Trojan

Does that include my team Featherstone Rovers? We were in the old Div I and excluded from SL for the now non existent Paris. At the time we were drawing better crowds than Wakefield. Since Wakefield have been in Superleague (in controversial circumstances) their crowds have improved and ours have declined. If we had P&R this season there's a good chance we'd be promoted. But we won't be. If we were promoted and couldn't hack it and were relegated - ce la vie. We'd at least have had our shot, which is more than we've had so far. Promotion and relegation is the meat and drink of British sport. Any game without the carrot of promotion and the stick of relegation loses something for me.

There's also of course the example of the crowd for the Wakey/Cas decider in 2006. Plus as plenty on here have testified, it's not the same game without the prospect of promotion or the threat of relegation. Admit it Parky - you're wrong. Franchising will, given enough time kill the game stone dead, then where will your expansion come from? Promotion and relegation are like the heat in a curry, it's just as nourishing without the heat, but the heat makes it appetising - it's the spice.

That is the point. Rugby League crowds are not static with the self same people coming week in week out. They are dynamic. Because whether we like it or not, people die, become too ill or old or infirm to attend any more, or they move away. These missing fans have to be replaced. With new younger fans, but if you're a young potential RL supporter living in Wakey Met, who would you support? Wakey or Cas who are Super League sides and get max publicity and appear on TV fairly regularly, or lowly Fev? - And let's face it until recently we have been pretty lowly. If that night in 1998 Fev had won instead of losing, I reckon we'd have made at least as good a fist of SL as Wakey did. In fact possibly better, because given what happened down the line to Wakey with their financial scandal, and new ground scandal, it's possible they without the SL would have ceased to exist. In the eighties Fax who've been described on here as a "small" club were attracting 8-10k to Thrum Hall. Since their decline their crowds have diminished. The young fans described above have gone to watch the Bulls and the Giants. Whether they can recover I couldn't say. But if they remain in the Championship much longer I somehow doubt it. Halifax was a major RL centre along with Oldham and look at them both today. Unless we can give these clubs' supporters a better hope than that every three years they'll be able to apply for SL, IMO they're in danger of disappearing. All for the tenuous hope of "expansion" - much good it's done us so far.

Look at the times though Chris - threatened pit closures, 3m unemployed. People afraid for their jobs, not much spare money - and a Wembley trip to pay for. All explanations. But to get back to the point and John Kear: ""The reason that has made me change my mind about relegation being a performance issue is when you get 10,000 plus at Headingley Carnegie watching a rugby union game

Hull, Huddersfield, Hull KR, Cas., Salford Widnes were only relegated because of the rule allowing Catalans to stay up, they didn't finish bottom. Taking relegation away is like making a tightrope walker walk along his rope on the ground. Ok he can do it and it takes great skill, and I couldn't do it without falling off. But if he falls off so what? Would anyone pay money to watch him?

No we fell apart after an hour. They destroyed us in the last twenty - I was there. It's the best England/GB performance I've seen since the mid nineties. As for their comp being franchised - so what? if that's how the Aussies like their sport ok, most of us in this country don't like our sport in this way - we like winners and for there to be a winner there has to be a loser. The complaint is that the excitement has gone from our comp. due to franchising. So what have the benefits been so far? - Because I'm b*ggered if I can see any.

Not that the "wonderful community" has been broken then?

No you're wrong there Parky. In 1990 we came within a disputed referee's decsion of beating them in a series. We gave a creditable performance in the World Cup Final in 1992 and also in the Ashes series that year - also in the subsequent 1994 tour and 1995 World Cup. It's since then that the game has been declining internationally as far as England are concerned.

It seems to have killed it as an international sport in the UK. England's performance in the current contest can only be described as abject. The Premier League is effectively an exclusive club that has had billions lavished on it. The perfomance in South Africa is what this has produced. Surely we don't want to go further down this route. 15/20 years ago we looked to have the beating of Australia within our reach. But after 15 years of SL we seem further away than ever. Will the lack of competition for a SL place improve or detract from what for me is the holy grail of any sport - a successful international side? Plus of course the added benefit in the profile of such a sport in the UK. And of course what this thread started to be about the excitement that pulls the fans in.

Just curious as to why you use the past tense?

Find out about Ben Gronow - a Welsh convert, the first man to kick off at the then new Twickenham. A member of the great Huddersfield "team of all the talents" And his subsequent treatment by Union. http://www.rl1895.com/gronow.htm http://ww1talk.co.uk/showthread.php?2262-B...ow-Rugby-Player "In 1936 he coached Morley RFC but, due to his RL connection, his name was deliberately omitted from the caption to a photograph in the Club

It's not Wakey v Cas he's looking for though - it's a game where something is at stake - like the Union game he cites.

"The reason that has made me change my mind about relegation being a performance issue is when you get 10,000 plus at Headingley Carnegie watching a rugby union game

They had to change the rules because of Murphy. In the 1966 CC Final, Wigan's hooker had gone off injured and in those days it was necessary to have an experienced hooker to win the ball at the scrum. With Wigan in possession, Murphy persistently stood offside, the ref penalised him and gave Wigan a penalty - they kicked the ball into touch and at the subsequent scrum Saints got the ball back. The penalty and tap was introduced to prevent this sort of thing. I personally think flouting the spirit of the rules is just as bad as breaking the actual rules. It's true Murphy was a good player, but IMO he should have been cited on more than one occasion with the catch all of "bringing the game into disrepute" Either he'd have packed it in or eventually got a sine die ban.

I thought that too. Last twenty of the first, and beginning of the second, the ref seemed determined to get them on the scoreboard - and he did. I don't mind what decisions refs give against us as long as they are consistent, there is no way that today's comic could be described as consistent. Having said that, I wouldn't have given our next to last try - and it was right in front of me.

Got a bad feeling. I'm usually right too.

Moonlight Serenade by the Miller Orchestra (sorry - I can't help it I love swing music)

I'll Look Around - Billie Holiday.

Nose to tail eating. A woman went to the butchers and asked for a sheep's head, and would he leave the eyes in. Because it had to see them through the week. It's too warm for a coat today

I have a video of the Scrumdown programme of our game at Watersheddings in 1988. At the beginning is a sort of prologue about Fev, and it's on there as bright as day

I heard a story about Murphy from a guy who was the manager of the bar at Wilderspool. The bar had just closed and they grille had just been pulled down, when Murphy entered demanding a drink. My acquantience told him the bar was closed. Murphy said that he was the manager and demanded a drink, my guy said he was the bar manager and the bar was closed. Murphy apparently nutted the grille.

The Animals - what a fantastic British blues band, Burdon really had the voice for it. The perhaps little known For Miss Caulker (released on the B side of Bring it on Home to Me) has asome fantastic blues piano introduction from Alan Price, and Burdon's vocals are great.

I have Werewolves of London by him.

I'm wearing a blue and white striped tee shirt, that looks remarkably like the old Fev shirt.