The Phantom Horseman

Amazing CC game at The Oval with Surrey beating Yorkshire by 1 wicket. I went yesterday and saw parts of all of all 4 innings (23 wickets in the day). Yorkshire very unlucky having beaten the bat all afternoon and having two pretty plumb-looking LBWs turned down, but Surrey batted extremely gamely in difficult conditions. Great game and the tension over the last hour was huge.

I wouldn't worry, a full-time RL journalist made the same error a few weeks ago, in fairness, there's a confusing line on Companies House which seems to suggest that his name is Colm Gerard, Gerard is his middle name.

That was posted in January though wasnt it?

Oh, I'm sure you're right, I was just being a bit mischievous. 1st Sept just happened to come straight after their final league game. And Keighley tend to part companies with their coaches more frequently even than we have done.

One for the conspiracy theorists! RFL: "In our head we've always looked at the end of August as a bit of a target to get clarity on what's going on," he said. "I'm still optimistic that we'll meet that. There's still a lot of stuff to go through, but I'm optimistic we'll do that because I think it's only fair on whoever takes on the club; they have from the 1st of September onwards to plan coaches, assistant coaches, players, and then preseason will soon start. "So that's in our head, the kind of target that we're working towards." 1st September announcement: "Keighley Cougars can confirm that Head Coach Ian Hardman will leave the club following the conclusion of the current season by mutual agreement."

Prior to the winter of 2011 - an Icemaster 2000 deluxe* Snow Shovel. I live in the south of England, and it's never left my shed. *I may have invented the brand name.

I read it as them adjudicating on applications(s), having also been in consultation with the administrator about their feasibility in relation to what's happening with the land and ground. But that's just my guess.

I think you're probably right, and I'm not sure I have much more faith in the ticketing process than you do, but I remember as a Fev fan rushing to buy seats for last year's 1895 Final at Wembley because I didn't want to be too close to the front & there weren't many seats left at the back of the bottom row, only for the whole section above to be opened to Fev fans a few days later. Enjoy it anyway, I can't tell you how long ago now last year's 1895 final feels like to a Fev fan!

This has happened with Wembley games in the past, ie some sections show as being unavailable and then mysteriously go on sale later, I have always assumed it was to try and get fans of the same team grouped roughly together but I'm not sure. I suppose in the early stages of sales they had to allocate a reasonable section of the stands to London supporters as they can't just go along the lines of "ok there are 2,000 seats in this stand, let's allocate 1800 to Widnes and 200 to London." My point really was that they will surely have a plan C to make more seats available to Widnes fans nearer the day, they're not going to be turning people away.

I'm struggling with this...in the second post you seem to be saying that tickets are going to sell out and some Widnes fans are going to be unable to attend...but in the first post you're saying loads of coaches have been booked but nobody's buying tickets until Friday. I don't get it. This isn't going to be a sell-out, why would any fans from Widnes not be able to go?

I'd also add that the most recent administrator's report stated that correspondence relating to RVL Developments had been passed to Freeths (the legal company that are being used for this administration) "to determine what interest if any RVL have in the relevant land and buildings", adding "It will likely be necessary to determine and/or resolve such interest prior to the sale of the assets to any unconnected third parties." So in theory that could hold things up. That said, other than the previously-mentioned Proposed Purchaser, the only offer to purchase the assets (as opposed to offers to run the RL club) that the administrator mentioned in that latest update was "parties connected to the company". Whether there are any other offers out there, who knows, but that's the only one he mentioned.

Think I've heard of him, did he make his fortune through antiques?

Nah - if Wigan, St Helens or Leeds had done it, including using the loophole to basically allow themselves endless overseas players, the online RL world would have gone crazy. The York/Newcastle situation didn't even get mentioned in the RL media until weeks if not months after a few of us had been discussing it on here. York probably have more goodwill and are "less unpopular", if that makes sense, than just about any other SL team, other than perhaps from some Bradford fans. I'm not surprised that the RFL got some complaints from other teams regarding the overseas player loophole - as I said at the time, I think the RFL were wrong to allow it, but equally, if they did bring in a mid-season ban, I don't agree with that either.

It's possible the reported withdrawal of the Proposed Purchaser (see story from a couple of pages back) will have set back procedures. Rhodri Jones from the RFL was quoted in an interview published on RugbyLeagueHub.com Long Reads on August 11th - it's unclear whether this interview preceded the reported withdrawal of the Proposed Purchaser. Interim Rugby Football League CEO Rhodri Jones told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads that there is "no guarantee" that a Featherstone club will compete in the Championship next year, but the RFL "feels like there are enough conversations going on that there will be a solution". Jones said the RFL will look to make a decision on Featherstone by the end of this month. "In our head we've always looked at the end of August as a bit of a target to get clarity on what's going on," he said. "I'm still optimistic that we'll meet that. There's still a lot of stuff to go through, but I'm optimistic we'll do that because I think it's only fair on whoever takes on the club; they have from the 1st of September onwards to plan coaches, assistant coaches, players, and then preseason will soon start. "So that's in our head, the kind of target that we're working towards."

Yes, which illustrates the point I was making - it's best not to draw conclusions based on one or two isolated games.