The Parksider
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Posts posted by The Parksider
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Hi Parky, either Martyn is lying or our board is telling fibs. http://featherstonerovers.net/article.php?id=11501
Well done Mr Sadler for highlighting our so called financial problems, it just shows how peeved he his with the recent developments which makes me soo happy
Didn't get chance to respond yesterday but yes I am looking forward to proper on field Rugby debates.
Hi Ian,
The accounts show BOTH massive "liabilities" and also a small "profit". Good old accountants they are so confusing.
A bit like KPMG who really confused me about how downgrading SL clubs into a second tier will increase attendances significantly. The do have odd ways of looking at money. Bit like the bankers I suppose.
All along I have been waiting for Griff to comment as he has a great handle on accounts and knows Rovers accounts inside out. We did discuss in the summer if Mr. Nahaboos input may put the clubs land assets at risk and I think something had been done about this.
Anyway "Calling Griff" where are you??
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true he saved the club and got the stadium built.....but with very little of his own money, he also puts v little in each year, they dont need propping up as suggested. .....the exact same applies to warrington....I dont know about catalan but I am unaware of a big investor. ....so theres 5 clubs fully sustainable in SL....hull fc may v.well be a sixth...thats more than the 2 people ars harping on about....
also stadia thanks to licensing. ...salford, hull kr improvements, the roof at wakey, catalan, widnes, leigh, fevs improvements, fax,
That's a very good post IMVHO. I've no axe to grind and like you try to look at the facts of the matter which are very important for a good debate, and the events as they unfolded.
I have no doubt and all the main commentators agree that in 1996 we had to professionalise part of the game to deliver the SKY contract that we all agreed on here saved the game. That needed clubs with professional resources we didn't have unless we reached out to France and London and merged 15 clubs to create bigger entitities with the fans and money to cope with the change.
The fans and directors scuppered the mergers and it was true that in 1996 we had two clubs capable of Professionalism with a relatively small investment for actually a small return.Wigan had 14,000 crowds then and Leeds 12,500, After 18 long years at the top and plenty of success these clubs only have 10% growth in their fan base and they are the two clubs referred to by several on here.
What people argue, (and it's their choice) is often "principle". In 1996 Huddersfield were neither considered for merger nor considered for Superleague and were due to be left for dead. They famously struggled badly in SL and were a literal laughing stock. Ken Davey famously threw £Millions at them in their new stadia after they emerged from the Shuddersfield debacle and they climbed the ladder of success on those £Millions.
The return on that investment was to increase crowds from 3,700 to 6,300. That's a mere 2,700 extra fans for a winning club in a modern stadia. In addition the poor academy is due to be booted out of the RFL. Don't get me wrong for a real poor return on investment check out the £Millions spend on Salford by Mr. Wilkinson. Half a £Million for what 20 years?? The result of the £10M investment was to take crowds down from 5,000 to 3,000 and do nothing for an annually poor academy.
There's no doubt all clubs needed a helping hand to turn from semi professionalism to professionalism. Hull struggled but had the KC, a run at all the best juniors in Hull, a responsive crowd that rose to 13,000. Saints needed McManus to transform them, Warrington needed Moran to transform them.
But there's a sharp sharp contrast between the bigger clubs who had the resources to enable rich men to invest and get some sort of a return despite probably being £thousands out of pocket whether Moran. McManus, Caddick, Whelan, and other big clubs who made the top like Hull and Bradford largely without a rich man, against the £tens of Millions needed to prop up small clubs with no return whatsoever. As Martyn has shown Featherstone are a £Million down before they have kicked a ball in SL.
P & R has no relevance at all to the problem of too many small clubs with too few resources. Licensing didn't make a great dent on the problem but it did fix a few things as you indicate. The return to extensive P & R can't therefore logically have any effect on the growth of clubs if you look at the reality rather than applying wishful thinking to pins on maps.
The solution is radical and brutal to quote Gingerjon's reaction to Martyns expose of Featherstone's accounts. The game has allowed the very long tail to wag the short dog. Sense may prevail after further decline.
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As I recall, Mr Hudgell entered the Hull KR picture when they were in CC1 on sub 2,000 crowds. Today they are in SL,
Thanks to Mr. Hudgell gifting them £500,000 a year, but last year he said he could not go on doing this.
Let's take it to the extreme. Lets say Keighley found someone to give them £3,000,000 a year for 15 years.
And as a result of this they won the hub cap.
Would you then put this success down to Promotion and Relegation?
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Firstly apoligies if I have caused any offence with that analogy, but Bradford do give that impression, I have been watching this game since 1961and Bradford in Trouble is a most definate recurring theme.
Good evening Gary,
Bradford Northern got into mega trouble in the early sixties. Their crowds hit an all time low of 323 late 1963.
However reformation led to an opening of Bradford Northern (1964) Ltd before 13,542.
I don't know where you get the "recurring theme" thing from. Bradford only slipped up once after that missing the cut for the new first division in 1973. However that year they were challenge cup finalists.
1974 they bounced straight back winning 24 of 26 matches, and since then they have always been in the top league and always been very well supported with peak support being 15,700.
Now it seems they are "In trouble" yet their 8,575 crowd from last year still makes them the sixth most attractive side in the Rugby Football League.
I hope I have dispelled that myth for you Gary.............
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You do remember that one of the promoted clubs from the failed p and r system topped the SL last season..
Good evening America.
I don't think you have got the point yet.
When a club has a very rich man spending £Millions in a game lacking money he can take them anywhere.
To say P & R was responsible for Huddersfield's success, and ignore the reality that it was approximately a £10,000,000 gift from Davey wot did it, really does miss the point big time.
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im pretty sure rovers posted a profit last year
Hi Daz,
Martyn said "For the year ending 30 November 2012 Featherstone Rovers show current assets of £137,400 and current liabilities of £453,308, while they also have long term liabilities of £531,162".
I don't think there is any question of any profits mate......
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It seems the RFL are trying to bridge the gap between Super League and the Championship.
Rovers and Widnes have benefited from that because they've both been given time to build on solid ground.
Well I don't know about that, didn't Mr. Hudgell have to put a lot of money in as well as SOC. Do those sums appear as directors loans on the balance sheet??
The Featherstone Rovers balance sheet shows a big overspend. To me it seems the RFL are trying to release clubs from having to chase the big Superleague clubs.
We did get Mr Hudgell complaining about how much he had to put in every year to stand still so I don't see any building on solid ground IMVHO.
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If you read the RFL document on their proposals they have reduced the Minimum Standards.
Thanks for that. Reducing standards down indicates clubs could not reach the original standards and seems to help confirm this is about clubs not being able to keep up.
Standards down, less spent, but supposedly the crowds will go up. More and more it looks like KPMG were merely used to "sell" the changes.
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1. You talk as if no-one wanted expansion; It's been tried, and tried, and tried, but we can't get it to work, and the only way it would is by artificially making the expansion clubs successful by giving them more money .........................
2. So it's back to Plan B;. give the Championship Clubs a semblence of a chance before there's none of them left.
1. There's no difference between Samuels and Hughes throwing £Millions at Crusaders and London, and Wilkinson and Davey throwing £Millions at Salford and Huddersfield.
2. So ironically now we may see Featherstone taking their chance entirely dependant on Nahaboo throwing £Millions at them.
Your post provokes the thought that none of them really have a chance, and 3x8 is last chance salooon.
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Clubs outside of the current top 5-6 clubs will now no longer be investing in the future by laying down new structures and plans, they'll be focusing on the short term and clamouring for anything they think will help them make the top 8, and bearing in mind they've failed to do that in the licensing era when they've had a chance to build and put in those structures, they face very little chance of achieving that in this new structure.
Make that about eight clubs Mike, IMVHO that's about the size of it.
Yes the rest have failed to grow their businesses, and they can't afford the "structures" so indeed they do face very little chance of becoming bigger than they are especially the two cut adrift as well as the four dropped each year.
What we have to work out is will playing regularly in the middle 8 see the businesses of the likes of Bradford, Wakey, London, HKR, Widnes and Cas grow stronger or weaker??
It all points to weaker and it all points to a massive gap appearing between the top eight and the second eight.
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I just see this as moving things around and hoping things work rather than bringing in a system that will benefit the game as well as clubs.
I am a supporter of P and R, but not under this system, as it doesnt help the game as a whole or even look to address the problems within it. Certain minimum standards should be brought in for all on such things as stadium/Facilities, running of a proper reserve/U23 grade with each club forced to spend a set amount in this area, a club employing a development manager for the area etc. If clubs cant/wont meet some basic standards then do they really deserve to have the chance to play in the top league?
No Lizzy they do not deserve to be in the top league.
So two of them get booted out at the end of this season and the other four who don't deserve to be in will be booted out each year whilst the "top league" have their play offs free from the also rans.
IMVHO it's OK calling for "standards" but clubs have to be able to afford them. It seems clear many cannot, hence I believe that the clubs cut free from Superleague whether permanently or whether as the "bottom four" each will actually drop their standards to reduce debt and running costs.
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The obvious answer would be to toughen up the requirements for the elite division and then work around how many teams could actually meet that whilst continuing to improve the stability, attractiveness and spread of the game underneath that.
Not sure if there's the money to tidy up both ends of the game this way.
In fact IMVHO there isn't.
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You can't compare Oz with UK, Sport in the UK has P&R running right through it, Oz doesn't. We tried to emulate your set up with a (virtually) closed off league and it failed.
Bye gum lad your buoyed up with this decision. P & R failed, don’t you remember 1996-2008?? They then tried to slow it down and give clubs time to “build” through a licensed P & R system. Clubs in CC could “build” up towards Superleague and be “ready” clubs in Superleague could “grow” without the fear of relegation.
But the clubs didn’t “get ready” in the Championship, their crowds just kept on dropping and they couldn’t build a professional team on a low salary cap.The clubs did not grow in Superleague either. The top clubs with the money hogged all the best players, won all the trophies and attracted the majority of paying fans leaving those at the bottom to run up debts.
There is no way licensing was emulating the NRL, I can’t let you get away with that. We have never had a closed shop of big clubs well run for the purpose of an even competitive league. It does look like Ponte my old Rover, that you are preparing for 3 years down the line when the NRL model will probably be called for. “It doesn’t work” will be your cry. “We tried in 2009-2013 and it failed”. What failed was “standards led P & R on a three year cycle”.
This is why I am querying why Martyn wanted “non-standards led P & R on a three year cycle”. I was never told why?
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exactly. where is Toulouse fitting in? I'm sorry, the whole thing is ludicrous.
BOLD PREDICTION: there will be another total "restructure" by 2017.
Funny how Oz league, which is absolutely thriving, doesn't have these endless "restructures"…
We've got to go lower yet Jim before everyone will realise it needs bold decisions IMVHO. We have a long history of inclusiveness, it will take bottle to break away from the 37 clubs here who have the vote. Not got the bottle yet.....
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it was voted out so I think that is the clearest message of it failing......
How did it fail Daz? I can tell you.
They wanted to pick 14 strong clubs for Superleague and they found only five. They graded them "A".
Then dissapointingly they found another four who were not up to scratch but had a chance of improving.
They graded them "B" second rate.
After that everyone else was third rate or worse.
There is was nothing wrong at all with licensing, the problems were with the clubs.
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The extra games at the end need to be well-attended by people paying extra attendance fees.It's one of the ways the RFL is 'guaranteeing' that this will increase income for the game.If it's all covered on a season ticket then that won't happen.
That's a very interesting point
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You're wrong on that. Were the day to arrive that the RFL could afford to cut teams like Bradford or Wigan adrift then it would mean that RL had finally made huge gains so I would be pleased to see that, whilst naturally disappointed to see my club struggle.
Great point. When my club were refused promotion I was not angry because we had failed to crack division one three times and at that point we no longer were signing any good local talent, and money and fan wise we were miles off the pace and only had a year to take that chance we were not equipped to take.
What it is we are doing here is keeping the dream alive. It's two good seasons and sixteenth placed Sheffield Eagles can be playing Leeds and Wigan three times a season (boring?) for the Superleague title.
How many people dream the dream though? When Superleague started I am sure the 23 clubs shut out of Superleague still had their average crowds of 1,400 fans all thinking one day they could make it. 32,000 dreamers of which six clubs of the 23 are in Superleague today.
Today I don't think many clubs dream the dream at all. For many their ambition is survival. For some of the best Superleague clubs like Dewsbury and Batley they hold no such SL ambition. The dream of Superleague isn't unanimous amongst Leigh, Fev and Fax fans either as some are pragmatists, and they learned to be so when their clubs failed badly in SL.
For me Featherstone need to try to live that dream to knock that on the head one way or another. After that the problem isn't worrying about "dreamers" as there can't be any more than a couple of thousand of them left. It's SL worrying about shutting the door on some of the failing SL clubs, and it's worrying about what shutting that door may do to accelerate the drop in attendances outside SL.
IMVHO nobody amongst the SL clubs or the RFL yet have the stomach to condemn as many as 27 fellow members to the wilderness. The clubs are all being given a chance - which may be their final chance- to show the "dream" can be realised. The big clubs will retain their Superleague, the others will have to show that it would be a bad decision to shut the door.
Things may improve with this structure, but if they deteriorate further I'd guess the big "8" in the Superleague castle, may then have to make the hardest decision they've had to make since 1895 as to whether to pull up the drawbridge, and who to hold a hand out to rescue before they leave all the others in the moat. I think Bradford may get that hand....
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But I believe that such a level of play would take RL where it deserves to be. ie a huge sport. The rest would fall into place because although RL does not have much money, the important thing is that it is an incredible game and when played between equal opponents is the best.
John,
The new structure has an elite "8", Four failures leave the competition and the eight play each other again to decide the winner of that Elite competition. These games will I assume be on the season ticket and provide top attendances to up the average attendances for the top eight. More money.
We already have a Superleague clearly split between clubs who are operating at a high level and clubs who are badly struggling. They are easy to list - Salford who will struggle no more until the Dr. leaves, then Fartown, Wire, Leeds, Wigan, Cats, Saints and Hull.
So we will actually have as high a level an elite competition as we can get, and this must be where the best players will want to be. We have seen the top clubs like Salford (they are now) Wigan, Leeds, Hull Cats, etc strip the best talent on the cheap out of the lower six SL clubs at a time when true talent is reducing due to the drain to Australia.
These lower SL clubs are struggling to meet the licensing requirements, but the change breaks them free of that. They can sell their best players to the top eight as they are doing (the sadness of me is your club is selling = Kopzac, Whitehead, Bateman). They can drop their academies (several have been condemned by the RFL) and drop the backroom staff to rescue their debt situation.
In short they can realise players assets and drop their levels of operations/costs down to reduce their debts and enable them to operate at an even keel. This is why many who think hard about the effects of these changes say that the biggest financial gap will now end up between the top eight and the rest.
The supposed saviour of this is that the two relegated clubs 2014 (who may be devastated) two small championship clubs, and four failed Superleague clubs will play out a middle eight competition re-branded "Superleage 2" or whatever and as a result of the meaningful element of this competition i,e, the "jeapordy" they will be fighting tooth and nail in every match before large crowds. Or so KPMG say.
I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the changes I'm excited by them as it will be great fun watching what happens. Of course I hope this will "work" but it depends on your definition of "working". For some it will work if THEIR club somehow get in the Superleague 12, then if their clubs lands an "8" spot. They will be partying down Featherstone way I can tell you!.
But if that happens to my good Collier friends, it will be on a rich mans £Millions the same as at Salford not on the success of the new structure. Not good business for me. Where this pans out will be fascinating, recently in debating a 10 club SL people dismissed it as being "Boring" because clubs would play each other three times, even though this system throws up exactly the same thing.
Why was it dismissed as such? IMVHO because there's a "belief" this system will rejuvinate clubs, it will bring inn new wealthy owners and recreate the "dream" of two quick promotions and you are on all of a sudden on Everest looking down on the rest.
So let's live the dream whilst at the same time keeping an eye on reality, and the fascination for me will be will the crowds go up for the middle 8 clubs? Will SKY focus on that competition enough to justify paying them TV money?? Because if it does go wrong then in what 3 or 4 years time we may well arrive at a 10 club SL with all the money suggestion on the table, and by that time it may actually be effectively increasing Superleague by two??
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I really hope that's true
So do I Ponte, then we can get on with it for three years and when it's a disaster we can then proceed to a properly planned Superleague and nobody can say "we should have adopted the 3x8".
By then we'll have been mismanaging Superleague for 20 years!!
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1. I believe RL is pretty unique and comparing with other sports is totally irrelevant and pointless.
Someone said that they can't imagine the same 10 teams in SL ad infinitum as it would be sterile. But would it?
2. Imagine if we had the money to develop into the point where those ten teams were all of the standard of the recent WC semi final. ....would anyone be bothered about anything except the on field action? I don't think so. Also imagine if it was so competitive that a different team won it every year. ...would anyone really say it was boring as Batley (no disrespect just a random name) weren't allowed to join?
3. Sadly we will never get the money to find out but it would be incredible not boring.
4. Added to which, such a league would have people queuing up to get involved so it would not probably be the same ten clubs either as any slackers could be replaced by a hungrier club.
1. If their team was not in it it would. For me it wouldn't as I'm a Rugby League fan.
2. 10 teams would raise the standard.
3. There's not enough money for 14, they are making a cut to 12 so there's more money, cut to 10 and there's even more money per club extra and bigger crowds so the money is there...
4. Again your indicating yourself more money will be in there.
Watering the game back down to a regional dinosaur is certainly boring.
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Me too. If, for instance, Fev were to join SL alongside Cas and Wakey, it would be a massive shot in the arm for the game in the WMDC area, not the reverse. Why people want to rid the game of romance and replace it with sterility is beyond me.
Do you really think I want a ten club Superleague? I'd like romance, we get loads of it on here, people dreaming of rich men hauling their small clubs to the top of the league, and taking on the big boys.
But I came down to earth long ago.
If we go to 3x8 today NONE of your three clubs will be in the top eight. The one that went bust and lost another shedload of money, the one without any money, in debt and selling their best players off in their ramshackle ground, and the one propped up by a rich man, but devoid of a significant fan base.
It's no disrespect it's real world. The problem with the real world is if you are NOT in Superleague your crowds and your business just deteriorates.
Take Manchester if you like. belle Vue, Swinton, Salford. One died long ago, one may die this year, one was left for dead last year. these clubs had big crowds, these clubs won trophies, Broughton had the best junior set up in the league.
As it stands the Wakefield clubs are in danger of going this way. Would you find that romantic Terry??
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1. If Wakefield had a pro football team (I wish we would) I would have always watched them. If a merged RL team was forced on me replacing the team me and my family has watched for generations not even playing in my City, would I watch them? would I hell
2. Regarding Leeds United you are right a lot of people from Wakefield watch LUFC it only takes me 15mins to get to Elland Road it's Wakefields nearest pro football team....
1. It doesn't need a merged team. It needs a team playing out of Newmarket, fully funded to take on Hull, leeds, Wigan etc. attracting 10,000+
If the other 10,000 RL fans around your way aren't interested then fine, but heaven forbid such a strong area for RL ends up not being in Superleague at all and as it stands if they vote 3x8 none of the three will be in the true SL of the top eight.
Still you'll have the derbies to see you through like they do in Hull.
2. Thank you, maybe this will dispell the argument nobody from keighley watches bradford, nobody from leigh watches wigan, nobody from halifax watches bradford, their nearest professional Rugby league team.
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Before we talk about mergers or preference of one club over another, maybe it would be useful to commission a geographically study of Rugby League areas and its peoples by one of the northern Universities?
I think we need a study of why strong Rugby League areas have been in decline for many years.
I remember Swinton and Salford going well, I remember Hunslet, Bramley and Leeds all going OK.
One day you may remember when Cas had a ground down Wheldon road, Wakefield used to be in Superleague and Featherstone had a rich owner but he walked away eventually.
If "fans" supported their clubs through the tough times fine, but they don't.
I don't suppose with respect diehards wish for anything other than their clubs survival as the club it always was no matter how low it sinks. But it gets down in time to a couple of hundred interested parties getting the begging buckets out.
You may think the Wakey area clubs are big clubs but so were Hunslet, Swinton and Oldham
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What people outside the WMDC need to understand is Wakefield, cas and Pontefract are 3 separate areas and people of Wakefield have no affiliation to cas or ponte.
Yes and Hunslet, Bramley and North Leeds are three separate areas as far as Rugby League goes too.
If your three go on going bust, getting relegated and drifting in the championship then thousands of new fans won't bother to watch failure, and all the best players will just go sign for Leeds Huddersfield and Hull. Once the diehard fans die out crowds can drop even further.
It's the historic affiliations that are creating this situation, nobody in Wakefield has an affinity to Leeds United as they are two separate cities??.
As long as this sort of argument succeeds the clubs will slowly sink into the very history that is dragging them down. Opening up SL to 24, many small clubs, will be a disaster, let's hope they don't do it today.
Derbies and administration all round.
The never-ending League Restructure debate (Many merged threads)
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Joke or not your right about clubs being the master of their own destiny's rather than any "system" under P & R clubs went down because they were skint and up because they were rich enough. Under licensing clubs went out because they were skint and came in when they were rich enough.
The most "bankrupt" thing is arguing between P&R and licensing. Neither are really relevant when the record is clear money is the only mechanism relevant. This is the main reason 2x12=3x8 is irrelevant IMVHO.
KPMG know it's about money hence they said loads of fans will flood to the games to justify their suggestions. I've two years to wait now to see if that was disingenuous or not!