Methven Hornet
-
Posts
2,268 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Methven Hornet
-
-
WA Reds.
Living in Perth, Scotland, Perth WA is kind of a 'sister' city.
Also my brother and his family live there.
-
Naughton Park
Wiggington Road
Harvey Hadden Stadium
Borough Road (I think, Blackpool)
McCain Stadium
Fartown
Borough Park?
-
Damn! I've just realised that I have missed the Camanachd Cup final between Fort William and Kingussie. I'm not a great fan of shinty but it is usually a great experience to watch the annual showpiece. A more competitive and passionate sporting occasion you'll struggle to find in these islands, and the game holds such a treasured place in the heartland communities that play the game (mostly small highland towns and villages but they do have the odd outpost club in the south - Tayforth in Perth and Glasgow MA, for example).
You'll not find that much in the Sunday or Monday morning papers, however, although there will probably be a 'colour-piece' in the Scotsman and the Herald tomorrow - you'll know the type of thing.
The thing is the sport has been happy enough to stick with its own 'ethnic' group and has never really made that big a thing about expanding southwards into the big industrial towns and cities. Therefore it remains a regional novelty and doesn't really get the national coverage its regional passion perhaps deserves.
-
I'd split the current full test members into two tiers
Tier 1 = Kangaroos, Kiwis, England, a future combined Pacific Islands team
Tier 2 = France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cooks, Fiji, PNG, Samoa, Tonga
Tier 3 = Lebanon, Russia, Serbia, USA
Tier 4 = the rest
Like cricket and the ICC's eligibility rule, I'd suggest that a player could switch to play for only one other, different national team, but could return to the original national team after another stand-down i.e. you can't play for three national teams - which players have done in international football (Alfredo Di Stefano), Rugby Union (Topo Rodriguez). Cricket Ed Joyce played for Ireland, then England, and is looking to play for Ireland again. Cricket's ICC allows that.
I am in the 'pick one team and stick with it' camp but perhaps that is too idealistic at this stage of the games international development. In that case your idea could be the basis of a compromise - one that is based upon the reality of the sport.
Forget the idea of a PI team for the moment and just have the big three at the top. Allowing dual qualified players to switch would benefit the other nations while not depriving the game's professional players from playing at the highest possible level. A Fiji/Australia qualified player could start representative life at a young age with Fiji, bringing great benefit to both himself and the team. When he is good enough to be considered for Origin, and Australian selection, then he formally switches allegiance. When he is no longer good enough for the Kangaroos, although he will almost certainly be good enough, he can play for Fiji again.
I'm sure that used to happen in union many years ago - didn't some Aussie internationals go on to play for Argentina and Italy? It just has to be presented as a necessary aid to international development, as you point out cricket gets away with it. Make a virtue out of a necessity!
The downside is that you could reinforce the gap between the big three and the rest, but that gap is likely to stay for a long time yet. And we are only talking about dual-qualified players.
-
Has anyone done any serious investigation as to why we don't get more coverage? Or, more seriously, why our coverage seems to be declining. We could ask, I suppose, but I fear we would get a 'stock' answer such as 'sold our soul to Murdoch', 'you're just a professional version of rugby for which there is no reason anymore' or, the classic 'you are just a regional game, read about your game in the Yorkshire Post'. But would it be interesting to see what attitudes of sports editors are?
There's a post on the Community Game forum that describes St Alban's coverage (I think) in their local press. What was excellent coverage declined when a new editor was appointed. It turned out that the new guy had no experience of RL at all but soon came around after a bit of effort from the club. I fear that sort of effort has been made by the RFL at national level, however.
The fear I have is that the game is paying the price of its history. It has not expanded anywhere near enough to have buried itself into the national consciousness - and that failure is not just one of growing outside of the northern counties. The overwhelming strength of the game is still limited largely to the northern industrial towns that gave birth to the Northern Union. Go just a few miles from one of the heartland towns and you will find a rugby league wasteland equal to anywhere else in the UK.
The work carried out in recent years has been excellent, especially given scarce resources, but this is something that should have happened and been persevered with at the beginning of the 20th century, not the 21st.
Another thing that occurs to me, however, is that the game is still anchored in the same northern industrial working class that has always been its base. Unfortunately the world has moved on and that base has declined over the years in terms of size and, arguably, in status, influence and economic well-being. While, as a bloc, the games followers may once have interested sponsors, advertisers and national newspaper editors (and political parties, as it happens!) I don't think that is the case today.
Bluntly, and this does sound superficial (but then isn't the UK national press?), the game and it's followers are not fashionable. Union and cricket have the middle classes and the establishment enthusing after them, with soccer mopping up most other people (and notice how some of soccer's more working class supporters complain about being priced out of Premiership football).
Playing devil's advocate, what does rugby league offer that makes it attractive to the national press (and remember its nature at present, not how it may have been in the past), given the make-up and backgrounds of its players and supporters?
-
Also don't forget to press the "ignore" function. No offence to Bowes here though I do enjoy his opinions.
I often enjoy his posts, and he contributes a lot of information, but he does have a tendency to 'go off on one' and present his opinions as absolute fact (don't know where the hell he gets that from).
-
To be honest, I thought the monthly mistake was in the 'Grounds for Development' article. Leeds Rhinos are to build a new 10,000 capacity South Stand (modelled on the popular covered terrace at Warrington's HJ) but first they have "to raise some
-
I'm certainly not going to "debate" anything with you, seeing as you indulge in personal abuse and incivility.
You must be getting old! The JohnM of the past would have swatted an extreme reaction like that like swatting away a dying autumn wasp! If there is personal abuse do what CKN is advises us to do till he is blue in the face - report it and get on with providing your entertaining but cutting posts.
Bowes - there is a difference between an extreme opinion and an 'extreme' lie (I'd like to know the measurement scale). Calm down, make your usually valued contribution in a civil manner and enjoy the debate.
Right, the Solomon job over I'm off to put some Sunday morning miles in - hope I don't get lost!
-
Is he Scottish?
Does it matter?
-
Scotland RL should consider some elements from their own history on how to deal with his treachery.
I suggest inviting him for a meal at Glencoe.
I would suggest that he be made to watch the match video of Scotland v Lichtenstein a couple of dozen times. Then we'll see where his loyalty really lies.
-
I suppose it would be establishing a semi-pro club from the ashes of an SL club that relocated, rather like the rebirth of Sheffield after the original club there got absorbed by Huddersfield.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that bit. Get a Super League side in there first, excite people's interest and then take it away from them. The interest has been sparked, though, and the people still want their rugby league!
Seriously, a 'model' needs to be found for creating sustainable clubs at all professional levels, particularly at semi-pro level. If sustainable they can be reproduced.
Realistically expansion of the pro game has to target areas relatively close to the heartlands that can still show a bigger geographic spread. The Sheffield model might work well in Midland cities (like Nottingham or Coventry for example) where a semi-pro RL club could offer business partners exposure for much less cost than the pro soccer clubs there could give them and the following factors exist:* a big local population.
* being fairly close to the heartlands makes travel to away games there more feasible than more distant places.
This combination of factors seems to offer the best prospect for viable expansion that might be able to attract the right investors.
That approach could work (although we have not got too good a track record) but it still not the answer to London and the south east - the area that, arguably, is most important to the national papers.
-
We seem to have a view that our sport deserves more coverage in the national papers yet do we deserve it? Are we professionally a national sport?List 1 - North - South Divide (36 Clubs)
Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Leeds
Huddersfield
Hull FC
Hull KR
Crusaders
Castleford
Bradford
Wakefield
Salford
Harlequins
Catalans Dragons
Featherstone
Halifax
Leigh
Barrow
Widnes
Sheffield
Batley
Toulouse
Dewsbury
Whitehaven
Keighley
Hunslet
Oldham
York
Blackpool
Rochdale
South Wales
Workington
Swinton
Doncaster
London Skolars
Gateshead
Red denotes North, Green - South and Blue European.
So we have 31 Northern Clubs, 3 Southern 2 European Clubs gracing the game at Professional level. Should Fleet Street be interested? For my love of the sport, the game itself my heart says 100000% YES! However when you write it down and look at it simply less than a sixth of the clubs are in the South. 2 in London and one in Wales. The game is played in practically every county in the Country - possibly all - at amateur level but the Flagship for us mediawise is the Professional game.
The M62 StereotypeAnother banner attached to our game is the M62 tag. What this ahs to do with anything is beyond me. Yes people may turn up there noses in certain areas of our game but does it matter if our clubs are on the M62 Corridor?
Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Leeds
Huddersfield
Hull FC
Hull KR
Crusaders
Castleford
Bradford
Wakefield
Salford
Harlequins
Catalans Dragons
Featherstone
Halifax
Leigh
Barrow
Widnes
Sheffield
Batley
Toulouse
Dewsbury
Whitehaven
Keighley
Hunslet
Oldham
York
Blackpool
Rochdale
South Wales
Workington
Swinton
Doncaster
London Skolars
Gateshead
13 out of the 36 clubs cannot be tagged as an M62 club, just over a third. This shows a better geographic spread for our beloved hacks.
So what do we do? Just get on with our beloved sport, forget about the national media and national coverage? Be patient and let the fruits of our amateur labour grow over time which may be too late? Use the South Wales model for future expansion? Should we really be bothered or are we naive and arrogant because we love the game so much?
Just as the professional game is overwhelmingly northern, so it is overwhelmingly M62 at its top level as your list highlights.
So what should the game do? It has to expand its geographical spread at all levels of the game. I think, finally, that the governing body realises this and is trying to implement expansion, with quite meagre resources and against a lot of internal opposition.
As you hint at, waiting for the game at amateur level in expansion areas to 'mature' into a professional level is not going to work. Even our strongest community clubs in the south have failed to make the transition to even the most basic professional level.
What is the South Wales method? Using the expertise, enthusiasm and playing resources of an identifiable region, with the necessary financial backing from local business people (with, of course a lot of input from the RFL)? We really have to hope that something like this can work and be reproduced in other areas.
-
to be honest i dont see huge issues with this.. he could have done this without a scottish cap to his name and the press would still have the same headlines.. If he had got an england cap i would ave had an issue with him getting the england cap and now i would have the issue again that he gets his scotland cap..
as it is he has gone back and that is fine.. but if i were part of the SRL i would be peeved that he just doesnt care that much about scotalnd.. but gift horse.. mouth.. etc he should get picked
He could at least have ascertained the chances of obtaining an England cap before announcing to the whole RL world that he had changed sides.
-
HMRC seem to be handing out winding-up orders to rugby/soccer clubs with increasing frequency these days. As JohnM says, brinkmanship.
-
-
Right, just had a quick look at those links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
A wikipedia entry on freemasonry, as potentially accurate/inaccurate as anything on there. Discriminatory? They seem to admit anyone who believes in a 'supreme being', including those from the major world religions, and there are women's lodges. Secret? Is that a problem? To be honest, I haven't a clue which organisations my next door neighbour is a member of - do I need to know? Do I have the right to know?
Masonic lodges are allowed to conceal their membership? Aren't other organisations? I don't know who is in, for example, Hull KR Supporters Club and I can't think how I would find out. Is this any different? As for its 'behind doors' activities, why shouldn't it hide them from public scrutiny (if they are illegal then the authorities can investigate).
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/
You'll forgive me if I don't read all those links, won't you, but could you please give me the gist of what the site is watching the Freemasons for? It seems to have a lot of references to Obama - is he a mason?
Also, and this seems strange on a site that is for watching Freemasonry, there seems to be quite a few references to Roman Catholicism on this site, including a strange video near the bottom ('Our Lady of Guadalupe') - is OLoG a masonic icon? - and a photo of Notre Dame, Montreal(?). Is this some Dan Brown conspiracy site? If so you should take your views to AOB where a good conspiracy 'discussion' is always welcome.
Monty Python, as always, do the business. "Hilarious Monty Python sendup of the Freemasons, their ridiculous secrecy and less than savory business and career preferment practices." says the youtube entry, together with a link to your freemasonry watch site. What the video poster doesn't say is that the sketch also rips the p*** out of those who overly fret about the organisation.
RL is not a 'radical' sport, in fact one of its faults is that it has been too conservative and too traditional in its history. It is a sport, a very good one, but not one that needs to be protected from wider society. RL, as I once said in a discussion about gays and RL, needs to be in every corner of society. A frightening thought for some but necessary for the health of the sport.
Now could you be a bit more specific about why you don't want masons or freemasonry associated with rugby league?
And, in the interests of openness, could you possibly reveal whether you are a member of any organisations (secular or religious) or hold any views that may cause you to be hostile to this group of society?
-
Given the history of Freemasonry and the nature of this discrimniatory and secret society. I am somewhat surprised that the existence of a masonic lodge in league is welcomed on this board
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
Although Masonic Lodges were allowed to conceal their membership by an act of the Labour government in 1967. Should a sport that prides itself on "radicalism" (or so some of you tell me) want association with an organisation that not only disbars the female population from joining but who also conceals its members and behind doors activities from public scrutiny.
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/
and their strange rituals
It's a serious post - Should RL figures have anything to do with Freemasonry - whatever the charitable intent?
Given that the sport also has a history of tolerance (doesn't it?), why shouldn't Freemasonry/Freemasons be associated with the sport?
I haven't read your links (may do tonight) but don't always believe or take as gospel what an organisation's detractors say. You could make a case against many non-mainstream sections of society based upon that approach.
The problem about being a small sport anchored in a relatively small section of society is that we haven't been used to diversity (and, yes, Masons are part of that diversity).
-
Well, David Hughes' statement certainly puts the 'uncertainty' to bed.
-
If he was talking about adults or older teenagers then the problem is that the game isn't just about physique or athletic ability. We're talking about competing with the best that Australia and New Zealand can throw at us - players that have been handling and controlling a rugby league ball from almost as soon as they could put one foot in front of another. To be competing with the best, probably in any sport, you need to start when very young to be able to pick up and develop the skills.
If he is talking about the very young then how do we get access to them? How do we persuade their parents? What development path and career progression can we show them in, say, Bristol or Norwich to sell them RL over soccer, union or athletics?
To my mind the only real way we are going to attract the future quality players from outside the northern heartlands is to continue developing the game at grassroots in tandem with providing quality playing opportunities. Quick fixes won't work.
-
Rubbish. Here are the figures for the golden decade, before Nigel Wood began making decisions on venues:
1990. Great Britain 19 vs Australia 12 Wembley Crowd: 54,569
1990. Australia 14 vs Great Britain 10 Old Trafford Crowd: 46,615
1990. Australia 14 vs Great Britain 0 Elland Road Crowd: 32,500
1992. Australia 10 vs Great Britain 6 Wembley Crowd: 73,631
1994. Great Britain 8 vs Australia 4 Wembley Crowd: 57,034
1994. Australia 38 vs Great Britain 8 Old Trafford Crowd: 43,930
1994 Australia 23 vs Great Britain 4 Elland Road Crowd: 39,468
1995: Australia 20 vs England 16 (Pool match World Cup) Wembley Crowd: 41,271
1995: Australia 16 vs England 8 (Final World Cup) Wembley Crowd: 66,540
For the next three years Super League vs ARL war divided the Australian code. A Super League representative side came to Britain in 1997. No doubt it was not considered a regular Test. Here were the crowds:
1997. Australia 38 vs Great Britain 14 Wembley. Crowd: 41,135
1997. Great Britain 20 vs Australia 12 Old Trafford. Crowd: 40,324
1997. Australia 37 vs Great Britain 20 Elland Road. Crowd: 39,337
So except for the 1995 pool match and the 1997 Super League Test, all Wembley crowds have been over 50,000.
We also see that in each years series of Tests Wembley has attracted more fans than either Old Trafford or Elland Road.
Obviously a properly administered World Cup could expect more than 50,000 at Wembley for a final, and for a semi-final involving England. A crowd of over 73,000 has already been achieved there for a World Cup final, and could be realised under a competent management team in 2013.
A few things to bear in mind about those days:-
Test matches were shown on terrestrial TV on a Saturday afternoon - while you could argue that this would reduce the match attendance, it was also had a massive marketing effect. GB games were national events, in the public eye and looked attractive enough to want to attend. These days that just isn't the case - the games are played at a strange times on a satellite station.
In the early/mid 90s it was just about possible to believe that 1982 had been a temporary low for GB, and that we were improving and catching the Aussies up. Surely it was just a matter of time before we had that historic test series victory. 15/20 years later who really thinks that there is a realistic chance of England (or even GB) getting the better of the Kangaroos?
Those Wembley attendances didn't just happen, they were built up over a number of years, using soccer stadiums such as Elland Road and Old Trafford at first. Sure we can moan about the recent marketing of internationals but we are where we are, and we are now used to tests being smaller affairs. It will take years to change this perception.
I think there is just about a case for making Wembley the venue for the final, and given a marketing effort that has not been seen in recent years, and the game's fans rallying round, then it could just about be played in front of a decent crowd. Not a semi as well, though.
-
And, indeed, the Stoop.
The problem with suddenly either creating a ground of 12,000 capacity or doubling the capacity of a non league ground and then re-doing that every two weeks is that firstly it isn't cheap (you can ask Bath RU about that), secondly given the nature of London you have to jump through planning hoops even for temporary structures and especially when you're suggesting a dozen occasions when a few thousands northerners are going to drive in and thirdly I'm not sure that there are a huge number of locations out there where it would be feasible to do it anyway.
Fair enough - we'll reconsider the concept when nano-technology has developed to the extent that construction/demolition of a stadium can occur in seconds.
-
One idea I think Lobby came up with a while ago was to find a patch of land and erect temporary stands. One thing that brought that idea to mind is the current construction of such a stand at Blackpool FC. Reading this thread (especially post #33) shows what can be achieved given just a few weeks construction time (a few weeks more and they could have had a cantilever roof).
To adapt Lobby's concept, would it not be possible to buy into, or get a secure lease, at a small non-league soccer, RU or other stadium, one that has a reasonable infrastructure, and then build something similar to Blackpool? It would probably mean a bit of flexibility regarding capacity but, given the special circumstances in London, that could be justified.
Even a small stadium + the large temp stand (Blackpool's is 5000 seats I believe) would give a sufficient capacity for London Super League. Plus, as Worcester RU have shown, these constructions are modular and can be incorporated into more permanent structures as and when necessary.
I don't know how portable these things are but you could almost imagine packing up the grandstand and moving on should the site not work out. How about London Travellers?
-
The ground that Fulham/Crusaders used to play at - the Polytechnic ground?
-
i thikn the RFL have to take a hand in it and really give it some backing to get them some success to get people along.. people in london will go IMO if there is success and they are in the right place.. accesible, zone 1 or 2 imo.. and without private investment, which i agree is going ot be very difficult, the RFL may well have to take this on and they would be right to do so IMO.. London is importnat and can be cracked but i think it needs a onn commericial drive for a few years..
It would have to be an arms-length type of arrangement rather than the governing body itself running the club. A bit like a government/quango set-up.
Or would that be a quingo?
Sorry...
Sad news - Terry Newton
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Desperately tragic news.
RIP