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mmp

Coach
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About mmp

  • Birthday 02/02/1981

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Manchester
  • Interests
    Bury Broncos - http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybroncos/

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  1. I've found similar lists in Manchester newspapers which include the Manchester and District League teams playing in a structure presumably below (or in parallel to) the Lancs comps listed here.
  2. Researching Radcliffe (the side mentioned before) and then Radcliffe Rangers and Prestwich Church Institute I regularly stumbled on references to Leigh Shamrocks sometimes playing in the Manchester and District League.
  3. I was invited to a function in the Presidents Suite of Twickenham earlier this year. It is am imposing picture.
  4. I believe there was another Castleford club - their first match was against Radcliffe (which was also Radcliffe's first match in the NU 2nd tier)
  5. Its the Manchester and District League (and the area next to Bradford in East Manchester is called Clayton). Just looked it up and the Bradford colliery (East Manchester - right where Manchester City now play) is referred to as being in Clayton. Although maybe there is history in the fact that Bradford in Yorks also has a Clayton next door!
  6. So, the original intention was for this to be a rugby history thread - so here is a tester. I've spent the Xmas period researching RL in Bury/North Manchester. Below - are the members due to play in the Manchester and District RL in summer 1914 (i.e. the structure for that winter - just as WW1 began) as reported in the Manchester Evening news at the time. Prestwich Mandlebergs Rylands Recreational Broughton Central Wardley Winton Cadishead Bradford Hornets Pendleton Deans Rovers Anchor Cable Reddish Swinton St Marys Flixton Hornets Swinton Park Cadishead A Flixton Bradford & Clayton Clifton Weaste Seedley Rangers The question...what happened to RL in this part of the world as i cannot find reference to many, if any, of these after this one!? Can it all be blamed on WW1? The vast majority of sides are in what is now Salford, but a few are squarely in East Manchester (Bradford is an area of East Manchester - not just Yorkshire). And how different could it have been in this part of the world given Swinton, Broughton, and Salford were top teams and this lot sat below? As an aside - for the real historians - does this say something about coal-mining and RL? Most of the Salford side clubs are pit areas - even Prestwich is adjacent to Agecroft while few know that Bradford in East Manchester was also a pit area...
  7. Tha bigger picture has to be about increasing the talent pool by maximising participation and NOT about everyone having an academy when there simply are not enough juniors in the first place. Its madness having 5 SL academies in the NW competing for so few players UNLESS we add a lot more players to the player pool. We added a U16s at Bury Broncos this year - http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybroncos/news/u16s-cap-off-brilliant-first-s-1043719.html using a very particular model but one we think can be applied elsewhere. I'd argue we need more new sides/teams more than we need the current number of academies and that if we put more investment into getting particpation up, we'd create an environment where more youngsters can flow through the system and reach the top. Look at East Manchester Rangers at U13s - flying up a division as a new side with plenty of talent attracted into the game where we didnt get any before.
  8. Ps this thread has already started to demonstrate he biggest issue in the game. People being reactionary and slagging off the RFL for looking to reduce academies.... Yet for over a year (?) there's been plenty from in the amateur game coming on here and slagging off the RFL for having academies... The RFL have an impossible task - to balance a whole set of competing priorities with a constituency of people determined to slag them off whatever route they take! They can't win...
  9. You're right in that U15 to U18 is where participation in all sports drop off sharply. The NW Rugby Union structures have just had to merge geographical areas at U16 level to ensure they've enough teams in place to make a divisional structure viable. BUT, GeordieSaint is 100% right in his analysis. You have an age group notorious for participation drop off made WORSE by the volume of kids taken out of the amateur structures with no hope of making the grade. We need a smaller number of higher quality academies reducing the impact on junior and youth rugby....
  10. Simple maths. Take the North West Warrington, Wigan, Widnes, Salford, St. Helens all running academies taking players from the junior/youth game... So, that's what, 100 players at each age group? Consider we have just four divisions of U16 rugby from which to draw juniors and you see the problem. 5 academies competing for the best players - those who might make SL - but to actually field a side they've got to take the next best and then the next best to the point where they've taken players that they know won't ever be good enough at top level but because they all need to field a team, they've got to pull them from the amateur ranks. The results are: Some amateur sides fold. They have a squad of say 15, but find they've 4 on scholarship - which means they can't field a side when the scholarship lads are away. The other lads see this and think sod it... We lose players as a sport as a result. Those selected by scholarship and academy systems who won't make the grade (and were selected to make up the numbers) have their expectations raised...and then dashed when rejected from he elite player system later on. They are less likely to commit as much to their amateur club as a result as 'the game' has let them down. The theory is fine. But as GeordieSaint says, we'd need to quadruple participation at least for the system to stack up. So the RFL are right to restructure it all
  11. Academies have not been the life-blood of clubs! there are simply too many of them given the total amount of particpation in our sport and the result has been hugely damaging to youth rugby without particular benefits to elite player development (for clubs or country). The RFL need to restructure this space for the good of the sport.
  12. Absolutely! And my biggest (of many) issue with OUR media... Why sponsor RL when as a sport - it doesn't make the effort of promoting your brand? I watch masses of sport - the "Barclays" Premiership, the "RBS 6 Nations" as so on and so on. The brand is promoted positively in association with the sport. Like the deal or not, but Stobarts are a big firm and our journalists seemed to take please from deliberately denigrating the brand association - on GMR they referred to Stobarts as "those truck people" (they are a multi-million £ logistics and freight firm, actually) and i barely ever saw a journo refer to the competition as the "Stobart SuperLeague" in the way journos of competitor sports do in their job. If you are lucky enough to get a sponsor then for gods sake give them please the most basic respect...if you don't then why would any marketing executive of any other brand would ever go near our sport? Add to that the never ending negativity of most of OUR media and I can imagine that it's a pretty tough sponsorship sell (even with a fantastic product on the pitch)
  13. Pretty strong representation from Bury in that Engalnd side once again...
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