Sale Sharks will move from Edgeley Park to the Salford Stadium from next season. The Sharks have announced a ground share with Super League neighbours Salford City Reds.
Sale have spent the last nine years at Edgeley Park sharing with football side Stockport County having moved there from their original home at Heywood Road. The Sharks move was confirmed last week after they reached an agreement with the ground’s owners Peel Holdings and Salford City Council. The stadium is only marginally larger than Edgeley Park at 12,000 seats. But with the ability to expand to 20,000 and the Rugby specific facilities the move is a step in very much the right direction for Sale.
Sale had the option to redevelop their current Stockport home, a move which would have been opposed by tenants and long term residents of Edgeley, Stockport County. The Sharks have been very public with their hopes to move to Salford in order to re launch themselves as a major European force from next season. Their desires for a top 6 finish and a return to the Heineken Cup rely on a strong finish to the campaign, with victory over Bath on Friday night setting them in the right direction ahead of a trip to Gloucester next week and a visit from Harlequins in the final game of the season.
Sale’s move leaves Stockport County as Edgeley Park’s sole residents. The ground itself will remain owned by Sale’s owner Brian Kennedy. The arrival of the Sharks is also hoped to benefit Salford. The Reds’ attendances so far this season at their new home have been disappointing, regularly struggling to break through the 6,000 mark. With the Sharks and the reds sharing a ground it will be hoped supporters of the two sides will try out the other code every so often. The winner, will surely be Rugby of both codes in Manchester.
Sale Sharks’ move to Salford has received a massive amount of support from the club’s fans. Since announcing the move Sale have taken an extra £500,000 in season ticket revenue in a major statement of support from the fans of the North West club.
The Sharks put on the first open day at their new ground at the weekend and the supporters turned out in huge numbers to provide their backing for the move. There will be a number of further open days and if the levels of support remain the same the move will prove to be a fantastic one for Sale. The £500,000 figure is simply season tickets sold on the day of the open day as revealed by Sharks’ Chief Executive Steve Diamond after the event.
“We were absolutely blown away by the response of the supporters”, said Diamond, who made the move one of his main targets on his appointment as Chief Exec. He went on to describe how the club were “delighted by the response”.
Aside from the move Sale are also now looking for a new Director of Rugby, following Diamond’s move upstairs and the sacking of Head Coach Tony Hanks. Bryan Redpath, who recently resigned as Gloucester boss, is the early favourite but there are some big names set to meet with the Sharks boss this week. John Kirwan and Eddie O’Sullivan are amongst those rumoured to be in the frame for the Sharks’ job.
Sale are aiming to have their new man in place by the end of the season, but if rumours are to be believed there is every chance an appointment will be imminent, although Diamond has stated that “no contracts have been signed by anyone”.
With a new stadium and a new Director of Rugby in place for next season the future is looking up for Sale. If they can secure Heineken Cup Rugby next year, who knows what they might go on to achieve.
Sale Sharks will be moving to a new stadium in the coming season and the club officials believe that this move to the City of Salford Stadium will be extremely beneficial for the team, whose players will be able to enjoy the state of the art facilities of the stadium.
The Sharks have confirmed on their website that they have successful negotiated a stadium sharing deal with the Salford City Reds of the Super League that will begin from the new season of the Premiership.
The Salford City Reds moved into the spanking new stadium that cost the authorities of the city of Salford a whopping £ 26 million and the stadium can hold as many as 12,000 people. The Sale Sharks recently clinched the signing of Danny Cipriani for the upcoming season and according to Steve Diamond, the Chief Executive Officer of the Sharks, this spanking new stadium might just prove to be the trump card in the negotiations for any potential signings that they might undertake.
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Fresh from the indignation of a 45-9 loss to Saracens in the Heineken Cup, Sale Sharks head coach Tony Hanks was called into the office of Managing Director Bob Diamond and given his marching orders. Given the performance of the Sharks in that match on Friday night, they won’t miss him too much.
Hanks was initially brought in half-way through last season, in June 2011, with the brief of coming up with a gameplan that fused the qualities of the players in both attack and defence. From the lacklustre defending and fairly abject attacking on Friday it would be difficult to tell that there was indeed a plan in place!
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May 10, 2012 11:10 am | 
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