Adelaide Tiger

I’m sure that during Cliff’s performance he kept referring to Great Britain as England. Certainly a visionary was our Cliff!

Spot on Dave. I could hear his aggressive typing from half the world away

I certainly remember Diana Ross being driven - was in an open top Rolls Royce or something similar - around the track that went around the Wembley pitch but I cannot remember Status Quo performing.

Well I know one old work colleague and Fev supporter who won’t watch them perform ….… A few years ago he went to Elland Road to watch them on stage. The following day he was on Facebook incandescent with rage that during the show a lot of people attending kept chanting Leeds United songs. With relish I responded to him saying did he not realise that the Kaiser Chiefs were massive Leeds Utd followers and the band took their from the South African football team that former Leeds captain Lucas ‘the Cheif’ Radebe played for, and therefore there would be thousands of Leeds supporters at the event. He replied that he was aware of that fact but as he is a Sheffield Wednesday supporter he thought it was totally unacceptable for Leeds supporters to chants such songs at an event held at the Leeds United ground. He even wrote to the club asking why they didn’t ask people to stop such chants.

Watched the game today. Well done to Leigh as they deserved the win and they have been the stand out team all season. But admiration to Batley for their stoic resistance and giving their all. That is all fans of any club ask for. To the Leigh followers out there which of the overseas players are being released? Good to hear that Ipape is signed on for next year as I have enjoyed watching him and think he could have a big impact next year for the club.

A bit off the beaten track. A couple of months ago on Spotify I found a ‘directory’ titled ‘1980’s - Every Song In The UK Top 40 (1 Jan 1980 - 31 Dec 1989). The songs are in date order of release so I decided to listen to all of them in turn. I only listen to them when in the car. My method is; as soon as I know both the artist and song title I skip to the next song. Any song that I know either the artist or the song, or a song that I cannot ever remember hearing I will listen to up to a minute whilst racking my brains for the answer. Anyway the reason for posting this is that I am currently in 1985 and today I listened to Sting and his song ‘Russians’. The words are so relevant today as they were then.

I’m an old fart and I remember those halcyon days pre SL when there was no vast gap between the two leagues as most players played for their local team and were paid win/lose money and had to work 40 hours a week as well. Also because players wages were relatively similar across clubs it really made little sense for players to move even if their club was relegated so clubs weren’t stripped of their best players. However, SKY money disrupted this equilibrium, especially when some players went from £300 a win to £30,000 a year. But that was the price to pay to save the game from the financial mire it was in. It appears that you are suggesting that - apart from the top 10 clubs - clubs revert back to those pre SL days and players become part time as no club could afford full time status especially as I doubt a league consisting of part time clubs could negotiate a TV deal. Is that what you want?

Seeing as you commented on the previous page that you prefer to be referred to as Johnny - with a capital J - surely you can refer to bob monkhouse as Bob Monkhouse. Adding the OBE after his name would be appropriate as well!

So apart from me there is just Elbowseye and Archie Gordon browsing this topic at the moment. It is 5.30am in the UK so are all the other usual members laid wide awake in bed with their partners dabbing their sweated brow with a damp cloth, saying ‘Now, now, it’s time for you to go to sleep’.

I am sure that everyone on this Forum would like to know the answer. I hope that IMG make an absolute shedload of money from this as that will mean the game has tapped into untold wealth and Chairmen of clubs will once again be able to buy the finest sheepskin jackets from Man at C&A to wear on inclement days!

Got up to page 19 when a thought struck me. Putting football to one side, all other major team sports in the UK such as RL, RU and Cricket are either at or approaching a watershed moment. Cricket is only surviving because of its international presence. But One-Day internationals and Test Cricket are under threat by the growth of 20/20 leagues around the world that can pay players exorbitant amounts for a few weeks work. The ECCB’s response is the Hundred. Can this plug the gap if there is a reduction in the number of One-Day internationals and Test Matches and TV income falls? Rugby Union survives on the international game and deep pockets of wealthy backers. If some of those backers decide to leave the club game then the income from international games will not cover existing costs at club level. So RU will have to cut its cloth to survive or look at a more innovative structures for financial growth. Rugby League - IMHO the partnership with IMG is a reflection that the game finally realised that continuing ploughing the same old furrow is no longer practicable. Fundamental change is needed, not just for today, but to be able to compete in tomorrows sporting landscape. So this may be the point where RL leads the way in showing other sports that radical changes is the only way forward.

OR ….. you go to sponsors and say ‘Our club is currently a Category B club but we have a strategy to attain Category A status. Your investment will help us towards achieving Category A status and in turn that will make the club a more appealing prospect to future investors as Category A clubs are exempt from being removed from the league’. Two sides to the argument.

Well it’s bed time for me. No doubt a lot of catching up in the morning.

If you are right it will mean that I will see the proposals at 10.30pm Adelaide time and then spend an interesting half an hour or so reading the avalanche of wails, gnashing of teeth, exultations etc. before bedtime. Can’t wait!

The sole focus of both winning teams is to win their respective leagues. To then expect one team to fly half way around the world a day or so after celebrating their victory and be up to play another high intensive game the following weekend IMHO leads to the comments that the WCC is more of a gimmick then a serious challenge. What might work is if both leagues are aligned to finish on the same weekend. For example based on next year, the 23rd September, and then host a WCC 2 weeks later on 7th October. That would give the travelling team an appropriate rest period, time to celebrate and travel and time for game preparation. It would also give two weeks to promote the game as a true WCC. And in a non World Cup year you then give the players a two week break before having an international window from 21stOctober and into mid November. It would also make sense that the internationals are played in the hemisphere where the WCC takes place to keep travelling to a minimum for players. Would the game and IMG have thought of this?

Ah you beat me to it. A couple of weeks before I finished with Wakefield MDC to migrate I had to attend a training day. Can’t remember what it was about but each of us was given an A3 sheet with an outline image of a shield. I can’t remember what images I drew on the shield, or why, but in the header of the shield I wrote ‘Don’t let the b******s grind you down’. It was a conversation stopper

They do but all the stuff they sell is still overpriced ######!

As a fiscally prudent Yorkshireman I truly believe that every product that I buy is overpriced!

Haven’t had a hot drink of any description for about 20 years and before that it was only if someone had poured me a hot drink without asking in a meeting I would drink it to be sociable. I just cannot understand why someone wants to purposely pour flavoured scalding water down their throat.

Just seen a post of Facebook from an old workmate who lives in Fev. He wrote ‘According to Featherstone Rovers twitter feed big news tomorrow’. Could it be that the IMG proposal is being passed to all clubs tomorrow for their consideration before the meeting on the 28th. Or do Fev fans on here think it is something else?

A woman is walking hand in hand with her three year old daughter. Her daughter looks up to her mother and says ‘Mummy, mummy, why are your hands so soft’. The woman replied ‘It’s because I am only thirteen’.

Yes Harry, I agree it should have. However, IMHO the Salary Cap had an inherent flaw. In theory it was expected that the introduction of the SC would lead to the spread of the top class talent around all clubs as no one club could afford load their team with players now demanding six figure salaries. However the ‘big 4’ clubs soon realised that they could make the SC work in their favour and actually offer their players a lower salary than those players could get from a ‘lesser’ club. Kevin Sinfield, when still playing, summed this up when asked about the ongoing success at Leeds when he stated that most of that team could get a better pay deal elsewhere but it was more important to them to play for a successful club. Therefore IMHO that is why up to 2012, only one 1 club, Hull, appeared in a Grand Final outside of the ‘big 4’ clubs of that time. But since 2012 the gap between the ‘big 3’ - now not including Bradford - appears to have lessened and on 7 occasions out of 10 Grand Finals other non ‘big 3’ teams have reached the GF. Is this now proof that the SC is finally working? Or is it just a coincidence that the implosion of Bradford went into Administration in 2012 thereby giving a greater opportunity for a team outside of the now ‘big 3’ to reach the GF?

Before Caddick became involved with Leeds Rhinos he apparently - I say apparently as some Cas supporters have stated this is correct but I have no proof - put in an offer to take sole control of Cas but the Board of Directors at Cas turned him down.

It’s Friday night, the wife and eldest daughter are in the UK for a few weeks visiting family, the other daughter is stopping at the boyfriends house tonight and I am sat watching episodes of Randall and Hopkirk Deceased. Loved the show as a kid but I can’t believe that I could not remember Annette Andre as Marty’s wife Jean. She was an absolute stunner.

Why should anyone like him, whether they were born within a drop kick of the ground or not, want to invest in rugby league? Lets pretend he invested in Oldham tomorrow. Can League 1 clubs spend up to SL cap like Championship clubs can? If they can then Oldham can conceivably buy a team that gets promoted in consecutive years to SL. However in SL his billions mean sod all as he can only spend the same amount as every other team with the exception of attracting a couple of marquee players. IMHO there is no incentive for people like him in our game.