keighley
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Posts posted by keighley
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Winston may have said that, But who would you say is the stronger Country today. England or Germany.
Union may not have wrung Leagues neck yet , It just needs to hang about, League regularly shoots it's self in the foot, and occasionally tries to commit Suicide.
Union is played in Scotland, Ireland , Wales, most of England and just about every other country in the known world, They do have problems with money true ,But it seems to be about how to share out a masive amount of it, As opposed to League squabling over a small amount. I wish it were the other way round.
Your right about our World Cup , It was great and i hope it has inspired more TV coverage and more money.
Much as i dislike Union You have to admitt they have got themselves a slice of the cake, that makes league's look a bit sad. If viewing firures are as good or better for League, Why do they get so much more money than we do, ? And why in comparison are we treated as second class by just about everyone ?, Could it possibly be that they have the right people in place to make sure they stay in the forefront.
Check todays news. Maybe the pendulum is swinging in our direction.
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Winston may have said that, But who would you say is the stronger Country today. England or Germany.
Union may not have wrung Leagues neck yet , It just needs to hang about, League regularly shoots it's self in the foot, and occasionally tries to commit Suicide.
Union is played in Scotland, Ireland , Wales, most of England and just about every other country in the known world, They do have problems with money true ,But it seems to be about how to share out a masive amount of it, As opposed to League squabling over a small amount. I wish it were the other way round.
Your right about our World Cup , It was great and i hope it has inspired more TV coverage and more money.
Much as i dislike Union You have to admitt they have got themselves a slice of the cake, that makes league's look a bit sad. If viewing firures are as good or better for League, Why do they get so much more money than we do, ? And why in comparison are we treated as second class by just about everyone ?, Could it possibly be that they have the right people in place to make sure they stay in the forefront.
The shirt answer is "Yes".
The longer story is that our game is better, growing and I have no fear of RU. Someone on here was being condescending to me about being older than many. One of the pluses to that is that I can remember when the game in the UK was confined exclusively to Yorks, Lanc and Cumberland and that included all amateur or junior clubs.
There was no game in Wales, no game in Scotland, Ireland or anywhere else in England. There were only 4 national teams in RL.
Now there are professional clubs in London and Wales, Sheffield and Gateshead, Oxford and Gloucestershire with Coventry promised. There was no RL in the armed forces or the Universities. Now we are in both those places and one University Club is semi pro. There is amateur RL throughout the length and breadth of all four home nations.
In Australia the game at a serious pro level was confined to Sydney with a minor competition in Brisbane. Now there are NRL teams in Canberra, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Penrith, Melbourne and Auckland and serious plans are afoot for expanding to Perth.
In NZ there was a weak presence with the Kiwis generally ranked 4th out of four. Nowadays they have won the 4 nations, the World Cup and have just sold 100,000 tickets for a nines competition.
Wales are a serious international team, despite their poor showing in the last WC. Their junior teams compete well with England.
France, having almost sunk, have a strong team in SL and could fill two stadia for WC group matches. Their juniors also give a very good account of themselves.
PNG is the national sport of the country and are to enter a team in the Queensland cup.
Fiji have finished in the top four in consecutive World Cups and a trial match for their team in Fiji drew 10,000 and the club and school game is booming.
At international level there were exactly four nations, Aus, GB, France and NZ. That was it, total. Now we can qualify 14 teams for the World Cup and there are teams throughout Europe, North America, the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands with an outpost in Lebanon and South Africa with other African nations interested. We can hold world cups for students, women and disabled people. At senior level the first WC final attracted 30,000. Last year we filled Old Trafford. 4,000 plus attended a Canada V USA game in Toronto.
Rugby League players and coaches are in demand by RU. this is a tribute to the quality of our game
There are more top class modern stadia in RL today than ever before. Men with money are attracted to invest in our game.
So, whilst RU is a threat, I would say RL is the more progressive and is bigger than it has ever been. Whilst we need to watch them like a dangerous enemy, providing are careful, they are not a threat to RL. maybe, just maybe, RU should look over their shoulder at us.
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1. Try being told 1,000 times how Leigh will fly in SL, how Featherstone will produce whole teams from their academy and Sheffield are so well managed it's time for Superleague. Now that is boring.
2. He's not spot on, it's 25 years since Huddersfield averaged crowds below 1,000?
3. The scale of Ken Davey's achievements are fabulous if your one of the 6,368 fans who support them. Outside of that he's not interested in junior developent, and is happy to snatch players from Bradford which assists their demise.
Uncle Ken gets less fans into Fartown than he did six years ago
Is Ken doing Superleague a favour by replacing Bradford with Fartown in SL?? I suspect Ken is doing Mrs. Davey a favour.....
Should we rejoice if Koucash decides to outbid Wigan for their players and put them in the Swinton team? If I win the lottery will it do the game a favour if I build Hunslet a 10K stadium and chase Leeds players??
1. Yes. It's boring. Time to give the game a proper p and system and let those clubs see if they can justify their claims.
2. In 25 years Huddersfield have gone from 1,000 to 6,000. In that 25 years London have gone from 700 to 1800. Bradford have gone from boom to bust (several times) and their gates have halved from their high point. Huddersfield are a top club with an investor, London are a bottom club with an investor. Bradford are a train wreck without an investor. Why pick on Huddersfield.
3. A good segment of the England team are Huddersfield produced players and those said players propelled Huddersfield to the top of the league. The Huddersfield player development system is obviously not a lost cause despite the ratings given to it.
Looking at the state of Bradford vis a vis Huddersfield, yes he is doing the game a favour supplanting the Bulls. It's the Bulls fault that they are in the position they are and there is no blame to be attached to Huddersfield. The game would be better off with both clubs strong and successful but it's up to Bradford to regain that state.
If Khoukash buys Wigan players and produces his own and get Salford to a top position playing before 10,000 crowds of course it's good for he game. It's alright for Wigan and Leeds to do the same for years but once someone from outside he cabal starts to emulate that behaviour it's bad
If you or any other ambitious entrepreneur with a wad of cash wanted to build Hunslet a top class stadium and develop a top team in Leeds to rival the Rhinos of course it would be good. The more top level stable teams we have the better. It works in Hull, it works in Widnes/Warrington, it works in St.Helens/Wigan. It should work in Leeds. If London Broncos revive it would be great if Skolars could join them at the top level. Rivalry and competition in local areas creates rivalry and can benefit both teams.
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Yes we did and it was the best for many a year I agree.
My real point was that Union do it every year with an inferior game and they have all the right people in place to make sure everybody knows it.
Union have been trying to wring the neck of the RL chicken since 1895. They have not succeeded yet. As Winston Churchill said "some chicken, some neck ".
Despite all the known advantages of establishment support and top level aid and discriminatory practices, RL is still here. It has conquered Australia it is on the rise in New Zealand, it is spreading like the rising tide in the UK, it is rising like a Phoenix from the ashes in France and setting down increasingly strong and widespread roots in fertile soil from South Africa to continental Europe to the middle east and north America and the Pacific Islands.
Top level union is all but dead in our English RL heartlands. Their game is as marginalised in this country as ours. Despite RU's successes it has serious problems of over spending by it's clubs and divisions at club level over Europe and the celtic nations are well upset with their treatment by England.
Our recent World Cup was well received by the general public.
I think Mr Murdoch, The Australian TV networks and the BBC are well pleased with the viewing figures for RL.
As always our game is in various sorts of crisis but I am cautiously optimistic.
I don't like the 3 x 8 format but yet I wish it well. It will be new and precedent setting.
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League is a sport IMO that many young people look on as "It's never really caught on " It's understanable, They have never seen Fev at Wembley, never saw Wigan and Hull put on the super show, they look around and see Football going loony with money, Union awash with it , and filling stadia for internationals, just about every sport seems to be going forward except League, which is a yearly story of clubs going down the pan, or barely surviving,
We do not project the right image, We do not have the right people running the game, we do not get our share of what's going from sponsers etc, On the field we are second to none, Off it we are also rans.
Last time i read anything about it Viewing figures for League were better than for Union, Who gets most TV money ?, Just my opinion of course , but none of this has anything at all to do with formats, it has to do with people.
To be fair, we filled a lot of stadia for internationals only two months ago.
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It's a good argument.
Leeds can manage to find 15,000 fans and 22 Leeds born professionals so they manage to sustain a competitive Super League club.
Bradford can manage 15,000 fans and were late to the quality academy system but started to turn them out sadly due to financial difficulties they have had to sell these lads on, Burgess, Whitehead, Bateman , Kopczak etc.
So the reality is West Yorkshire has managed to support two real Superleague clubs. Now they have one.
Getting Bradford back on track and getting one club in the Calder area where reality shows there's enough good young players to stock a Superleague team and 20,000 fans, enough to sustain one club even if half jump ship hankering after the past.
Five SL clubs is Fairyland. One is reality, three would take a strong will and good planning. 2/12/3/8 is not that it's a weak cop out and no plan at all.
E mail the RFL and ask them. There are 5 SL clubs in West Yorkshire whether you like it or not.
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Going back to Fartowns last really good days, people would go to watch Fartown one week, Town the next, whether people carn't afford these days i don't know.
A much more likely reason is the complete lack of anything that can be remotely regarded as success, for fifty years. They are having to grow a whole new set of Fans.
I know what you are saying about competition from Soccer, But Warrington , Wakey , Cas for eg don't have it directly in the same Town , let alone the same stadium. They do have competition from bigger and better clubs in some cases, and well done to them if they win the battle..
Wigan are a bit different, as far as i know League is more or less regarded as the first game there, In Huddersfield It's the other way round, That said people are working very hard to change that, and you have to realize that Wigan ( a club i admire greatly ) will still pull in less Fans than a second string Huddersfield Town side do, That is a club at the very top, Let alone one who have just won their first title for 80 years.
This is not intended as some sort of excuse for Fartowns low crowds, I don't feel i need an excuse, I'm not responsible for it. I think It's about 3 times what it was when SL started, but i feel it will be a long job.
In the 50s and 60s Huddersfield like most Towns was working flat out and was regarded as one of the richest Towns in the country, don't know where it rates now , But if the amount of money being spent by the Uni ,or Kirklees is any guide it is hardly skint,
I'm told the Holme Valley is very popular with people from Manchester, who still work there, Don't know what their sporting tastes are,
You are right about Kirklees it has a big population, It also has other League teams, and we all know how people round here feel about watching anyone but their own team.
Reality is there are too many clubs in W yorks but that's another argument.
Sydney has a population of 4.3 million and 9 NRL clubs which is 477,000 per club.
West Yorkshire has a population of 2.1 million and 5 SL clubs which is 420,000 per club.
Both places have lower level clubs. These population figures should enough to sustain the clubs.
The population of Wigan is 317,000 and the Wigan club does OK.
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That's an excellent to the point reply, but doesn't it (again) depend on wether the money is against any assets i.e. the ground/land?? If that is the final return ithen that is to the long term detriment of the club.
Less and less clubs seem to have assets of this kind. The next question is what return is there for the game with this philanthropy? If the Philanthropist pays for five thousand empty seats in the stadium and outbids clubs who develop pro players for their services then he is building a house of cards.
That is then to the detriment of clubs aiming to invest in and develop the games professional player pool. If Ken Davey can't be bothered with an academy as is alleged and buys Bradfords best youngsters why should Bradford bother to develop them in the first place.
Take all this to it's extreme. There are those on here who support the idea of mega rich men suddenly appearing to elevate Leigh above Wigan, Keighley above Bradford. Fev above Wakey/Cas, etc.
What is the best situation for the game? The 12 biggest clubs using Superleague to grow the playing roster and the paying crowds??
Or the 12 smallest clubs propped up by a philanthropic £4Million a year until the owner gets bored, runs into business problems or dies.
Can we really afford Messrs Davey and Koucash to prop up essentially small clubs, whilst bigger clubs like Wakefield and Bradford flounder for want of charity?? Remember if Koucash had not stepped in Salford would be no more for all the tens of £Millions Wilkinson put in.
I think not. There is no great point to throwing £Millions in the wrong place just to make an individual happy. We should take every penny of philanthropy we can but SL places should not be open to being playthings, and SL clubs should grow the game, not puffed up ego's.
All very laudable BUT how many of these clubs are not supported by philanthropic owner/investors. ? Maybe 4. The reality is we have no options but to rely on the Davy and Khoukash segment of the game.
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The deck may appear to be stacked in favor of the top SL clubs, but would you not say that whatever system you played the best teams would always end up at the top, and the reason they are the best teams is because they are the rich ones (so to speak ).
One thing that i think is a real possibility is that the whole standard will drop if the system stays long enough, I'm not saying it definitely will but It is definitely a possibility,
If there are chairmen (as Parky says, and i don't doubt him ) that are wanting to reduce the money they are having to put into their clubs to keep them competitive with the top, It stands to reason the will have to go for a lower class player, This then brings about the Super 8 that is talked about. What is to stop the same thing happening as did with the 14 side SL,
As the comp gets more intense at the very top, maybe more chairmen will fall by the wayside and opt for the less competitive ( and cheaper second 8 league ), If that was to transpire you then have 3/4s or more playing at a lower level, which to me is the worst possible outcome.
I can visualise there being a Super 6 not too far into the future. Worst case scenario ? yes ! but for me It's as feasible as the forecast of the thousands that are supposed to be going to flock to the second class games.
I think there is a real danger of club's trying to get into the top 12 each year, not particularly to compete but to get the funding, If 3/4s more chairmen go down this route, the same clubs would almost be guaranteed to be P and R each season, which would mean that todays C clubs like Fev Fax whoever would be no farther forward than now, ( unless they get a very rich man ) and most of the game would be at a lower standard.
Does that make sense .
The deck is more stacked in favour of the bottom four SL clubs who will fall into the middle 8. They will be playing with a full battle hardened SL squad on SL salary cap against teams who have played a championship season against such powers as Rochdale, Keighley and Crusaders on a much smaller budget although it is going to be sweetened a bit but not enough.
Given these circumstances it is highly unlikely that a Championship team will able to mount a credible challenge for one of the promotion spots and I think it will be rare when there is a promotion from this group.
A 2 x 12, straight p and r would have, subject to standards being met, guaranteed promotion.
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They may have but it would go against what they've actually written and got the clubs to vote for.
I think that comes under the hoisted on your own petard column. It will be interesting to see what shenanigans are rolled out to get round their written and voted protestations.
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Absolutely. The only crack I can see is that I struggle to see London existing at the end of 2014 so a space opens up.
They have Toulouse rubber stamped for that vacancy.
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The earliest a team currently in the Championship will be playing in Super League is 2016 is all we can say right now.
In theory but don't bet your house on it. The deck is stacked in favour of the incumbents.
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So how come they keep pipping your lot on a shoestring against Campbell's and Nahaboos hundreds of thousands? Are you not successfully run?
I think this should be the last word BTW Terry.
Because it's sport and results on the field determine who wins. The finances and everything else often have a huge impact on who wins but sometimes not and this is the case with Sheffield.
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Not sure if this has been raised on this debate but I have seen it said that the 4 Championship teams will play all mid 8 group games against SL team at home. This will mean that either the team that finished 9th or 10th (or both) will play one at home and six away whereas the team that finished 4th in the Championship will have 5 or 6 home games and only one or two away.
Surely the above is a ridiculous state of affairs and doesn't reward excellence in a tougher league?
If they were excellent in the tougher league they wouldn't be in the bottom four in the first place and so would avoid th3 middle eight. You could argue that they have the lesser number of home games because they had a sub par season whereas the Championship teams are rewarded with more home games because they had a good season and qualified for the middle eight.
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I'd agree with you, but I fear a £900K second eight squad will be so much weaker than a Elite SL £1.65M squad. The middle eight may work as a competition but breaking the big eight may be nigh on impossible.
Here's Mark Aston the legend.......
"At least they have made a decision, It remains to be see if it does mean promotion and relegation - I actually don't believe that"
If the funding is not right it means a 8 club Suprleague and a two tier championship. Mark Continues:-
"It depends on how the money is shared out if one team has double that of another then you would still surmise that the teams getting the most would win"
The Swiss model was used by Martyn as a warning, what was not AFAIK reported about this model was whether there was a huge financial gap between the top Swiss football clubs and the rest. If there wasn't then the warning from their experience may be stronger. Anyway....Mark again..
"At the moment the part timers are going to struggle, the gap is too big" It's money that counts not format. "The set up from 2015 does not actually signal the chance for championship clubs to get promoted".
As it stands the top 8 clubs can smile about the decision because they will get better fixture lists and may get bigger crowds and cement their top 8 places. The bottom SL clubs are released from financial misery and can stay afloat reducing their spending - but may have to take some hammerings in the first 23 SL rounds, the top Championship clubs currently get nothing out of the format as Mark says.
The argument is not about format at all IMVHO it's about, as Padge always says "money".
Mark Aston, who has an unbeatable resume in RL, is stating exactly what myself and others without his authority and standing in the game, have been saying for weeks. The 3 x 8 does not guarantee that any team will be promoted and the probability, given as you day the disparite financial resources of the Championship clubs vis a vis SL clubs, is that nobe will be.
A traditional p and r system with a guarantee of promotion for the winner, even if they have to meet minimums standards to clinch the deal, is a must, This 3 x 8 system almost guarantees the retention of the status quo. It is practically a retention of a closed shop.
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It's reported to be the case that potential broadcasters - plural - will bid against each other for the rights to screen Rugby League 2016.
IMVHO it is wishful thinking with respect Terry to believe the broadcasters want RL because of the proposed jeapordy element. It interests them yes, but there's no evidence they have looked into the detail.
You do the Rugby League World Cup and it's tremendous successes a great dis-service by suggesting second tier club RL is the factor stimulating more than one Broadcaster to now consider taking the game.
it's interesting that you would even countenance the thought of more than one TV broadcaster being interested in RL. When I have suggested such as a source of extra revenue on this forum in the past you have been adamant in your denials of any such possible sources of new revenue. Sky, you insisted, would never increase their investment in RL rather they would likely reduce it. Have uou been travelling on the road to Damascus by any chance ?
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We couldn't have done because there were no clubs who met minimum standard to replace them. All four CC clubs didn't meet the fans criteria of 2,500, one club had a poor business plan, one club was in financial difficulties and another had £800,000 liabilities. Only two had fourth rate academies the RFL classed as "weak".
There cannot be a "strong licensing system" when only 4 clubs met the requirements in full. The reason clubs got away with being poor in Superleague was the replacements were even poorer. We seem to maintain the myth that the only reason clubs didn't improve themselves was that they were lazy and it just needed them to be "strongly managed".
They didn't need to replace them at all. They could have run the SL with 2 teams which is what they will now do anyway.
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does anyone feel that despite all the championship clubs seemingly falling over themselves to embrace the 3/8 s system, it will make promotion to super league a lot harder than a simple one up one down system. That everyone would understand and give a championship clubs a straight forward route to sl rather than just a chance to play a few sl clubs at the end of a hard season. I can't see anything other than the rare upset as in the c.c., over 7 games it will be very hard for part time to beat full time!
That's exactly right. This system is designed to placate Championship clubs by seemingly offering them a straightforward shot at promotion but, in reality, a promotion will be rarer and more infrequent than getting to SL under licencing.
Time will tell, but I think one team every four or so years might get promoted.
Guaranteed promotion for the championship winners ( subject to minimum standards being met ) is better than a stacked playoff ###### shoot against higher financed and battle tested opponents.
I am a staunch advocate of p and r but this hybrid heath robinson contraption with more questions than answers will be a disaster for Championship clubs.
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why was Leigh so peeved when their application was knocked back when they had gone to so much trouble to build a stadium?
Why have fev dismantled a stand and re-build it....
I may need to point this out to you, or you may be playing dumb.....but championship clubs improved their grounds to be eligible for SL....
therefore as a result of licencing championship clubs raised their game! Built new stadia.....
How do you explain Castleford and Bradford's stadia then and St Helens for 10 years until Langtree was built.?
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so under P&R they were saved from relegation several times hmmmm sounds like licensing to me......
Completely wrong. It as p and r with standards and it just so happened that Dewsbury and Hunslet won the championships and both were denied promotion because of grounds or maybe financing I can't exactly remember but they didn't meet the standards so Huddersfield were saved from relegation.
eventually some team were deemed fit for promotion and Huddersfield were relegated. I can't remember which team went up to replace the Giants.
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I have it on a very good authority that the likes of Nigel Wood and others at the RFL knew very well that there was issues with the Visa and that people was owed money before Crusaders got in to SL. The RFL were desperate to have Crusaders in SL at any price and ignored some of the things going on hoping things would be OK. Nigel Wood verbally gave his word that John Dixon and co would be given the money they was owed-needless to say this never happened and his left many players and businesses out of pocket by a few thousand.
But the Crusaders were given a licence anyway. Says it all about the skulduggery involved in licence allocation.
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Huddersfield have started winning under licencing they were always bottom before that you are missing that the guarantee of top flight helped them assemble a mostly homegrown squad and plan long term.....
They were always bottom because they were spared relegation due to the Championship winners being denied promotion. Once they actually were relegated, they got their act together, won promotion and kicked on from there. On their promotion initially there was no three year exemption from promotion. The club could have been relegated the following season.
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I also doubt Davy would have invested in Huddersfield if they were in the second division AFTER P&R was abandonded. Hopefully the new structure will see additional investors take a punt with clubs outside SL given the new potential for taking a club from the second or third tier to SL by cast iron performances on the pitch
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Promotion is possible under the 3 x 8 but it's unlikely. The deck I too stacked against the championship clubs both on monies allocated to them and playing battle tested SL clubs with Championship level teams on a continuing fixtures league format rather than a knockout one and done playoff system.
A guaranteed promotion format would have been much better.
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That post confirms that you don't get it.
In your very licence centric opinion, which I reject as correct.
The never-ending League Restructure debate (Many merged threads)
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
What about when they were in the 2nd division on sub 2,000 crowds and barely sneaked promotion by very narrowly beating Fev in the grand final and the avoided relegation on the last day of the season for about four years in a row. Were they a big club then?