Adelaide Tiger

Good news for the Robins. But surely this must be down to the fact that Rovers are giving each of these multi- millionaires a red and white sheepskin coat and responsibly sourced bovril instead of them being enticed by the potential of the partnership between the RFL and IMG

GJ. Some people have short or selective memories or type stuff without bothering to do a quick search. When Fulham were promoted to the PL in 2001 the stadium did not meet PL requirements so after an initial year of dispensation the PL then forced Fulham to play every home fixture the following season at Loftus Road (QPR) until the stadium was deemed acceptable.

No. What those 5 teams achieved was to cajole/woo/kid/seduce/persuade/flatter an adequate number of clubs to vote for them. There was no criteria whatsoever involved in determining which club should lose their place in the Football League and which club should replace them. Therefore a less stable club, less well run club could be voted in.

In practice football operated a type of ‘closed shop’ as the officials of teams finishing in the bottom four of the old Fourth Division would lobby their pals to gain re-election through what would be termed ‘the old pals act’. Surely you are not advocating such a system for RL are you? From the time when the Fourth Division was created in 1958 until automatic promotion was introduced in 1986/87 only FIVE clubs were elected from the non-league ranks. These were Peterborough 1960, Cambridge Utd 1970, Hereford 1972, Wimbledon 1977 and Wigan in 1978. So FIVE clubs in THIRTY years. Not a great example of plenty of teams entering the system is it. If the RL/SL had such a record then people would be up in arms about it. P.S. What is also interesting is that 2 outposts, Barrow 1972 and Workington 1977, lost their status as voting clubs didn’t want the expense or travelling time in going to those places ….. sound familiar?

What is your point? Are you saying that because TV revenue has dropped then the game should just continue as it is? If not, what is YOUR way forward for the game?

As someone has already commented on the issues of debt I am more interested in your ‘Soccer got lucky ’ quote. Why don’t you take a look at the article below that will explain how and why the PL came into being. Sod all to do with luck but due to some people realising that the game was undervalued and change was needed. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jul/23/deceit-determination-murdochs-millions-how-premier-league-was-born

Don’t know if 2blackrooks hit the wrong number button but many families from Scotland and the North East descended on Castleford in the 70’s and early 80’s because of employment in the local collieries. We had two ‘Geordie’ lads in our class and when they spoke to each other it was like listening to the old Smash potato ads on TV. In Knottingley - or Knottla to the locals - just outside Cas there was a working mens club called the SYD club. It stood for Scottish, Yorkshire and Durham miners. It had a reputation as a tough pub. Only went in there once. Halfway through the night someone lobbed a beer glass towards the dance floor. The glass hit the floor and smashed into pieces. All those dancing just ignored what had happened. Good job I wore my shin pads that night!

Around 20 or so years ago I read an article that I think was about Nottingham Forest. It went along something like this ‘We need to attract kids to games ….. kids form allegiances around the age of twelve …. we will present every child within a defined area a free first team shirt at school assembly on their twelfth birthday’. I Don’t follow Forest so I have no idea how the proposal went. Anyway shortly after reading the article I sent an email Cas about it. I pointed out that each year there would be around 1,000 children celebrating their twelfth birthday in local schools. If in those days, around the year 2000, a child’s replica shirt cost the club £10 then an investment of £10k each year would be required and may pay dividends in future years if just a small fraction became regular attendees. IMHO £10k a year out of SL money was a drop in the ocean. But I heard nothing about it.

No. The club are going to put in a speed bump every 5 metres so if you were to then measure the actual playing surface it will be 100m long. Nothing against that in the rules is there?

What could/should the RFL have done?

Santa has just been and I got my copy of West Yorkshire’s Long Lost Rugby Clubs by Rob Grillo.

Totally agree about the Development Officer debacle. But I have a suggestion that could cut the cost per Development Officer to the RFL by 50% or even more. Each Council has a Health and Wellbeing strategy I.e. Wakefield MDC have a Wakefield District Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2025. Within the strategy the Council along with internal and external partners create a number of programs and projects to achieve the four overarching priority areas. One priority area is ‘A healthy start in life for every child’. Each program and project will cost ‘X’ amount and will also need human and physical resources. Councils are cash strapped so they will be looking for cost effective opportunities to deliver against the KPI’s and IMHO RL has a great opportunity to create a partnership approach with individual Councils whereby each partner puts in 50% of the salary plus oncosts to create a Development Officer role that can deliver a health and well-being program to 100’s of youngsters. The cost to each partner may be further reduced if Government Departments have funding rounds and the RFL are successful with a funding bid for their overarching role. Is a salary of £30k an appropriate amount for such a role? Would the role be suitable for graduates with qualifications for such a role? If so, even without any funding from a successful bid to an external organisation, the cost would be around £15k for each partner per Development Officer. £15k is absolute peanuts for a Council to deliver a program to potentially 100’s of youngsters. If the RFL targeted 10 Councils in existing RL communities then the RFL would need £150k. OR, another way to pay for the RFL contribution would be for RL clubs to pay all/some of the £15k contribution. For example you have Wakey, Cas and Fev in the Wakefield MDC area so each club puts in £5k each. Again absolute peanuts. Is this achievable? All it needs is some joined up thinking!

Didn’t they rule that bovril should be served instead of Gin and Tonic.

Good God, surely they are breaking Health and Safety rules with topless barmaids now serving hot coffee!!

Come on Steve, don’t be shy. Tell us your plan to grow the game.

Taffy Tiger may have seen the Yorkshire Post article that states ‘Funds raised by the proposed new Axiom employment development would add £12.2m to £2m already granted to Tigers from Wakefield Council’s rugby league resilience fund. No idea how the Yorkshire Post has come up with £12.2m though.

Just put SKY news on and that was the first story I saw. Absolutely gobsmacked. Just got my Spotify year in review and ‘A Message to you, Rudy’ was in my top 5 most listened to songs. We all get used to the passing of people that were adults when we were young but when it is people of similar age it is sobering. Thanks Terry for the memories.

He says things that gets noticed. He gets column inches. I don’t always agree with what he says but if he, and the club deliver, then well done to them.

Why not call it ‘Proper Rugby’. So in a sports bulletin the presenter would say ‘In the Rugby Premiership the only two teams left in that League fought out a turgid 3-3 draw and here is the penalty kick that tied the game’. Shows clip of the penalty. Then the sports presenter says ‘Now for Proper Rugby …….’

Just witnessed the most amazing 20/20 game that I, and others, will never see again. Tonight Adelaide Strikers played Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash. On a good pitch Adelaide struggled to reach 139/9. Then the wife rang for me to pick her up. I left the TV on to keep the dog company. Got back 40 minutes later and adverts were on the TV followed by a filler program usually used when weather stops play. Being curious I went on the IPad to see if Sydney Thunder had started their innings. All it showed under their name was their score of 15 in 5.5 overs. Puzzled, I clicked on their scorecard and they were all out for 15!!!!!! Thankfully as we hadn’t changed channels I rewound the program and watched the carnage. Wes Agar, brother of Australian cricketer Ashton Agar took 4/6 but wasn’t even the man of the match. That went to the magnificently named Henry Thomas Raphael James York Thornton who took 5/3. He now has figures of 9/23 in two games. The two main strike bowlers of Peter Siddle and Rashid Khan didn’t even bowl a ball The wicket keeper Harry Neilson - no, not the singer - took 5 catches Amazingly enough not one batsman was out lbw The highest scorer for the Thunder was number 10 batsman Brendan Doggett who scored 4 via an inside edge. The only boundary of their innings. 5 Thunder batsmen recorded a duck including England WC hero Alex Hales. One happy chappie

That is the big problem if the process just gives a ‘B’ grade to more clubs than can be accommodated in SL. I pointed out many pages ago that each club should be given a numerical score within the grade that they are awarded. For example - if the criteria has a total score of 100 then Grade A is awarded to clubs scoring between 80 - 100. Grade B is awarded to those clubs scoring between 60 - 80. If there are more Grade B clubs than what can be accommodated in SL then simply award SL status to those clubs that scored most points within the Grade B category. I understand that even this system can be manipulated if some criteria have a greater weighting than others but at least you will be able to see how each club scored in each category.

God it’s sobering reading the comments on here and watching the presenters on UK SKY talking about heating costs. In Adelaide, July is the coldest month and according to the Bureau of Meteorology the mean maximum temperature for July in our area is 15.2c and never falling below 11c-12c on even the worst days. As tough, strong Yorkies we only had the gas fire on for 5 or 6 nights through winter as the wife invested in an Oodie and I put on a jumper. After listening to the ABC radio station today it appears that even with the Senate passing an Energy Bill to cap gas prices for 12 months the view is that energy costs will still rise by nearly 40% in the next 12 months or so. So it looks like we will be investing in a battery storage system that fits to our solar panel system.

I have seen your responses with HKB on the last page or so. So can you set out where will be in 10 years time and how we will get there?

No idea how to put videos on posts but surely ‘Christmas Countdown’ by Frank Kelly - Father Jack Hackett in Father Ted - deserves an honourable mention. There is a video of him on You Tube performing the song on Top of the Tops on 5 January 1982. The song got to 26 in the UK charts. But for me the Christmas Carol ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ tops all modern efforts.

Your post gave me a flashback to around 2001 when I was asked by the Council to speak to businesses in a local town centre to gauge their thoughts about developing a Town Centre Partnership to act as a focal point to discuss issues and create a strategy to improve the ‘viability and visibility’ of the town. One suggestion put forward was that businesses with a similar offer such as food retailers, hairdressers and beauty, hardware, speciality shops etc take it in turn to collectively fund a full page colour ad on page 2 of the weekly paper promoting their group of businesses. The Council had good contacts with the paper and a reduction in cost of the ad was offered meaning that the cost was similar, or less, than each business was paying for small or non-descript ads on the back pages of the classifieds that no one probably saw. It sounded a good idea. So I approached businesses. On one hand all the businesses wanted to increase footfall into their premises to increase takings BUT many businesses refused to take part and the reason given was ………. ‘Well it’s ALSO promoting my rival!’. Years later many of those businesses are gone or just hanging in there believing that things will still change.