, in North Wales there are none and they wanted a team to support. The population of South Wales may be a lot more but there's a lot more competition for the money too.
However this week, the Crusaders are back down here, they're a better team on the field too as we all know and I think this will be a game and night to remember against Quins.