Roe's Lions out to roar again in Wigan's den

When Swinton's small but growing band of fans go to Wigan on Sunday, they will be able to say, quite literally, that the team would not be there without their support.

Last year, the moth-eaten Lions were on their way out of professional rugby league, about to lose their home for the previous decade, with a dwindling fan-base and financial problems that threatened to close them down.

It was then that a stubborn hard-core of fans came to the rescue, raising the £25,000 that kept the club going. "That made the difference between finishing the season and not doing," said the Swinton director Richard Taylor, himself a supporter for 43 years and a prime mover in setting up the Swinton Supporters' Trust.

"I've heard people say that, if the Trust hadn't put the money in, someone else would," he says. "Believe me, there was no one, because we'd been looking for someone like that and they weren't there."

The Trust's reward for its life-saving injection is a place on the board in their own right, occupied by the club's historian, Stephen Wild, but their contribution goes well beyond that.

"We've got a body of people committed to going out and doing things," Taylor said. "They produce the match programme, sell Golden Gamble tickets, they go out through the week helping in all sorts of ways."

Swinton's fans, whatever their level of commitment, have had their other rewards this season. After a decade in Bury, the club is back somewhere near its traditional roots at Salford City's Moor Lane football ground, and under Peter Roe – back for his second stint as coach – performances have improved.

It was still a major surprise, however, when Swinton thrashed Featherstone Rovers in the fifth round of the Challenge Cup to win a place in the quarter-finals for the first time since 1972, when memories of the Lions' glory days in the Sixties were still fresh. The prize for that was a draw at home to the Cup- holders, Wigan, although Swinton have bowed to the inevitable by switching it to the JJB Stadium.

"The Rugby League told us not even to consider playing it at Moor Lane," says Taylor. "We are now guaranteed £17,500 – or more if there's a bigger crowd – and that is going to see us safe for the season. It's a few years since we could say that.

"I don't think there's one person arguing that we should be playing at Moor Lane. That's one thing about the crises we've been through; there's a bit more realism now."

Realism is also the watch-word for Roe, now combining his coaching job with the role of general manager that was filled for years by Tony Barrow.

"I'm not making any outrageous predictions that we're going to win," he said. "And I'm not putting those sort of expectations on the players' shoulders. I've given them some personal goals, about coming out of the game as better players than they go in."

When Roe was at Swinton previously, in 1996-97, he had better players at his disposal and he guided them to promotion to the old First Division. He knew when he took the job this time that his resources would be severely limited, although he hopes that the Wigan windfall will allow him to bring in some badly-needed reinforcements.

Last Sunday was a case in point. A week after that memorable victory over Featherstone, his side made the trip to Whitehaven for a heavy defeat with only 16 fit players available.

"We had to rake in an amateur kid for Whitehaven," Roe said. "It was a reminder that we're still not far off being a struggling club and people have to understand that and be realistic."

Another difference from his first stint is that the fans now have a more hands-on role in the running of the club, something that Roe welcomes with a degree of wariness.

"There has to be a line in the sand, with me in charge of running the football side of things," he said. "There have been a few little cases of crossing that line. I don't doubt that they will have some good ideas, but they have to go through me."

That is the way the board sees it as well. "I think we've got a top coach in Peter Roe," Taylor says. "He has to be in charge of that side of things, but we don't want him to get bogged down with things like finances. That's where we can help; everyone on the board is wearing three or four hats."