304 replies to this topic

[stewpot01]

1. Come on Terry, your a businessman so be fair. They took decisions that as Amber Avenger said were a risk but made some sense and the same time cheap season tickets got thousands of people into the ground and buying the food and drink. It's not good form to condemn people in retrospect. Doing nothing or just cutting costs could have accelerated things as AA said, but we really should leave it alone now as should Hetherington.

2. Again Terry be fair. I know people who have done well with business and people who have done badly, I don't define them as competent or incompetent. It depends on luck, what hand they are dealt and how well the competition do against them. The licensing panel couldn't drop a club with 10,000 fans for one with 2,000.

Spot on.
I don't think we can rule out Harris fiasco either, a £500,000 payout would ruin any club in the short term

[Lounge Room Lizard]

Just had a look at the real picture and SL is backed by a contract of £90,000,000 pounds and the following wealthy benefactors messrs Caddick, Moran, Lenegan, Mcmanus, O'Connor, Koukash, Khan, Davey, Glover, Pearson Hudgell, Hughes etc etc.

That's before anyone goes through a turnstyle.

So no Superleague is not struggling to survive.

If anyone wants to get their heads out of the sand it's the old time fans who want to preserve all the old time clubs many of whom are from relatively small towns and are hemmed in by their rivals.

This makes it hard for them to be Superleague clubs when they don't have many super players or super amounts of fans and can't expand.

It's not "poor management" at all. Why do we always have to blame all the ills of the game on certain people??

Cas are the biggest strugglers. It's not Ferres's fault his town is only 40,000 people and that just down one road Wakefield are looking to mop up the best players and as many fans as they can whilst down the other road featherstone are at it. It's not his fault nobody wants a piece of land out of town, it's probably how cas got it in the first place. It's not his fault wakefield council won't help with a ground because if they have to help one they have to help all three.

There's no problem over the academy anyway? What does this oversized development system churn out in terms of quality professionals for the respective clubs every year against how many kids it just rejects?? They got it in Hull when they decided they only really need one academy, but then bottled it. I can think of a few other places where less can be more.

It's a minority sport/game and always will be so it's not easy to grow it and it's even harder when the games history is allowed to drag it backwards. We actually haven't done that bad in the circumstances. "Full of badly run clubs" give over, Leeds, Wigan, Hull, Wire, Saints, Catalans are clubs I'm personally proud of. For the rest it's been a struggle to step up from semi-pro to pro but all over the place we see Mr. O'Connor trying to rebuild Widnes as a power, Mr. Koukash wants a dynasty, Mr. davey has secured Fartown as a big club again, Mr. Khan and his board are going to keep Bradford on an even keel. Mr. Hudgell hopes Mr. larvin and the ground developments will come up trumps.

The game isn't "struggling to survive" it's struggling to shake off it's past. I wouldn't mind your comments if it wasn't for the fact the RFL/SLE recognised the problems Hudgell outlined last year and are actively looking at ways of sorting out a format and funding such that we can get additional security and hopefully growth. But i can't see how anyone can be blind to the achievements of Superleague over what we had in 1995 achieved against a very very difficult sports market of Soccer going mega big, Union going professional and mega big, and now the NRL going cash rich.

I think were managing very very well indeed in the circumstances.

The game is at a crossroads and you can ignore the warning signs like a number of SL clubs recently having major money problems and others stating they are also struggling at your peril. The simply throwing away of an important step for many players including future internationals of academy team in the hope of saving money is a major concern. Many teams are struggling to even compete in SL as the money is simply not there. That is a concern as clubs keep spending way beyond their means. Most clubs are still living for now trying to be competitive with little or no investment or even thought of the future.The massive blow of millions being lost to grassroots rugby which will likely see many Development Officers who have helped the development of the game especially outside of the hearlands is a major concern. The fact that the SL comp cant keep a number of its top players who go to Union or the NRL. With a predicted further deepening of the financial problems both in the Business and sporting world their is real concern as to the future of SL and the game. I and others have concerns about where the game is heading and with good reason

[Terry Mullaney]

Would you suggest a 6 team league?

Well we cant sustain 14 full time teams, that's for sure

[Griff9of13]

Wigan are a small town hemmed by a very big rival, so are Widnes, so are Huddersfield but that's ok because they are SL pukka members.When a team in the same situation wants to move up, like Featherstone and Halifax, then it is suggested that they cannot survive in like environments to many of the current SL clubs.When teams not hemmed in away from the very centre of the heartlands are suggested as possible SL teams like York, Doncaster and Sheffield and even Barrow then scorn is heaped on these ideas.We are a minority sport from mostly small towns not a mega sport like soccer. That is our demographic and we should prosper within that framework.I agree the game is doing quite well but I see no reason why the aim should not be to expand and increase the number of top level clubs. The contraction route favoured by many is just regressive and self defeating.

You must have a strange grasp of geography. St Helens is 10 miles away with virtually no overlap of fan base location. Wigan draw support from not just the Wigan area (which isn't exactly a small town when compared with say Featherstone) but from Bolton to the east, Preston to the north and the Southport area to the West. St Helens likewise draw on support from the Merseyside area to the west of the town. Each club could therefore draw on a population of 1m plus without crossing each others territory.

[Marauder]

Well we cant sustain 14 full time teams, that's for sure

14 teams can't sustain the rigid criteria set down and keeping up with the joneses is going to be proving fatal.

[Saintslass]

You must have a strange grasp of geography. St Helens is 10 miles away with virtually no overlap of fan base location. Wigan draw support from not just the Wigan area (which isn't exactly a small town when compared with say Featherstone) but from Bolton to the east, Preston to the north and the Southport area to the West. St Helens likewise draw on support from the Merseyside area to the west of the town. Each club could therefore draw on a population of 1m plus without crossing each others territory.

The only real crossover point is Billinge, just as the crossover point between Warrington and St Helens is Newton.

[Terry Mullaney]

1. Come on Terry, your a businessman so be fair. They took decisions that as Amber Avenger said were a risk but made some sense and the same time cheap season tickets got thousands of people into the ground and buying the food and drink. It's not good form to condemn people in retrospect. Doing nothing or just cutting costs could have accelerated things as AA said, but we really should leave it alone now as should Hetherington.

2. Again Terry be fair. I know people who have done well with business and people who have done badly, I don't define them as competent or incompetent. It depends on luck, what hand they are dealt and how well the competition do against them. The licensing panel couldn't drop a club with 10,000 fans for one with 2,000.

1. I didn't condemn them in retrospect, I said it was crazy at the time and it was. I understand they're not doing it this season and sales are down to 6500 but revenue will most likely be much higher. Most SL clubs could attract 10,000 at £4. 50 entrance fee I'd suspect. They've to sell a lot of snap to make up the shortfall.

2. I didn't define anybody as incompetent, Gary Hetherington did and he's the man you said should be the man to run the sport. Just how badly do clubs have to perform in order to lose a SL license? CC clubs have a mountain to climb while the existing incumbents apparently have to prove nothing to keep their place. We'll never know how well a CC club can do in comparison to an under performing SL club until the RFL have the courage to apply their own devised rules fairly to all.

[del capo]

Wigan MBC has a population in excess of 300000 and covers 77 sq miles , one of the biggest urban areas in the country and includes 'little ' places like Leigh .

Google Wigan Council or Wigan Life to see what a chunk of the RFL heartlands they really cover . I sometimes think of them as the ' Green Bay Packers ' of the RFL.

There's only Kirklees that can remotely come near them....

[Marauder]

Wigan MBC has a population in excess of 300000 and covers 77 sq miles , one of the biggest urban areas in the country and includes 'little ' places like Leigh .

Google Wigan Council or Wigan Life to see what a chunk of the RFL heartlands they really cover . I sometimes think of them as the ' Green Bay Packers ' of the RFL.

There's only Kirklees that can remotely come near them....

Doncaster

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, covering 224 square miles and the Council serves a population of approximately 302,000. It is led by one of only 12 Elected Mayors in the country and consists of 6 directorates.

Only one rugby league club in the 224 square miles.

Edited by Marauder, 29 January 2013 - 07:21 PM.

[The Parksider]

Keighley, on 29 January 2013 - 04:56 PM, said: Wigan are a small town hemmed by a very big rival,

You must have a strange grasp of geography. St Helens is 10 miles away with virtually no overlap of fan base location. Wigan draw support from not just the Wigan area (which isn't exactly a small town when compared with say Featherstone) but from Bolton to the east, Preston to the north and the Southport area to the West. St Helens likewise draw on support from the Merseyside area to the west of the town. Each club could therefore draw on a population of 1m plus without crossing each others territory.

I am very grateful to you for pointing this out as a third party to the debate.

St. Helens, Wigan and Warrington draw their large fanbases from regional areas which as you say provide them with access to well over a million potential customers each. They are clubs who have been highly successful for generations and even Wire have never been a second division club.

These are highly established big clubs with a relatively big pulling power (for RL) that draw fans from large populations.

We can also see clubs like Bradford and Leeds who are only a 20 minute drive away from each other but both are highly established big clubs who have larger populations that go beyond their city boundaries to draw on as have Hull.

Yes that's six clubs (or seven if HKR can make it) and you can't have a six club league. So the RFL have looked to Wales, Gateshead/Newcastle, London, Catalans and are looking to Toulouse to desperately try to find places where an RL club can get an adequate audience.

But of course fans of smaller clubs and traditionalists don't like this and pour scorn on the idea of clubs outside the M62. I find this quite distasteful, always have.

But the failure of the policy of expansion which recognized the M62 isn't strong enough to find a big enough audience and enough professional quality players to provide the competetive 14 club league that is ideal for delivering the SKY contract merely takes us back to the problem that there aren't enough resources to feed the number of clubs we want.

There is an idea money will make up for the lack of fans and players to go round.

Nowhere do we see money being more consistently used year on year to develop our "Town" clubs than in Huddersfield as Ken Davey continues to rack up season after season of investment.

The Fartown crowds over the last six years in which Huddersfield have shown they can compete have been 7,100, 7,800, 7,600, 7,200, 7,100, and 7,700. They are crowds that lose the club hundreds of thousands of pounds a year but Mr. Davey makes it up every year. The town provides six top professionals to SL. This is the birthplace of Rugby league and one of Britains biggest towns, yet the reality is they cannot sustain a Superleague club.

But I'm still expected to agree that places like Doncaster, Sheffield, Barrow, Halifax, York, Featherstone, Castleford, Leigh, Keighley, Salford, Widnes etc who either don't produce professional RL players or who don't have the populations to support an adequate fanbase or don't have EITHER can somehow become self sustaining Superleague clubs.

Well they can't.

Edited by The Parksider, 29 January 2013 - 07:21 PM.

[stewpot01]

I am very grateful to you for pointing this out as a third party to the debate.

St. Helens, Wigan and Warrington draw their large fanbases from regional areas which as you say provide them with access to well over a million potential customers each. They are clubs who have been highly successful for generations and even Wire have never been a second division club.

These are highly established big clubs with a relatively big pulling power (for RL) that draw fans from large populations.

We can also see clubs like Bradford and Leeds who are only a 20 minute drive away from each other but both are highly established big clubs who have larger populations that go beyond their city boundaries to draw on as have Hull.

Yes that's six clubs (or seven if HKR can make it) and you can't have a six club league. So the RFL have looked to Wales, Gateshead/Newcastle, London, Catalans and are looking to Toulouse to desperately try to find places where an RL club can get an adequate audience.

But of course fans of smaller clubs and traditionalists don't like this and pour scorn on the idea of clubs outside the M62. I find this quite distasteful, always have.

But the failure of the policy of expansion which recognized the M62 isn't strong enough to find a big enough audience and enough professional quality players to provide the competetive 14 club league that is ideal for delivering the SKY contract merely takes us back to the problem that there aren't enough resources to feed the number of clubs we want.

There is an idea money will make up for the lack of fans and players to go round.

Nowhere do we see money being more consistently used year on year to develop our "Town" clubs than in Huddersfield as Ken Davey continues to rack up season after season of investment.

The Fartown crowds over the last six years in which Huddersfield have shown they can compete have been 7,100, 7,800, 7,600, 7,200, 7,100, and 7,700. They are crowds that lose the club hundreds of thousands of pounds a year but Mr. Davey makes it up every year. The town provides six top professionals to SL. This is the birthplace of Rugby league and one of Britains biggest towns, yet the reality is they cannot sustain a Superleague club.

But I'm still expected to agree that places like Doncaster, Sheffield, Barrow, Halifax, York, Featherstone, Castleford, Leigh, Keighley, Salford, Widnes etc who either don't produce professional RL players or who don't have the populations to support an adequate fanbase or don't have EITHER can somehow become self sustaining Superleague clubs.

Well they can't.

Some people don't see that Parky. The clubs you mention will continue ti live hand to mouth for some time I think and sadly it will only be a matter of time before we see some, if not all of them fold.

[Gav Wilson]

Doncaster

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, covering 224 square miles and the Council serves a population of approximately 302,000. It is led by one of only 12 Elected Mayors in the country and consists of 6 directorates.

Only one rugby league club in the 224 square miles.

How big's North Yorkshire...?

[keighley]

Wigan MBC has a population in excess of 300000 and covers 77 sq miles , one of the biggest urban areas in the country and includes 'little ' places like Leigh .

Google Wigan Council or Wigan Life to see what a chunk of the RFL heartlands they really cover . I sometimes think of them as the ' Green Bay Packers ' of the RFL.

There's only Kirklees that can remotely come near them....

They have St helens within 10 miles. That's hemmed in to me. As you say they have Leigh on their doorstep, Bolton Wanderers are within spitting distance,

Salford is 15 miles away, Widnes 14 miles and Warrington 11 miles. So within a 15 miles radius of Wigan there are 4 other SL clubs, one cc club and 2 Premiership soccer clubs. They are hemmed in. That's not a problem, they are still a successful RL club BUT the argument being advanced was that small CC clubs were hemmed in and could not herefore compete to be a SL club.

Halifax are the following distances from various teams

Huddersfield 5 miles, Bradford 7 miles. Leeds 14 Wakefield 15 miles .

So within a 15 miles radius of Halifax there are four SL teams also, but they are hemmed in and therefore could not compete according to the poster. Also there are zero premier league soccer teams around.

So whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If Wigan is hemmed in but can compete, then why can Halifax not compete

[Padge]

Wigan are a small town hemmed by a very big rival, so are Widnes, so are Huddersfield but that's ok because they are SL pukka members.When a team in the same situation wants to move up, like Featherstone and Halifax, then it is suggested that they cannot survive in like environments to many of the current SL clubs.When teams not hemmed in away from the very centre of the heartlands are suggested as possible SL teams like York, Doncaster and Sheffield and even Barrow then scorn is heaped on these ideas.We are a minority sport from mostly small towns not a mega sport like soccer. That is our demographic and we should prosper within that framework.I agree the game is doing quite well but I see no reason why the aim should not be to expand and increase the number of top level clubs. The contraction route favoured by many is just regressive and self defeating.

Which very big rival hemms in Wigan?

[The Parksider]

1. I didn't define anybody as incompetent.

2. Gary Hetherington did and he's the man you said should be the man to run the sport.

3. Just how badly do clubs have to perform in order to lose a SL license? CC clubs have a mountain to climb while the existing incumbents apparently have to prove nothing to keep their place. We'll never know how well a CC club can do in comparison to an under performing SL club until the RFL have the courage to apply their own devised rules fairly to all.

1. Then I apologise if I said you did.

2. Hetherington perhaps wrongly let himself have a veiled dig. That does not detract from his deep knowledge of what the game needs, his long experience especially with expansion, and his current achievements. I do hope you are not suggesting we disqualify a capable candidate on such a tiny slip?

3. You know my views here. Salford, Fartown, HKR, Bradford, Widnes, Cas, Wakefield, London are not roaring successes in SL. That is for absolute sure.

But nor were Oldham, Workington, Sheffield, Halifax, and leigh - they too were disasters.

And if they had let in Dewsbury they'd have been a double disaster.

Little Hunslet or mega-debt keighley would have ben treble disasters.

There is IMHO and I'm sticking to it one last club to show us if a club outside our top six or seven can actually make it, and that's your mob and I support them coming into SL no matter what and yes, stuff the licensing committee.

[stewpot01]

How big's North Yorkshire...?

just over 3,000 Sq miles

[keighley]

How big's North Yorkshire...?

I'm with you if you are going where i think. York is plenty big enough for a SL team and is not hemmed in at all but it has been stated on another similar post on here that there is no hinterland around York from which to draw support only empty agricultural areas. I think York, given many other criteria to be accomplised notwithstanding, is big enough populationwise for SL but that would be another rival to the big ten so it is an idea that cannot be allowed to have traction even on a RL forum

[keighley]

Which very big rival hemms in Wigan?

St Helens.

[Marauder]

How big's North Yorkshire...?

North Yorkshire is home to just over 600,000 people living in around 256,600 households. The county covers an area of 803,761 hectares and is predominantly rural. Broken down by population: 21% of people live in the two major towns (Harrogate and Scarborough)

On the other hand The City of York is 105 square miles and has a population of 197,800

Then again South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.34 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.

1.34 million divided by the two professional rugby league clubs gives each club 670,000

[The Parksider]

Some people don't see that Parky. The clubs you mention will continue ti live hand to mouth for some time I think and sadly it will only be a matter of time before we see some, if not all of them fold.

I don't know if they can or can't see it Stewpot. I like to think that we can all accept that RL is not what we want it to be or that our own clubs are not where we want them to be, accept that and have a reasoned debate.

It probably needs some clubs to get into deep trouble, it probably needs some clubs to fold before people finally accept that the SKY contract keeps the game alive and we need to deliver a professional competition.

Beyond that nothing matters for without it there may be nothing RL wise and that's what a reasoned debate delivered before Xmas..

Edited by The Parksider, 29 January 2013 - 07:47 PM.