Worcester Warriors: Atlas Group must show openness at fans' meeting over rebranding plans - Steve Lloyd
- Published
Sixways Stadium will host a presentation by owners Atlas Group, followed by a questions and answers session in front of 550 fans, over the future of Worcester Warriors
A sell-out meeting between fans of former Premiership club Worcester Warriors and its new owners is a chance to rebuild trust, says chair of amateur side Worcester Rugby Club, Steve Lloyd.
More than 500 supporters will attend Saturday's event to hear more on Atlas Group's plans to rebrand the club, which have proved deeply unpopular.
The presentation will take place at Sixways at 13:00 GMT.
"They've got a lot of work to do to win people around," Lloyd said.
Atlas, led by former Warriors chief executive Jim O'Toole and James Sandford, struck a deal with administrators Begbies Traynor on 1 February following Warriors' financial collapse.
However, their plans for the future have stirred up a lot of anger among the old club's fan base.
Proposals to drop the Worcester Warriors name and rebrand as Sixways Rugby with fourth-tier club Stourbridge taking up residence at Sixways have been the chief grievance.
The family of Cecil Duckworth, Warriors' late former chairman and main benefactor, called the idea "devastating", accusing Atlas of "trying to destroy" Duckworth's legacy.
Since announcing their plans on 10 February Atlas have softened their stance, with Sandford telling BBC Hereford and Worcester they will retain the Worcester Warriors name "if that's what everyone wants".
Steve Lloyd played for Worcester Warriors in years following their breakaway from amateur club Worcester Rugby Club, where he is now chair
Lloyd, who played for Warriors when the club had not long broken away from the original Worcester Rugby Club in the late 1990s, thinks O'Toole and Sandford have their work cut out trying to appease their audience on Saturday.
"They'll need to show how open they are, what their intentions are without any hidden agendas," he told BBC Hereford and Worcester.
"They need to get people to trust them and trust is hard earned when you've broken it.
"I think it's very difficult at this stage, certainly from the things that I've seen and people that have spoken to me, for them to turn the boat around in a PR sense."
With playing in the Championship for the new club - whatever its name - not now an option following the Rugby Football Union's confirmation they will not be in the second tier next season, attention turns to where it will compete.
Link-up with Stourbridge a 'concern'
Atlas' intension to use Stourbridge as the hub of the new team has been described as "very strange" by Lloyd, who says it will have an inevitable impact on his own club.
"It's a concern, not just to us at Worcester Rugby Club but to the other rugby clubs," he said.
"We're pretty well set up in Worcestershire for community rugby, so a club that would be competing just one league above us would be a concern.
"They are a stated professional - or semi-professional anyway - set-up, which may well entice some of our better players to tell 'I could pop over the road and play there for a bit of money'.
"But it's difficult to get a full grip on it until we know the full details of what's happening."
Lloyd said he has spoken to O'Toole this week, with the new owner "explaining their situation and clarifying a few things around what they've been trying to do".
He continued: "It gave me an opportunity to express the concerns we have as a rugby club about them bringing that team here.
"And also to make them aware of some of the outrage and hard feeling that's being felt in the county and city around the proposals and the seeming dissolution of the Warriors brand."
Jim O'Toole stood down as Worcester chief executive in June 2017