Jonty

Yes, plus Holme, Kirkby Lonsdale and several in Kendal. I can understand Coniston - around 1900 the village was an industrial community dominated by quarrymen and miners; I can imagine that they would have made up the majority of players and hence paying broken time would have been an attraction. Even within the farming community there was an expectation that you would be paid for playing sport - Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling, fell running and hound trailing were all professional in the Victorian era. In a comparison to the rugby league-union relationship, Amateur Athletic Association members received bans for entering Lakeland sports and professionalism as recently as the 1990s! Some years later, my great-uncle was from Coniston and played for Whitehaven in the 1940s and '50s. When my dad lived in the village as a boy, Coniston folk getting the train to Barrow for games was not uncommon, although that would have been in the Willie Horne years. In the early years of the Northern Union, the Lancaster, Morecambe and Carnforth area ran a 10-a-side workshops league with such great teams as Carnforth Swifts and Freehold Athletic.

That's a wonderful resource, Graeme. Thanks for posting it on here. I've always been interested in, at some point, compiling a list of Ulverston's results for their period from formation to when they reverted to amateur rugby league in 1902. This snippet from, of all places, the Westmorland Gazette, of 22nd January 1898, shows what a lost opportunity rugby league had in the Morecambe Bay area. Commenting on a Westmorland v Yorkshire rugby union county match: and further down, in the Northern Union results...

Agree - the cricket structure that you've outlined is a good example. It happens in other sports too; notably rugby union where Premiership clubs have very strong ties with schools at an elite player development level. It's an opportune time at the moment, given Sport England investment into satellite clubs - essentially out-of-hours clubs on a school site, but feeding a more established local club. This not only has potential to grow the player pool at secondary school age, but to grow the amateur game and support elite player development. In this situation you're also maximising player retention. If the elite programme is linked to education and midweek, players are retained by their amateur club. Instead of having a negative experience at a pro-club, and possibly being lost to the game at the end of it, players are instead in a development programme that would hopefully grow their technical and physical ability, making them an asset encouraged to find their level in the sport. The other advantage of embedding this within education is that you can provide the participants with skills both on and off the pitch. For instance, ensuring that all the participants get trained with a RL organisers award, or equivalent, and can be deployed delivering sessions in their school. At FE level, ensuring that all get trained to at least L1 coaching standard and can be deployed back in the amateur club or as part of the pro clubs community programme etc.

Thanks. Simple maths around this is quite alarming (if I'm correct) If we take 13* clubs with 25 man squads playing, of which 5 are non-Fed players, it gives you 20% of the league. Do the same calculation on 11 clubs playing 7, and you get 28% of a reduced pool - an increase from 65 to 77. Essentially the numbers of academy-trained players has dropped from 260 to 198. Whilst I appreciate that non-Fed does not equal "overseas", there is often a relationship. * Catalans Dragons taken as the exception due to their unique circumstances

There are a lot of really good points in the above posts, especially the viewpoints put by Geordie Saint and South Wakefield Sharks. On paper, the idea looks foolish, but you'd like to think that there is rational behind what Red Hall are doing. Only last week the RFL were recruiting a member of staff to develop talent in Cumbria, so the bigger picture needs to be considered. I can see both arguments, and there are merits to both. I was involved in trying to establish an U18s side at a Championship club a few years ago and it hard work. The rationale behind it was that local amateur clubs couldn't get U18s teams out, and as a result kids were going from U16s straight to NW Counties or District League open age fixtures. At the same time the most talented local youngsters were going to SL clubs. The solution was an U18s NYL team that the local clubs would support and that was sponsored by the pro-club. The amateur clubs didn't want this because they didn't trust the pro club, and actively told kids not to play, even though the standard of rugby on offer was very high. At the same time, the powers-that-be at the pro club had little interest in youth rugby. Very frustrating. For me the solution (at U16s) would be about working with education, and increasing the player pool via schools. In this instance the pro club would invest resources in developing an elite programme in schools within it's catchment area, with such players feeding local representative sides. At the same time these players would add to the player pool in the amateur game. A little like service area, but with an enhanced player pool. At 16+ the solution could be to work more effectively with FE, running academy teams through colleges - essentially playing Wednesday afternoon fixtures allowing players to play for their home club at the weekend, but committing to college football mid-week. Here the clubs have an opportunity for generating income to fund their programmes via FE, offering apprenticeships to young players and essentially turning them into semi-professional athletes. What I am baffled by is the rational behind increasing the federation players number. One of the headline objectives of the RFLs strategy over recent years has been to increase the number of England/home nations eligible players in SL - does this increase, coupled with the 12-team scenario really help this? From the information in the public domain, it's difficult to see how. You could argue that it is about maintaining player quality. My argument is that having a system that puts technically good rugby players into a full-time environment will allow them to thrive. I'll watch this one with interest, I think!

A very good choice - she was a speaker at an event I was at recently and can talk with authority whilst remaining approachable and down to earth. Plus, she is arguably Britain's most recognisable paralympian and a big advocate for disability sport, both in Westminster and through her role with the Tony Blair Sports Foundation in the north east.

My little lad showing off his home grown carrots and tatties. This was taken by my partner last year, but won a competition today earning us a couple of bottles of wine!

Yes, I'd agree with that. Have worked with Supporters Trusts in both soccer and RL, and my experience has only been positive. Think I'll try and get to this.

Anyone going to Skolars on Friday night? Going for pre-match drinks in Hampstead/Belsize Park, but plan to get to Wembley in time for the Champion Schools Final.

Kingstonian's ground is owned by AFC Wimbledon, although the Dons do have longer term ambitions to move back into Merton/Wimbledon.

Swinton fans; more glitterati pro rata than Warrington

Travelling down Thursday via Oxford, then to London on the Friday. Stopping near Swiss Cottage tube station Friday/Saturday. Heading up to Skolars on the Friday night. Managed to get the

Certainly should - definitely not a foregone conclusion given the Blackpool result. A large, neutral, crowd getting behind Skolars will put a lot of pressure on Oldham if they are still chasing the automatic promotion spot that seems to have alluded them in recent years.

It's looking very possible that this could be a promotion clincher for Oldham in Championship 1. Sounds like it'll be a great night out, so you've sold at least two tickets here.

Spectacular location - http://www.flickr.com/photos/12824921@N02/3801645926/ !

Possibly Dave, but again possibly not. It's more likely to focus on sustainability, with the only franchising on the agenda likely to be helping supporters to have the opportunity to influence and have a stake in their club. My own experience of dealing with Supporters Direct and supporters trusts (in soccer and RL) has been entirely positive and usually involves dealing with passionate, yet realistic, supporters that care about good governance and living within their means. This couldn't be further from a reactionary gathering IMO.

No change - if you read the date of publication of the Op. Rules that you have linked to, it is Jan 2010, before the Toulouse issue raised it's head in the press (end-Feb, early-March). I'm pretty sure this rule predates that - maybe from the 2009 publication, although 2008 is different as it was pre-licensing.

Agree with the others on here about the French experience, and mine would maybe be going to Catalans v Hull FC in 2006. On my way from Carcassonne airport to Perpignan, we took a detour off the autoroute into Lezignan and visited the Moulin. Was made very welcome by the club and had a wander around the ground. I was particularly impressed with the murals along the terrace that tell the history of the club. Well worth a visit, then on to Canet for an afternoon on the beach, before a night out round Perpignan. Next day was the game (played in Narbonne), then another night out round Perpignan. The third day was the French Championship Final between Toulouse Olympique and SM Pia in Toulouse. Took a detour via Carcassonne to visit Stade Albert Domec and see the statue of Puig Aubert and have lunch in the citadel. At the match we had hospitality - which was fantastic - and stuck around for the post match presentations. A cracking weekend. More recently I had a weekend in Nantes to see France "B" v the National Conference Eagles, which was a brilliant alternative international to the England v France game in Leigh, which was played the same day. With Breton bagpipes, a noisy crowd, commemorative wine and a homebaking stand set up by the WAGs at Bretagne Nantes XIII there wasn't a dish of lobby in sight.

FC Lezignan?

I'm making a night of it, although obviously as a home supporter! Plenty of choice for places to stay; the Infield Hotel and the flagship Abbey House Hotel, are both club sponsors and worth supporting, depending on your budget. Both are a short taxi or bus ride from the ground. For a night out after the match with decent real-ale pubs, consider staying in Ulverston, 8 miles on the road out from Barrow, with plenty of choice again.

I'm usually the first person to come on here and defend "expansionism", but after this I'm just shaking my head in disbelief. You're welcome to queue up and say "I told you so".

My understanding is that the voting rights are weighted proportionately by the membership of each competition. eg. Each CC and CC1 club gets 1 vote = 22 votes or 1 vote each Each SL club gets 22 divided by 14 votes = 22 votes or 1.57 votes each BARLA = 3 votes I'm pretty sure that other areas of the amateur game (eg. SRL, Combined Services, schools etc.) get 1 vote apiece too. The voting structure is defined so that the combined power of the CC clubs is equal to the combined power of the SL clubs. If SL expanded to 22 teams and the CC reduced to 14, then the CC clubs would have 1.57 votes instead, switching the situation. If SL had 18 teams and the CC 18 teams, then each club would have 1 equal vote. The irony of this situation is that if the SL clubs and CC clubs are tied on a vote, then the amateur game carries the deciding votes...