Rowan

Just wondering - any news on players, signings, coach, trials, spectator interest? Anything really.

Remember him well- both as a bit of an er .. " stiff arm specialist" and a referee. I was covering the game when he sin-binned Ellery and then changed it to a sending-off during the half-time break. Best line, though, is the chat with Alex Murphy.

I see we start with a home game (first time in about ten years I'm told). Sheffield Eagles on January 30th. Full fixtures out on Monday.

Whose money are they spending?

Surely it is only in the third tier semi-professional Rugby League that somebody can come along, willing to spend their own money to bring the sport to a place where there are not a dozen or more clubs already scrambling around to attract the same customers only to be told it can't be done and anyway we don't want you breaking into our private little world because you are too faraway. Of course it may flop just like a few others in the past and League One clubs will have to fork out a few extra pounds to travel to Cornwall (they wont have to travel twice ALLTHE WAY up to Cumbria next season. but they are not about to raid the diminishing player pool (at least not by much) so let's give it a go and give Perez and Co a chance. If all the doom merchants get their way and it does fail in the end it is hardly going to be earth shattering - just confirmation that the game is for North of England and Southern France and that the elite (currently called Super League) is nothing more than The Trans-Pennine and District League.(plus French guests).

Just as a bit of light relief I dug out a match day programme of Manchester Knights from July 20, 2000. It was for an RL Conference Match (eventually to become National League Three) against Rotherham Giants. At the time Birmingham Bulldogs with 10 wins from 11 games were top of the Western Division and the Composite Table. The Competition also included Hemel, St. Albans, Ipswich, Coventry, Leicester, Wolverhampton, Chester, Nottingham, Derby, North, South and West London, St. Albans - a total of 24 clubs in all. Don't know how many (if any other than Hemel and Coventry still exist but it was backed by the RFL at the time.

Just asking: How many Super League clubs are averaging 8-9,000? Wakefield, Castleford, Huddersfield, Leigh. HKR?

Salford - even with a team of all-stars of some of the best players in the game under Brian Snape- have never averaged 8 - 9,000 at The Willows so when Ray Cashmere tries to explain the reasons for their plight and for moving out of the AJ Bell to a smaller ground he is told "the club must try harder." If A Grand Final and a Cup Final appearance in the last two years can't encourage people to watch the Red Devils what can they do to "try harder?"

Like you Michael I failed to go but, on a lighter note, maybe the fact that so few turned up is an indication that we believe the Chairman and his board are doing a good job and we have nothing to moan about.

Sorry folks, but before Newsquest bought the T & S and the NW E Mail, the Furness paper had a sports department of a Spots Editor and three reporters plus contacts providing reports from all the local sports scene, Today they don't have a single sports reporter and not even an office in Barrow. Don't expect things to improve under this group.

Request to the powers that be in Super League -can we please play next season's Grand final without a referee and make all decisions via a link with this forum. That way the game can be decided by majority vote and will probably last until Wednesday. For heaven's sake you moaning miseries - if you didn't enjoy that game then go and watch something else and stop complaining about he referee.

Won't go on principle? What principle is that? I Thought this is the Super League Europe Grand Final - not Super League M62 District League Grand Final.

The Harry Sunderland Trophy was introduced in 1965 to be awarded to the Man of the Match at the Championship Final, then the Premiership Final and then the Super League Grand Final as these the major finals outside the Challenge Cup and as a RL award to go alongside the Lance Todd Trophy as a MoM prize in the season's top games The trophy was presented to the Rugby League by the Rugby League Writers Association and was named after a RL Journalist and Australian Team manager. If it is to be changed then the RLWBA should at least be consulted. I understand it will be presented by Rob Burrow on Saturday. And I doubt whether Harry Sunderland lived long enough to ever hear of Roy Powell, Mr. RigbyLuger.

It doesn't seem to have been mentioned anywhere but the Barrow Ladies team gave their all in a tense Championship Final, going down just 10-6 to Leigh Miners Rangers at Thatto Heath. Better luck next year.

The Charity Shield was first staged on August 25th 1985 as an "event" between the League Champions (Hull KR) and Challenge Cup winners (Wigan) and was played at the Douglas Bowl on the Isle of Man and was sponsored by the local brewery Okells as a curtain-raiser to the new season. The game attracted a crowd of some 3,500 to the Bowl and the First Rodstock War of the Roses took place three weeks later at Central Park, Wigan. The Charity Shield eventually moved away from the island and taken on the road - Gateshead International Stadium was the first stopover as I recall - but the concept was killed off after ten years, coincidentally, I'm sure, with the arrival of Super League. Which, did not find time for such diversiona attracting attendances of a few thousand. The Wars of the Roses didn't last quite as long because Yorkshire, under the coaching of Peter Fox,who won all the four matches I believe seemed to take it far more seriously than the teams from the other side of the hill. A mixture of Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria was not quite the same!