keighley

And I'd like to see some serious evidence as to how a small parochial rump SL haemorraging money like a burst artery will do the same. revenues are down, crowds are down, expansion is verboten, Australia are still, overwhelming favourite Fleet Street needs a GPS to navigate past Watford and delusions of grandeur about SL is a serious Phycological problem.

It's all about the money but an extra 180,000 will not help. Are you talking out of both sides of your mouth at once ? I didn't say such funding would enable a team to enter SL. I said it would help to make them stronger organsations and on the back of success from that strength then gates, revenues and maybe investors will come along and, ultimately, SL might be a possibility especially if the salary cap for SL is lowered. If Salford suffers mega losses and Koukash bails out where does that leave your vaunted SL elite. Same for Toulouse. If they don't make money they might bail, . You could say the same about any of the investor funded SL teams, which is a majority. All the more reason to lower the salary cap to negate excessive losses i would say these recent re organisation proposals are designed to creaed a raft of solid clubs so that any investor witthdrawal at the top and subsequent failure of the particular club involved will lead the their seamless replacement with a team from the lower division which is more fit to purpose than at present.

And with all those advantages at their disposal it is unlikely that they will be although Bradford weren't able to hack on big gates alone in their last incarnation. However, it will not be the end if their administration and/or playing strength is so weak that they do get relegated. Like Wigan before them they will have the opportunity to be promoted asap following their relegation. Only last year you were saying that Salford could go and good riddance but along comes Koukash and suddenly they are blue blooded members of the aristocracy. If they get relegated we will see where his heart is. Koukash came out of left field as they say in baseball to rescue the Reds. Good for him, good for them. However, now that p and r is back on the agenda there is more likelihood of Championship teams attracting deepocketed individuals. Nobody should be above the law or exempt from failure just because they are rich and powerful.

1. I don't know what their ambitions are. maybe they only aspire to be feeder clubs like Hunslet. on the other hand...... 2. It is up to the individual clubs to sort out their finances coupled with any initiatives coming from the RFL. Going by the majority of current SL models, the finances will be heavily dependent on investor input and now the avenue is about to be opened for progression all the way to the top, there is much more likelihood of attracting some. Maybe the progression will be slowly, slowly like Sheffield eagles, from nothing to potential double winners and possible Challenge cup semi finalists by strong administrators, prudent player recruitment and slowly expanding their junior base and with the possibility of a new council built ground on the horizon. They are now on a pole position to find money men and they are in the much desired big city environment. Always you throw it to me to account for finances when it will be clearly up to the club and league officials. I throw the gauntlet back to you and pose the question that I have asked already. Do you think the RFL are putting forward these suggestions for p and r and league re organisation without considering how any such plans will be financed.?

The NRL has gone from a Sydney metropolitan based league to one with teams in Penrith, Newcastle, Brisbane, the Queensland Coast, Canberra and Auckland. They are considering bids from Perth, Gosford and, I think, another Queensland area. They, indeed, are cashed up but now they have an independent governing body who control the money, not the clubs, and are willing to spread it thinner. I would expect any new entrants to the NRL to be financially sound. I would expect any new entrants to SL to be financially sound. Are these new proposals calling for automatic p and r or will any clubs who win promotion have to meet financial guidelines ? I suspect the latter. Similarly if new SL licences are issued in the absence of p and r, the licencees will have to be evaluated for their financial strength 9 properly this time ).

Swinton had over 100 years, to get where, to the top and back. Workington set out almost 70 years ago and have won the challenge Cup, the Champions cup, the Lancashire Cup and have been in SL only to regress. now they are on the move again and with the opportunities made available when p and r is reinstated have the chance, however slight, of regaining past glories. Present SL powerhouses, Wigan, Hull KR, Hull, Widnes, Wakefield, London, Huddersfield, Bradford, Salford and Castleford have all spent varying amounts of time in the lower tiers. Broughton Rangers once did the double. Things are not unchangeable forever including SL. For you therefore to dismiss the ambitions of Hemel and Gloucester and even Crusaders and South Wales, Gateshead or Skolars or even Oldham shows a remarkable lack of vision. No one is suggesting that such advances are going to happen tomorrow or even in the next ten years but, over time I can see no reason why Hemel could not be playing Wakefield in SL in a purpose built stadium, having captured the imagination of the local populace and attracting a decent attendance. the same goes for Oxford or Crusaders. Gloucester might be more of a long shot than even those above mentioned teams but, given that Gloucester is a hotbed of rugby, albeit of the 15 a side variety, I don't see why they can't tap into that support over time. This never, never, never argument is futile. the past is only a guide to the future. Once, no one had ever crossed the Atlantic to the Americas, no one had flown in a plane, defied the RU and got away with it. Australia was adamantly opposed to the Northern union. there was no chance of a world cup in RL with more than flour teams. I hope you get my drift. There is something to be said for the what we have we hold arguments put forth by the SL supporters but equally, eventually change must come, and, I think, in the case of RL, we must change and expand our horizons or ultimately perish. This is the case with soccer, with RU, with the NBA, NHL, NRL, NFL and even cricket and baseball and to pull in our horns and refuse to get on this expansionary model of progress demonstrated by all these various sports will be disastrous in the long term.

To refuse to consider what makes a sport successful and to consider adapting any such successful conditions to our sport is to stick your head in the sand. The most successful RL competition on the planet is the NRL and they are moving towards expansion, albeit by awarding new licences, but expansion nevertheless. In the UK P and r is the way to get to the top tier, but I am open to the argument that they just award more licences and increase the size and scope of the top tier that way. In any event, I think your unchanging static vision of SL is due for a rude shock in the near future and not before time.

Just to jump in on ther lies, damn lies and statistics tangent. As you know i am an old geezer and i remember going to cup semi finals, both played at Odsal on consecutive weekends where one attendance was 43,000 and the other 37,000. the smaller attendance was involving one of the smallest clubs, to whit Featherstone Rovers. I think this was in the early 1960's but i have no reference books where I am presently located. I also went to a Championship final where 80,000 went to Odsal to see Wakefield demolish Wigan and this was when there was just one big league of 30 clubs. No Sl, No p and r either. then the wheels fell off. The game used to be much bigger than it is now and there was no need of fully pro teams to make it big. The Challenge cup used to be the Biggest RL competiton by far. third round ( Last ties were routinely attracting blockbuster attendances. I was even in a crowd of 10,000 at Keighley to see them play Wigan. O don;t know why the Cup lost it's allure but it certainly has done so.

I ask this question with no rancour. Do you think that if there was a small rump SL of the top few clubs, unchanging and unchangeable and all the rest were left to their fate and died off or reverted to being amateur clubs, that the SL would continue to be successful.? Much as the games between the elite are compelling theatre, don't you think that by the time if the fourth set of repeat fixtures, the mega important TV audience might be bored and even the fanatics attending in the flesh might be getting weary of the same old same old ? The footprint of the game would be very small and parochial with maybe Catalans as an isolated exception and no chance ever of London or Wales or the midlands or south Yorkshire or anywhere else joining the party. Nature abhors a vacuum and RU might just fill the gaps, Don't you think that Sky might also balk at supporting such a small regionalised competiton especiaally if the rating were falling due to the overkill factor. Wouldn't it be better to speculate to accumulate and persevere with increasing the size of the top league and getting a bigger mix of successful clubs and the resulting variety of fixtures and extra interest. Wouldn't a fixture between a successful London and a David v Goliath like Fev or a vibrant Crusaders filling the Racecourse ground for an important fixture against Wigan, interspersed by the regular fare of Leeds v Bradford and the Hull derby be better than the repetitive five fixture revolving door fare put up by a ten team SL.? I know all the arguments that have been put forward against any expansion of of SL and dissolution of the Sky money but I don't think the game can sustain itself on a top level league of the small numbers that seem to be being touted as nirvana.

By the same token, SL started with 14 and no p and r, then it went back to p and r, then the number dropped to 12, then they went back to 14, then they put Catalans in as a franchise but exempted them from relegation but not for everybody else , then they scrapped p and r. then they introduced licencing. The numbers in the playoffs fluctuated depending in which way the wind was blowing. But according to all the cast iron defenders of SL, it's a vibrant league and only needs a further tweak, to whit, kick out a couple of stragglers. I don't think the " if it ain't broken, don't fix it" method you are advocating has been applied to SL so maybe the SL concept has not been an unparalled success either given the chopping and changing that has gone on.

I totally agree with you and I think it's a recipe for disaster but the point I was making is that the whole membership of the RFL pro and semi pro sections are being consulted re these changes. I am not sure if they all get to vote on it but hopefully, as it's a decision being made by Woods, it will not be a SL rubber stamp dictat as has previously been the case.

I think the key quote in your post is the phrase ' It appoints people to run it", ie there is the consent of the governed. What we have had in RL since the inception of SL is a cabal who seized power and ran the sport from the point of view of their narrow self interests without the consent of the rest of the game. Now that some form of return to control including the rest of the game is in the offing the game is becoming more of a representative democracy within the admittedly narrow confines of the sport What Padge defines as the tail wagging the dog.

Padge, I don't remember exactly when but they did have an 8 team middle division at one point where they all played each other several times. It was a disaster but it suffered from having some over achieving teams with small fan bases like Rochdale and Carlisle. I am sure you have the exact year and other details at your disposal as your research base seems impressive.

It's called democracy and involves he concept of doing what's best for the whole not having a divine rights group appropriating everything to their own narrow demographic elite. It's a good thing. Ask most Western countries.