Trojan
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Posts posted by Trojan
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People really cannot have it both ways.
We've got Trojan trying to convince us Bradford are dead and gone and are no longer a big club yet they still play out of home ground Odsal, they still count support at 6,000. they still run an academy that produces players and they now have the missing ingredient, that of a rich owner.
Remember as soon as Featherstone got that rich owner in Nahaboo there was post after post about how the club would be going places, buying up all the best players and reaching for the stars.
OK I accept we are in the here and now and it's not 2001 and Bradford have not just crushed Wigan in the SL final, but by 'eck Brdford are still three times the club Featherstone or Leigh are.
Now we get the myth of how marvelously run Sheffield Eagles are.
The club was so well run it collapsed out of existence, then when it came back it was so well run that it couldn't manage to develop a player production system. Compare and contrast the London academy with the Sheffield academy, which one produced the results?
Then Sheffield brought in the right players to win the Championship and how well did the crowds go? They went nowhere despite the successes.
But again people can't have it both ways and declare that in the here and now Bradford or London are shot, when in the here and now "well managed" Sheffield are well down the Championship and playing before falling crowds out of a bigger dump than Odsal.
That a non RL city can pinch the Championship twice from under the nose of Halifax Featherstone and Leigh, may say more about the standard of RL in the championship and the gulf between that and Superleague, than it does about the readiness or the ability of CC clubs to be up to P & R.
You look at the tables in the here and now and if the CC clubs have to go to places like Hull and star studded Salford next year there could be immediate problems with this "brand new" exciting system.
I never said Bradford were dead, I said a spell in the Championship would do them good. Before commenting on what other posters have written it would be a good idea to read what they have written first. Whether Bradford are "three times the club Featherstone or Leigh are" remains to be seen. Without the likes of Featherstone or Leigh there'd have been no Bradford in the sixties.
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As I posted on another of these interminable threads, should my club be fortunate enough to be included in SL I confidently expect them to struggle, and perhaps be relegated. But so what? It's not the end of the world. provided, you are allowed the opportunity to refresh yourself in the lower division and come back again. Fev came back from an extended spell in the lowest division to (until this season) dominate the Championship. Once P&R is re-established, things should even out and there won't be this enormous gulf that has been allowed to develop between the SL and the rest. If there is one reason to do away with the iniquitous licencing system (apart from its allowing sides who clearly can't compete to continue in SL) it is this gulf. I reckon there are quite a few players in the Championships who like Liam Finn, Kyle Amor and Alex Walmsley gven the chance and the coaching can make the step up to SL.
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you mean you don't know?
Things are worse than I thought
no I know who they are, do you?
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and how does your club stack up against the Bulls in both achievement and potential?
What would their contribution to SL be? Could they become a power in the game? Could they attract 20,000+ attendances?
My memories go back that far as well, but they are less selective, something for which I am thankful
who are my club?
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it is 9 years, is that what you mean by 'perpetual'? Suggest you cheek the meaning of the word. Bradford in the SL era, and before have been one of the most significant clubs in the game. They have the potential to be so again.
They have been rescued, the fans have contributed money, rescued again, and it's been going on now for about 5 years. Teams shouldn't struggle for 5 years, they should be put our of their misery by relegation. Hopefully they'll come back stronger. Clearly licencing wasn't doing Bradford any favours. If it had been they'd have been up there with the front runners again. I'm old enough to remember the old one division league, and Bradford finishing near the bottom season after season. What was the result of that? They went out of business and had to be rescued and started again from scratch.
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Direct experience: even at their most recent best, in the early 1960's, Swinton was barely viable as a club. If you can't pack the fans in when you win Div 1 two years in succession then to be honest, you never will. That is not to belittle the efforts of those who continue to work hard for the club. But potential? No.
If there's no crowd potential for a champion club at Swinton, what chance is there for a champion club just down the road at Salford?
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What evidence do you have that their division 2 campaign gave them the boost?
The M62 led to West Yorkshire by then and Hull used good old money to buy........
From Fev....Dave Busfield, Charlie Stone, Keith Bridges, Steve Evans, John Newlove. Vince Farrar
From Cas....Knocker Norton, Sammy Lloyd,Charlie Birdsall
From Wakey....Trevor Skerrett, David Topliss
That's how they made it to the top in reality, and this is the problem with RL in your area, it's a nursery for big clubs because none of you have the ambition to be one you can ever realise. and as for your dismissal of statistics then I know that even official stats you dismiss as made up. I disagree with you entirely and always have done (at the same time as keeping respect for you as a fine fellow of an RL fan), and this may help people understand why I've made over 16,000 posts on this subject, 10,000 may have been me disagreeing with 10,000 of yours.........
Regardless of where they players came from, the support that funded the drive to success came from Hull
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a 'perpetually struggling club like Bradford'? Really? Is that not an example of picking and choosing'. The Bulls are one of the most significant and successful clubs of the SL era, there records before that time is hugely impressive, despite a catastrophic decline in the early sixties.
You have alleged that people pick out the statistics that suit their argument. That's a big call. can you back it up?
What sort of information do you consider credible? The sight of an old woman on a station platform in Wales?
They were a successful club in the past, so were Wakey, so were Swinton, Dewsbury were Champions in 1973 - the past. It's 9 years since Bradford even looked like winning anything. They've been in receivership twice and are in the bottom two of Sujperleague - they have been languishing. If they'd been a horse they'd be in Tesco's freezer section by now. That's not being selective it's what's happening now, today.
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Really not sure about this myth that being relegated does a club good. Ask Halifax, Oldham and Workington. The game outside Superleague went backwards with promotion during 1996 to 2009. Many people had found out there was no hope of promotion like Dewsbury or hope of staying up without a rich man. Resurrecting Halifax as an SL club will only help to keep Bradford down as fans and juniors would head there and it would push Fartown downwards too,
At least in Salford/Manchester there is relatively new territory to conquer and Salford gives a top class product for RL fans in areas like Swinton, Oldham and Rochdale who stay at home to easily get to.
Championship clubs never inspired the kids to play in any number just as perennial second division clubs didn't either. The old Players annuals from the 1970's show that even in those days the second division clubs used to make their teams up out of first division cast offs.
The great Hull FC side of the eighties got their boost from an unbeaten season in the old 2nd division, as did Wigan around the same time. A perpetually struggling club like Bradford have been recently does nothing to boost support or for the confidence of players. They need to get into a winning frame of mind. A spell in the championship should do this. If it doesn't then what's lost? As for your examples, Workington should never have been in SL from the start, Oldham were sharing a ground, Halifax effectively voluntarily withdrew, and the opportunity to return hasn't been there since 2007. As I said in my "another one bites the dust" thread, people pick out the statistics that suit their argument and rubbish any other evidence.
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Whatever happened to the lovely grounds that were promised in the Calder area? As part of the licensing at some point did both Cas and Wakey not promise new grounds? I could be wrong here, so please correct me if necessary!
The growth is very good, but looking at the dates, I have had a thought. Now this is just spit balling, so forgive me. In the mid-nineties, it seemed to became more acceptable for whole familes (and in particular girls) to support football. Looking at premier league average attendances (on worldfootball.net), they jumped by about 17% in the 95-96 season compared to the 94-95 season (by far the biggest change in average crowd during the PL era). Do we think something similar happened in SL? I note that from the last 'proper' winter season to the first SL season, we saw a 18% jump in attendances (from wiki and Parky's numbers). I'm sure that playing in summer had something to do with it, and it is likely just a coincidence, but they are pretty similar % increases.
Can't speak for Cas, but Wakey promised all sorts to get themselves accepted in SL in 1998. As Stalin said "promises like pie crusts, are made to be broken."
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How the hell do you know that?
I have what are known as "eclectic tastes" everything from J S Bach to Jonhny Rotten is grist to my mill!
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Debbie loves Joey - Helen Love
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I was there, too , aged 16-17-18, for Swinton's brilliant seasons and recall no bickering. - possibly because it is a dim and distant memory of events 50 years ago . There were just not the opportunities or channels for bickering.
I do recall, though, that in those days many league fans were miserable, negative, pugnacious doom-mongers carrying their victimhood proudly. At least its not like that now. Well, not in Calder, anyway
In Wakey 50 years ago they were dominating the League and Cup, so they hadn't much to moan about. The second live game of RL I ever went to was a cup-tie at Belle Vue with 28000 others.
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It's reported to be the case that potential broadcasters - plural - will bid against each other for the rights to screen Rugby League 2016.
IMVHO it is wishful thinking with respect Terry to believe the broadcasters want RL because of the proposed jeapordy element. It interests them yes, but there's no evidence they have looked into the detail.
You do the Rugby League World Cup and it's tremendous successes a great dis-service by suggesting second tier club RL is the factor stimulating more than one Broadcaster to now consider taking the game.
You spout on here like an expert. But you've done nothing. How dare you criticise someone who's done more for the game than probably anyone who posts on here. If you think Sky give a toss about RL in this country apart from as a filler for soccer, you're living in cloud cuckoo land. You only have to look at their advertising to see which sports they really support, soccer, cricket, Union. They treat us very shabbily IMO. When the World Cup was on their sports news studiously ignored it. They don't do that with other sports. TBH if there ever is another offer from another broadcaster, the RFL should snatch their hands off.
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Petty rivalries are killing the game there, that's why we need one club in the Wakefield district, I don't care who it is, you clearly do Steve......
Aren't petty rivalries what the game is about? How about Leeds v Bradford? Isn't that fairly petty? Wigan v Saints, again petty. Or can we substitute the word petty with the word derby?
Say some dictator figure came in and demanded mergers between the Wakefield Met sides, the Hull sides, the North Cheshire sides, who would then fill the gaps left? Surely not clubs from outside the "heartlands?" How many times have we tried this, and how much money have we thrown at it, and how often has it failed? What potential club owner in his right mind would invest in starting a new club from scratch with the current structure of no P&R? His club doomed to play in the lower league until someone decreed they could have a go in SL? Not an attractive business proposition.
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As long as the rules are firmly in place and everyone knows them,
In Rugby League???? That's asking a bit much. Surely we should wait until the 2014 season is nearly over - say next August and then decide what's going to happen in 2015.
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And rugby is about more than Cas
Did anyone say it wasn't?
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To invest in what? For what return?? What you mean by so called investment is the pure covering of losses because there are not enough fans, sponsors, pro-players and TV money to support 14 clubs??
Every penny Koukash has invested in strengthening his SL team, has weakened the teams he took players off. How many new Salford fans will turn up to watch Rangi Chase, how many old Cas fans will pack it in now Castleford have sold their marquee player?
When any business gets in debt it needs sound principles more than ever?
Cas is about more than Rangi Chase.
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Overall IMO in it's niche, Below SL level League has gone backwards, I appeciate that some people will be happy with that , Not me I had 50 years of that and It's enough for anyone, I want to watch the best , for the rest of my time , And i will take some convincing that 2/3rds of clubs below SL can ever again get up there, "no disrespect to any club " There is just not the money in the game to bring it about , I wish there were.
As long as there is no P&R then the likes of Oldham, Swinton, Fev, York, Halifax will never get up there. As long there is no P&R the teams at the bottom end of SL have no incentive to improve what they offer on the pitch. I know what you're saying about Huddersfield, I was there when they last won the RL Championship. Forty years in the doldrums, but thanks to P&R they got into SL and got a backer and certainly on the field they are going places. But not on the terraces, forty years of failure means that the fan base is attenuated and repopulating it will take time. The same could be said for Oldham, and look at the players the Oldham area have produced: the Sulthorpes, Iestyn, Mike Ford, Barrie Mac, Kevin Sinfield, and all these at a time when the pro club has been struggling. We cannot give up on the Championship clubs. If we do it'll be the thin end of the wedge.
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I can't say i agree with much of that, As i understand it ( and i am not one for stats I admit ) the game down south at Amatuer level is thriving. unless i have that wrong.
The rest of your post suggest we might just as well sit on our thumbs and wait to dwindle away, Because all the evidence says that is what will/is happening. Myself rather than that i would just have SL break away, They are the only ones doing anything to take the game forward Financially.
The rest of the game can just take it's chance. Merge ,don't merge ,Sink or swim, dwindle away as it is, till there is just Amateur left.
Or they could make the compeition vibrant again make it what it used to be, with all the Derby's and the big crowds, There would soon be the elite clubs amongst them of Course Fev Fax etc, but then they would have to find a system that was fair to the smaller clubs.
I've no doubt the amateur game is thriving in the South, and the crowd at Bristol for the recent World Cup game is encouraging. But it has to be admitted that every attempt to spread the game into a new area, even one as near to the "heartlands" as Liverpool has been a total failure. Support for rugby of either code in these islands is patchy, we live in a patch where rugby caught on, and became a pro sport. But in other patches where rugby was popular the RFU saw to it that the "professionalism" virus didn't spread, and that's why IMO we have a problem. In the areas (other than the RL heartlands) where rugby is a popular sport, Union is so entrenched as to be next to impossible to supplant, and in the other areas the mighty soccer rules. I don't like it, I've never liked it, but we have to confront actuality at some point.
When Union went pro in 1995, Eddie Butler wrote in the Observer that in ten years they'd be playing RL but calling it RU. He may have been wrong in his timescale, but long term I think he may have been correct.
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But the fans have no say in the matter. They pay their admission money, watch the games and that's that.
The fans don't want mergers, the fans also don't want second tier RL either, in 1996 the combined Hull/HKR audience was a mere 4,707.
It remains to be seen how the fans will react to the 3x8=2x12 if it goes through but if they find it "second rate" crowds could drop.
It's worth noting how the bigger clubs in SL are to carry on with academies, whilst the lesser SL clubs may not. I don't know what other costs they will jettison or "standards" they will drop.
The RFL and KPMG tell us with no real evidence crowds will grow in the second tier eight, but they could easily start dropping then something else may have to give, like the drawbridge going up on a ten club SL.
If that happens it could then be no "Calder" club remains in SL. will the 5,000 fans left then still say no to merger? Probably, but it isn't their choice.
Mergers in Welsh Union are almost killing their game. There is very little interest in the merged district sides. Many of their best players are playing elsewhere. Since Cardiff City and Swansea entered the Premierships crowds are down dramatically. That's what mergers did in Oz and that's what they'll do to in Lancashire and Yorkshire. As for sides anywhere else, it doesn't take a genius to work out that for whatever reason there is very little interest in RL outside the so-called "heartlands." Interest stops short at the Wakefield border with South Yorks, at the Wigan and Keighley borders with Lancashire, at the St Helens/Widnes borders with Liverpool, at the Humber, at the Manchester City boundary. No amount of promotion or push seems to be able to spread the game out of the heartlands. The merger programme will probably kill it within the heartlands and then there'll be no more arguments because there'll be no more game.
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That is what may ultimately happen, The ironic thing about it is the Fans of all these clubs you have mentioned, who refuse point blank to watch another Rugby League club , even merged , Will then be faced with either watching Union or going fishing ( or whatever ).
The other thing is that down the line when this takes place, it will only happen because there are big successful clubs like Wigan Leeds etc to make it worth their while, otherwise they would just grind us away.
But it's not a serious suggestion. It's not what I want to happen any more than I wanted Calder to happen. But that's the argument put forward on here by those who favour mergers, it makes just as much sense.
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I like that. Well said. I think we saw some sense when the SL clubs asked members not to poach Bradford's players, and when SL were prepared to buy the Bradford club. The principle of clubs being dependent on each other for a strong game overall is a great one.
So maybe it's time for Hull/HKR, Cas/Fev/Wakey, Bradford/Hudds/Halifax to get together and stop trying to weaken each other as competitors for Superleague places. All join together because they all need each other as you say.
Pleased you have seen the light, have a great new year.....
Michael Palin was guest editor of "Today" on Monday. He's a Sheffielder and he floated the idea of a merger between United and Wednesday with some fans of both clubs. He'd have got a better reaction if he'd sworn in church. They don't want it. And neither do the fans of Fev, Cas, Wakey, Hull KR, Hull FC, Bradford, Huddersfield or Halifax. That's what I mean about rational business logic not applying in sport. The whole Rugby League breakaway doesn't make sense any more. There's no reason for Rugby League to exist any more, Union is professional and better financed, so let's have the ultimate merger, one between the codes. I'm sure that'll go down a storm on here!
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