The Phantom Horseman

Sky Sports have a lot to answer for in that regard in my view. It had been either RL or RU forever until Sky decided it was either Rugby (ie union) or Super League.

Yep, I and others went on about it over and over and both factors remain extremely controversial as far as I'm concerned. As I've said many times, it's not an anti-Bradford thing - I've pointed out on numerous occasions that I don't think it's fair that they get no IMG credit for their academy, for instance - but given the stated aim of the Catchment Area was "To maximise growth of the sport in the largest markets to generate new fan bases," it would have been both more fair and more effective to frame those points around actual attendances, with a weighting given to lower-league teams. Wakefield had a much higher average attendance in the Championship (5.5k) than Bradford had and that translated into a SL home average of around 8,000, but the Catchment Area gradings give Bradford 1.5 points compared to 0.5 for Wakefield (and Castleford who also tend to get gates in the 7k+ average most years), at the end of the day that extra point is possibly going to have made the difference between Bradford being promoted or not, but is that IMG grading likely to be justifed by their gates next season? We'll see. There are other issues with the IMG scoring that have arisen with time - the wholly nebulous finance area, for example - but the two I mentioned were obvious from day 1.

Agree 100%with this, there has been a lot of information posted on here lately that is clearly third-hand at best, I'm sure all of it is well-meaning and I don't doubt for a moment that plenty of it is true in terms of our financial situation, it's pretty obvious we're in a grim situation. But there's a danger of people reacting to everything posted on here as if it's confirmed fact when some of it fits under the banner of "I've been reliably informed that...". In particular, it's probably worth repeating the perennial sound advice not to accuse individual people (or make insinuations) of financial malpractice on a public forum unless there's a published judicial verdict that backs that up.

It won't be just for the sake of £120,000. For a start, the wage bill for September and October would probably come to a similar figure, and that's before taking into account other creditors.

Fans are fickle at all levels of the game, but in particular with clubs that have enjoyed a degree of success and then struggle a bit.

Alternatively, one of the "journalists" read people on this forum speculating that Hardman was going to be the coach and published it as "rumoured to be" happening.

Can you expand on this?

There have been a lot of similar comments on here and other social media recently...just a couple of thoughts about that. Firstly MC has released two statements in the last fortnight, both of which have stated that he is looking into the club's financial position, and both stating that he would provide more updates when possible, but also that this might take some time. Secondly...he might not be in a position to say much at all given that he will be receiving lots of contact from creditors (including HMRC), players, and agents as well as perhaps sponsors and the press at the moment. There may be very strong logistical reasons why the club can't provide much in way of updates at the moment or indeed for a while.

Two posts separated by just 5 days, I wish someone would screw me over by paying me 10s of thousands a month...

Well done Toulouse who shut York down very well, they are a terrier-like team on their day. York were a long way off the dominant team they have been for most of the season. Personally I think these should be the first 2 teams on the list to go into SL next year but it does highlight once again in my opinion the folly of relying on one-off knockout games at the end of a long season as a significant factor in who merits going into a full SL season the following year, I realise it's only 0.25 IMG points as opposed to a winner-takes-all format this year but in my view it's not a good outcome when the clear-cut best team over the regular season risks missing out on the available promotion spot.

Presumably he means Paddy.

Fev's current S & C coach is currently advertising himself on Facebook as looking for a new job, saying "My current club has recently been hit by some severe financial difficulty leading to a high level of uncertainty going into next season meaning all staff and players currently aren’t being paid. As a result I am now actively looking for a new position to start ASAP." Hard not to feel for the players and staff as it must be very tough for them. It's going to be tough for us fans too because this was a particularly likeable group and it's going to be hard seeing the widespread dispersal elsewhere. I'd kind of like the next 2-3 months to be fast-fowarded, I'm sure MC has a plan and at this stage it will be nice to get to January/February and still have a team.

The club gave a breakdown of income and expenditure at the fans' forum a few months ago, and there was certainly more money going out than coming in, which is why Paddy was reported to be putting so much money in. Ticket sales were reported as bringing in less than upkeep and utilities for the stadium, for instance, and attendances have contineud to decline. The club isn't going to be able to sell season tickets for a while you'd presume, and who knows what the current situation is with sponsors.

I'm only guessing here but I'd imagine that part of the issue is that there simply isn't anything like the money available to maintain a squad next year on the same level as this year (ie around £750k) and thus there may be a need to let most of the higher earners, at least, go.

If I ran the Rhinos' social media I would SO be putting out a 21-man squad on all channels right now

To be fair you could have said the same about Wakefield less than 10 years ago when they were regularly using Fev's training facilities and were in talks to ground share at Post Office Road, and that was when Wakefield were getting the thick end of £2m in broadcast money every year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39258431

When did he say that? I don't remember that ever being said and I've watched all the club's interviews this year. What was said in one of the interviews between MV and PH was that we needed to get gates of 3,400 but that was specifically in relation to IMG and it seemed to me like he was saying that's what we needed to bring the 3-year average up to 3,000 to get those extra IMG points. It's certainly true that the gates this year would have been less than anticipated, and probably less than budgeted for, but I'd say there's a lot more to the club's current financial mess than that, as the major debts will have come from the massive spend in 2023 (and 2022) in the failed promotion bid.

Tremndous performance by the ladies to win 20-10 against hitherto-unbeaten London after going 6-0 down inside the first minute having dropped the opening kick off. Thoroughly deserved, and they're back in SL.

The IMG criteria, which will decide the first 12 teams and also reportedly be a major factor in the independent panel's decisions regarding the other 2 places, have been widely available for a long time and can be found here https://www.rugby-league.com/uploads/docs/240326_FINAL_Rugby League Grading Handbook_26Mar2024_FINAL.pdf What seems to be happening is that a lot of fans aren't bothering and are choosing to frame their own interpretation of what they think should be the criteria which inevitably favours their own team.

It's worth pointing out that that article fails to make the distinction between a winding-up petition and a winding-up order, because there's a significant difference.

Perhaps sacked is the wrong word. Do you think he had the option to stay on as head coach though? Anyway, that wasn't quite the point I was trying to make, and I've subsequently seen an earlier piece on their website which indeed did pay tribute to Eccles. I just think he has done an amazing job since he took over in what have often been very trying services and I was surprised to see a piece announcing the new coach without referencing his predecessor at all.

Maybe I'm missing something but I can't help but feel sorry for Mike Eccles here. Not a single mention of him in that piece. Have London even acknowledged that they have sacked him? I know there has been some talk of his returning to a backroom role but he's done a remarkable job during the last 2-3 years keeping the club going under very trying circumstances and yet seems to have been shunted out without fanfare.

Here's my take on this for what it's worth. When it's a legitimate news story, fine. I think most of us would get that, and I think most of us Fev fans feel uncomfortable, to say the least, about some of the very things you have written about. I'm not saying we should bury our heads in the sand or ignore bad news. The issue for me is that the ONLY way a club like us can be deemed worthy of a legitimate news story is if it's bad news. When that happens, we suddenly become newsworthy, the rest of the time we are completely invisible. Same probably applies to other lower-league clubs too. I'll give you some examples. Just over ten years ago, there was a news story that could potentially have transcended the pocket-sized world of rugby league. A RL club from a population of around 15k - yes, Featherstone - was responsible for a remarkable story that caused a transformation to their ground. A number of volunteers (colloquially known as the Stand Gang) dismantled some dormant stands from the defunct Scarborough football club, transported them piece by piece 70+ miles to Featherstone, and rebuilt them as two new stands, transforming the ground. Many of the guys who contributed to this were pensioners, they were basically Fev fans with specific tradesmen's skills who volunteered their labour for their local community club. This could have been a story that created a movie or a TV series, but it really didn't get the attention in the media it deserved, presumably because, hey, Fev were a second tier club. Meanwhile, the two clubs closest to Fev, both of whom were in SL, were repeatedly flouting the minimum standards guidelines for grounds, and yet this received very little media attention - it was only with the arrival of IMG and actual accountability for grounds (up to a point!) that the media showed any interest. Then let's look at funding for Championship clubs. About seven or eight years ago, there seemed to be a realisation that some of the Championship clubs were just as capable on and off the field as a few of the lower-performing SL clubs, but the broadcast money was helping the existing SL clubs maintain the status quo. There was a brief attempt to balance this, and at one stage from memory the clubs that finished in the top 2 of the Championship were getting £700k plus (almost half of what the SL clubs were getting at the time I think) to give the more ambitious Championship clubs a chance of closing the gap. But what has happened over the last few years is that the funding for non-SL clubs has been decimated, almost in the literal sense of the word. I don't know what the exact figure Championship clubs receive, because nobody in the RL media seems interested in finding out and writing a story about it, but in percentage terms they have suffered massive decreases in relation to the decreases SL clubs have suffered. Sure, perhaps the tail shouldn't wag the dog, but it's received next to no attention in the RL media. Fev will, I suspect from reading the tea-leaves, be getting some more attention from people in the RL media in the coming days. But here's what I'd ask John and other journalists, if they're going to write about us: Can you point us to, say, your match reviews of Featherstone games this season, or some features on the players? Who do you think have been the standout players at the club this season? What do you think of our tactical approach this season? For instance, the story about how the coaching staff chose to rejig the line-up in an almost unheard of situation where a team has lost all its half backs and all its hookers might be a fascinating one for anyone who looked into it. If the answer to that is, Fev are a second-tier club and aren't interesting enough to our readers to cover, that's fine. But you then need to understand why it might become annoying to fans to find that we're suddenly interesting and "saleable" to cover - in other words, you can make money out of writing about the club - when there is bad news.