Leyther_Matt

I’ve been to some pretty poor grounds in my life watching RL and football, but Cowdenbeath is comfortably the worst ground I’ve ever been to. Probably didn’t help that it rained incessantly when I was there, but it felt like being at Odsal but with a massive fence in front of me.

There needs to be a reason for them to be on. Big international games help (see you in 2 years time), along with a Russell Crowe film or any sort of extraordinary event so maybe Westerman sticking his knee back in to place last week. There was a certain amount of publicity around Keegan Hirst when he first came out but quite rightly that was a private matter for him and wasn’t something for the game to try and make mileage out of. The PDRL sort of thing is something that should be all over the place where possible though.

Gets mentioned quite regularly, doesn’t it?

Trevor Hemmings, current owner of Preston North End. Neil Parsley. Think he played full back. I was buzzing as a kid to see him on telly having known he’d played against Leigh. I just about missed the Lancashire Lynx days at Deepdale but have seen Leigh play at Chorley (I actually walked to the game from Leigh as a sponsored walk and Neil Turley equalled the club record for points in a game), and I’m pretty sure we were the first opposition for the re-formed Blackpool at Bloomfield Road in front of a decent crowd before also seeing us at Fylde RU.

It was 36 degrees when Leigh played mid-afternoon in Toronto in June last year. The humidity had it touching over 40 degrees at one point though luckily in the second half the breeze picked up and it clouded over a little bit.

Ironically he’s actually much more of a rugby fan than he is football. He would fly back from Barbados for big Wigan games but wouldn’t do similar for any number of Latics games. However, he’s a businessman before anything else and saw a good opportunity when Wigan were riddled with debt in Central Park’s final years and were on the brink of moving to Bolton. That said, for the facility that they have along with the security of their tenancy, they don’t have a bad deal at all in the scheme of things. Although it didn’t seem it at the time, they may well have landed lucky on the transfer of stadium ownership a few years ago as there will have to be some serious money spent on renewing a lot of the stadium facilities in the coming years.

Worth mentioning that Mayfield, as the home of Rochdale Town, failed the FA ground grading for the North West Counties Football League, whereas Whitebank, as the home of AVRO, passed the same test after the work they did to restore the playing perimeter amongst other things.

That's not entirely true given it's quite easy to get hold of reduced price cinema tickets through bank accounts and the like. Took my other half and our lad to watch Toy Story 4 yesterday for the grand total of £15, less than what it would have cost for one adult to go to Dewsbury v Leigh (and Dewsbury are very reasonably priced at £16 terracing to be fair)

Sunday 6th October, although you’d assume it may be the Saturday if being played in Toronto or Toulouse.

Non-Canuck but see above Shame your trip doesn't (quite) coincide with Canada Day, we had a great night following the crowds down to Woodbine Park

Really easy to use the streetcars (I'd say trams to you and me Mick, but you probably remember trolly buses ) for getting around. Taxis were pretty reasonable as well and pretty quick from the airport to downtown. To give you a ballpark figure, we were there for 7 nights at the same time of year last year for the Leigh game and spent about £750 and that included a few beers every day (some more than others...!), eating every meal in a restaurant (again, some more expensive than others), a couple of Blue Jays games, a TFC game and a day at Niagara Falls. Beer prices seemed to vary from anything between $6 and $14 but with the ridiculous level of humidity we tended to drink vodka and Sprite which was generally $7 to $9 wherever we went so a bargain in comparison. Beers at the game were $10 a can and you don't even need to move from your seat as there are staff walking round selling cold cans. An experience I'd recommend to anyone, have a good 'un pal.

Only theory I could come up with is that there is a place also called Featherstone just north of Wolverhampton so technically they could be their local team?!

Pretty sure Leeds have already got 'grow lights' as tends to be used on the better pitches these days.

In a play-off scenario, the team in 2nd/3rd winning away to 1st place then claims the highest ranking (think along the lines of the Unofficial World Cup and you aren't far wrong)

And your brother didn't buy his tickets through his own club. Yes, away fans are free to buy through Leeds if they want, but the allocated area for away fans is the Western Terrace, I don't even see what is up for debate on that front. As someone pointed out earlier, the relevant authorities would be having kittens if 2,000 opposition fans decided to pitch up in the South Stand en masse. NB - when I say a handful of North Stand tickets, there has never been more than 30 tickets given to an away club and even that doesn't seem to be happening since the rebuild.