Methven Hornet

The park is next to the River Calder - near Tod's cricket ground.

Oh, and the pitch at Firgrove where Kirkholt were playing Mayfield 'A' (I think) in a district cup game. Ex-Kirkholt played in the game. I didn't stay long as I was out for my Saturday run - I did a couple of laps of the pitch, stopped to chat to a speccy and then went on my way.

And Edinburgh are through to next week's Grand Final against Carluke, having beaten Moray 40 - 30

Someone mentioned the other day that the official Scotland RL website was down. Just had the following message:- "The Scotland Rugby League website is currently off-line whilst we transfer the domain, we hope to have it back on-line as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Athletic Grounds, Rochdale Spotland, Rochdale Watersheddings, Oldham Station Road, Swinton Wheldon Road, Castleford Boulevard, Hull Netherdale, Galashiels Wilderspool, Warrington Cougar Park, Keighley Central Park, Wigan And, if these count:- Elmpark Way, Heworth Balderstone (Mayfield's old ground), Rochdale Centre Vale Park, Todmorden

Further down the page is the following quote:- "Proposals are being developed to bring UK Sport, Sport England and Youth Sport Trust under one roof while maintaining their separate roles and responsibilities." So the merged entity will continue to do what it does now, that is, it will deal with the elite parts of UK sport where we participate as a combined nation, but it will control sports development in England, ie I would expect the regions of Sport England to continue to function. The savings will come from merging the central administrations of both bodies. The equivalent bodies in the other three nations will continue to control development (depending on decisions made in the devolved administrations) and have input into the merged body as and when necessary. In itself the merger needn't be that significant and probably could have happened in normal times without having any impact. The real pointer to changed times in sports development is part of another quote further down the page:- "The new government has moved away from the adult physical activity agenda of two million more adults doing more sport...". Isn't that why RL is getting the

Will closing the roof really make that much of a difference to the temperature? Having said that, if it is to be the opening round of the season then it will certainly make an impact.

I though you might mean clubs that are Irish in name only - a bit like London Irish in union, maybe Lancashire Irish or some such.

Come on, you can't leave it at that! What else do you know?

"Nominally Irish"???

Well not having any Super League players in '95 didn't help England much. Perhaps playing a rep side from the Queensland Cup, etc might even things up a bit more.

Yes. It must have been taken down for safety reasons. Was just the terracing left as there was a proper stand containing seating at one time? To be frank, neither of the side grandstands looked particularly safe by the 80s. I remember at one game a spectator was taken ill in the grandstand and the stretcher was passed over the heads of people in the paddock below. Scary stuff.

Ah, forgot about Barrow.

Didn't have seats in the top tier when I used to go in it. I can't think of any other stand that had top tier standing. In fact, at the time (early to middle 80s), was Watersheddings the only RL ground that have covered accommodation on all 4 sides?

Seconded!

Here you go... In a piece of research by David Johnson of Hull, published in Open Rugby of October 1981:- Season 1980/81 average crowds as a percentage of town population (1971 census figures - the last figures available for town population) Fulham 31.0% (6,096 19,715) Featherstone 19.8% (3,007 15,231) Castleford 12.0% (4,612 38,234) Whitehaven 10.2% (2,733 26,724) Leigh 9.7% (4,498 46,181) Widnes 9.3% (5,306 56,949) Wakefield 8.0% (4,814 59,590) Workington 7.7% (2,188 28,431) Hull/Hull KR 7.2% (20,615 285,970) Warrington 7.2% (4,917 68,317) Barrow 6.3% (4,065 64,034) Wigan 5.8% (4,693 81,147) Swinton 4.8% (1,935 40,167) St Helens 4.7% (4,934 104,341) Halifax 4.5% (4,090, 91,272) York 3.7% (3,827 104,782) Batley 3.1% (1,329 42,006) Oldham 3.0% (3,220 105,913) Keighley 2.9% (1,612 55,345) Dewsbury 2.7% (1,377 51,326) Salford 2.6% (3,458 130,976) Bradford 2.0% (6,105 294,177) Leeds/Bramley/Hunslet 1.6% (7,905 496,009) Huddersfield 1.3% (1,769 131,190) Rochdale 1.3% (1,149 91,454) Doncaster 0.8% (628 82,668) Blackpool 0.5% (684 151,860) Huyton 0.4% (270 66,775) As has been said, a pretty meaningless table of statistics - but a bit of fun. I don't know if it would be possible to replicate this for the present day as I don't know if the population figures are easily available on a town basis.

Yes, the Fulham example rings a bell.

Open Rugby did a list years ago and I think Featherstone was by far the winner. The article recognised the difficulties in drawing the boundaries. I'd dig the article out but it would take me ages to find it - I wish I'd indexed OR as I bought it!

Mitcham? Why does that ring a bell?

I'm in my early fifties and went through all the learning of how add, subtract, etc in the imperial system before going to secondary and using metric from then on. Kind of a waste of time but at least I'll be able to handle time travel when it's introduced!

Going off quotes from various sources I think it is the aim to have clubs at that level from those places - just as it was the aim (for years) to have clubs from Wales, the North East and France. Similarly, the RFL want clubs from all the regions of England. The problem is getting the resources - financial, playing, development - into place. Difficult in normal times, I would have thought it would be near impossible to launch a new club in the UK just now (and just think how much worse off Ireland is). Who would underwrite the venture? Local authorities and other public bodies would have very little in the way of resources to dedicate to a new spectator sport for their area, especially as there will be plenty of existing clubs of long-standing that will be first in the queue. Added to the above is the fact that the existing method of introducing new pro/semi-pro clubs from new areas - slotting them into the existing, northern structure - hasn't exactly been a roaring success; and that has, generally, been during relatively benign economic times. Perhaps the priority should be to protect what we already have, whilst continuing to plough on with grass-roots development.

Definitely, or the best out of France and Wales?

The Pennines! I was assuming this was an England trial I must admit. The traditional RL is the obvious dividing line; where you continue the divide once you get into the badlands south of there probably isn't that important at this stage given how few England international class players come from the south. It just means that Londoners play in the East of England side, and the Cumbrians in the West as of right. They are not just spirited into a Lancashire or Yorkshire side but have legitimacy. Northerners will know it is Yorkshire v Lancashire/Cumberland, but those in the rest of England have a real stake in the event and aren't alienated. However, given the lack of commitment from all concerned, any SoO scheme is probably doomed before it begins.

There's about as much consensus as the England shirt thread... The problem with any game like this - especially if it is to be used as a test trial - is that the English game has a limited number of sufficiently talented players. If a top star cries off or doesn't give his all then he knows he will still make the national team. Contrast that with the Australian situation where players are desperate to play Origin, knowing that any absence will give their place to a rival.

Is it still likely to go ahead in the current climate?