402 replies to this topic

[Northern Sol]

So yes then... If its secured against the ground it isn't really lost is it?

The ground isn't worth the debts secured against it. If it was ever sold, the RFL would only get a fraction of their money back.

[Gav Wilson]

The ground isn't worth the debts secured against it. If it was ever sold, the RFL would only get a fraction of their money back.

Fair enough. How much would they potentially get back then? Is there a current valuation for the Racecourse Ground anywhere?

[Northern Sol]

Fair enough. How much would they potentially get back then? Is there a current valuation for the Racecourse Ground anywhere?

I don't know. The ground is only worth what someone will pay for it. I don't know that anyone is prepared to buy it at present.

[Gav Wilson]

I don't know. The ground is only worth what someone will pay for it. I don't know that anyone is prepared to buy it at present.

So the RFL could get their £700k back then, potentially...

[Northern Sol]

So the RFL could get their £700k back then, potentially...

Yeah if anyone wants to pay well over the odds for a stadium belonging to a cash strapped soccer club which can only be used for sport.

[Gav Wilson]

Yeah if anyone wants to pay well over the odds for a stadium belonging to a cash strapped soccer club which can only be used for sport.

So they havent lost their £700k then. Lovely stuff.

(Yet)

[The Parksider]

You sometimes misunderstand what I say e.g. I didn't claim that there was a dozen junior clubs in Keighley just that you were understating how much RL exists.

No you didn't claim that but equally you miss the point by a country mile.

There is not enough Junior RL in Keighley for them to be a Superleague club. That was my point. Full stop.

Barnoldswick is NOT in Keighley Solly

Silsden do NOT run junior teams Solly.

When you try to nitpick me to such a silly extent, which you do not do to others, I get all sarcastic with you because your nitpicking is irrelevant to the point.

So bottom line is we ain't on each others wavelength. Best to agree to disagree which is what the Moderators want us to do.

Why don't we do that

[Northern Sol]

No moderator has told me anything of the sort. If you think you get nickpicked unfairly it could be your confrontational style of posting, If you will make thread after thread making out that those who don't see things your way have their heads in the sands then you get people taking you up on your past comments when your predictions turn out to be wrong.

I didn't say that Barnoldswick is in Keighley, I'm aware of where it is, I lived there for three years. Nor did I say that Silsden run junior teams, I pointed out that it's a heartlands area.

And my point is that Keighley don't need there to be enough SL quality players in Keighley. SL clubs sign players from across the country and from overseas, even Wigan do it.

[Northern Sol]

So they havent lost their £700k then. Lovely stuff.

(Yet)

How about you give me a couple of grand interest free and I keep it? You may theoretically get it back if I ever sell my flat* and we'll pretend that you still have your cash and have lost nothing

* I may not even own a flat

Edited by Northern Sol, 12 November 2012 - 10:07 PM.

[Gav Wilson]

How about you give me a couple of grand interest free and I keep it? You may theoretically get it back if I ever sell my flat* and we'll pretend that you still have your cash and have lost nothing

* I may not even own a flat

Nah you're alright thanks. Its not in my interests to keep you going...

I'm sure you would put it to good use and I would eventually get it back though.

[Northern Sol]

Nah you're alright thanks. Its not in my interests to keep you going...

I'm sure you would put it to good use and I would eventually get it back though.

You'd be wrong.

[keighley]

That's just the sort of thing that beggars belief.

But doesn't beg a reply.

But it s going to get one. At the time of the first SL, Saints were on around 6,000 averages and Wigan around 10,000. The two towns are about 6 miles apart. By your theories this would have produced a merged team with an attendance of 15 to 16,000. Wigan were flirting with DW and the new ground and Sts were in a decaying Knowlsey Road. Perfect candidates for a merger.

What is the difference to any of the other crazy merger schemes that clubs were supposed to enter into.? None except that Wigan were Lyndsay s anointed team and he wouldn t want them to be subsumed into a merged hybrid like he was wanting the rest to succumb to.

[keighley]

You two doomongers deserve each other.

It's always the same stuff, don't change anything...

Always go backwards to where we were.

Because if we don't the game will DIE.

Three teams in Leeds in the past. Only one team in it in Leeds today.

Profitable large crowds

Large numbers of quality players being produced.

Forget reality guys

The problem with you two is your biased, you support small clubs who make big losses and want the past to come back.

I don't blame you but your private Fraser impressions are self serving.

Were old men we aren't the audience of tomorrow, and tomorrows fans have no alliegences to the old traditional clubs

What like Wigan and Leeds.

What about the resurgence of Wakefield in the last ten years, from 1400 to 8,000 and a new stadium. What about Huddersfield and Hull KR from similar fan bases. What about RL in Perpignan, from zero to hero. From the starting points of those clubs, the missing fans are now re incarnated into the future fans that are watching them today, but that dosn t suit your argument so we ll conveniently forget it

The problem with you is you forget or deliberately ignore circumstances which don t support or, in fact, prove the opposite to your particular argument.

The only difference between the game of the past and the game of today is the Sky money and the sport England money. All the current success of Leeds is due to the influx of that money and rich entrepreneurs.

You think that contraction and the loss of teams is progress. I beg to differ. You think that to lose whole areas from the game of RL due to killing clubs because of greed and exclusion is great so long as the 10 or twelve you want at the trough survive. I don t.

I think there is another way and that is expansion of SL not contraction. I and others who share this view or who support the admission of some of the CC teams to an expanded top division have that right and it is not more of a wrong solution than is a cut down rump SL with no underpinnings.

Lyndsay is not some messiah and turnover arguments are not some immutable law of the universe. Things can and do change. Because a team may be small today, that might not always be the case. See the examples quoted above. Beacuse a team is flying high at some point, that does not mean it will always be that way, ask Bradford or indeed Leeds before Caddick.

[keighley]

You and your mate need to wake up grasp the economics.

St.Helens is a profitable RL club and attracts support from a wide area not from it's small town base.

Wigan is a profitable RL club and attracts support from a wide area and not from it's small town base.

But you have your facts filter on as always. Anything that proves we have to move forward is filtered out.

We need 12,13,14 profitable clubs in SL and your stupid (no apologies it is stupid) idea is to dump one of the few who are successful.

You say less clubs will "disenfranchise many, many thousands of fans, who will not flock to the remaining SL teams",

That phrase is as always not backed up by any logic whatsoever.

There's effectively two less clubs in Leeds yet more people pay to watch RL and Leeds are profitable like Wigan and Saints.

When HKR were dumped out of SL Hull went on to profitable 14,500 crowds and competed. Now 19,500 fans watch the pro game in hull and guess what.........

Both clubs make losses.

You like to mock the idea of mergers and less clubs but here's a great idea for you.

Bring back Recs, Boro, Huyton, Carlisle, Tyldesly, Belle Vue, Bramley, Scarborough, Highfield, Springfield, Streatham, Carlisle, Mansfield, Crusaders, Cardiff, Nottingham, Pontefract, Liverpool, Newcastle, Acton, Coventry, Brighouse, Ebbw Vale, merthyr, Bradford PA, Manningham etc.

Let's then split the SKY money 60 ways. That's £300K a club each. let's have 5 divisions of 12.

Sorted..........

Now there's a wonderful future for our game. We can have 60 clubs all making losses, all attracting gates in the hundreds, we can enjoy it without TV getting in the way, the evil SKY the awful BBC and their dreadful coverage. We can cheer on the players knowing they like to play for next to nowt because they love the game, those top class players who've gone to RU are mercenaries anyway.

Enjoy the fantasy.

You fail to grasp that when Oldham (back on topic) got 3,600 fans that gave them a big fat monetary loss. It was not enough to fund a competitive pro team or repair the ramsahckle ground. You surely understand this simple economic situation? Or do you??

By creating an Elite league of a smaller number of clubs the number of fans paying to watch game live at the ground had RISEN CONSIDERABLY. Can you not grasp this fact. Water it all down and you have everyone going bust and fans walking away all over.

Try the calder area, there's 16,000 fans there and guess what. Wakefield go bust, Castleford in dire economic problems, featherstone making losses year on year.

How can Rugby league thrive on losses all round.

If Wakefield at Newmarket had a clear run of the area, managed to get crowds to a profitable 10,000 and started to provide some competition for leeds, Wigan and saints how fantastic would that be?

Not in your book though. You'd lament how 9,000 Cas and Fev fans would have been lost to the game, and how these clubs would die and how RL in the area would die and how nobody from Cas or Fev or Ponte would ever watch Wakefield. Yeh nobody from South or west leeds would ever watch Leeds and east Hull would become a soccer stronghold.

You also fail to see the armchair fan. Open your eyes and look at how many people pay how much to sit in their armchair and watch our SL clubs. Every friday and saturday i have two mates who watch Superleague and their subs go on to pay SKY who go on to pay the RFL. They don't go near live SL games.

I'm sorry mate but this idea that creating an elite "disenfranchises" fans to the detriment of the game is correct in that it disenfranchises a good 15,000 fans who would have liked to stick with the old days like you.

But is has franchised many thousands more fans who are attracted to an eleite professional game - probably 40,000 or more, and it has enabled hundreds of thousands of RL fans who cannot get to a ground because they only really play the game in the north and Twickenham.

Open the other eye..........

All that from my little quote. I don t agree with hardly any of it. Just remember that the merger idea was your heros Lyndsay s, not mine. I was just pointing out that he forgot to include his beloved Wigan on his list for personal reasons as they were perfect candidates. You are confusing todays Wigan with yesterdays Wigan. Lyndsay Wigan had just been pulled back from the edge of extinction which he had led them to.

[The Parksider]

My point is that Keighley don't need there to be enough SL quality players in Keighley. SL clubs sign players from across the country and from overseas, even Wigan do it.

What an idiotic thing to say.

Here's the scenario.

Everybody in SL decides to not bother with an academy to save costs.

Don't bother with promoting RL locally - just save costs.

They all just sign players in from a distance.

Kids of 15 and 16 and 17 are signed up to travel miles and stay away from home in the hope they'll make it in some town they ain't heard of. (That'll add to costs)...

Yeh that'll really work a treat won't it, and it's one of the daftest things I've heard and boy do you say daft things.

Please release me from this torture. Agree to disagree

[The Parksider]

Keighley don't need there to be enough SL quality players in Keighley.

They certainly need there to be money though and there's none of that in Keighley either.

[Northern Sol]

What an idiotic thing to say.

Here's the scenario.

Everybody in SL decides to not bother with an academy to save costs.

Don't bother with promoting RL locally - just save costs.

They all just sign players in from a distance.

Kids of 15 and 16 and 17 are signed up to travel miles and stay away from home in the hope they'll make it in some town they ain't heard of. (That'll add to costs)...

Yeh that'll really work a treat won't it, and it's one of the daftest things I've heard and boy do you say daft things.

Please release me from this torture. Agree to disagree

The adage in football is that you sign one talented youth player and then you sign 10 others so that he has a team to play in. Academies don't produce enough talent to fill a SL team, never have, never will. That's why sides cast their net a little wider than their immediate neighbourhood. It's been that way for decades and is the same in any sport you care to mention.

[The Parksider]

No moderator has told me anything of the sort. If you think you get nickpicked unfairly it could be your confrontational style of posting,

I don't suffer from nitpicking other then from you. To avoid personal arguments the moderator says people should agree to disagree, but you even manage to argue with that now.

He HAS said that but as you never accept anything at all I suppose this is another stupid circle we can go round....

[Northern Sol]

They certainly need there to be money though and there's none of that in Keighley either.

Not now there isn't, there looked like there might be at one time.

Your problem is that you argue on the basis of what Keighley is today not on what they were in the early 90s.

[The Parksider]

The adage in football

Academies don't produce enough talent to fill a SL team,...

It's not football.

Academies in SL areas produce the most young talent in the game locally.

I've done my research, your just poking me with a stick with any old rubbish.

SL clubs have to engage locally with the junior game if they didn't we'd have less players......