Joe Aitcheson

Ike once told me that the fee was £11,000 plus the price of a bottle of whisky ( hence £2 and 10 shillings) to create a new world record… chairman Tom’s idea!

Blimey, for all the fuss I thought it must be a Hamas flag calling for the destruction of Israel !!

What sort of flag and where?

I reckon the reason you thought we had scored 100 points was because the ref started seeing non existent forward passes in the last 10 minutes, so we wouldn’t get to 100. But hey, we all have bad days, look at us now! My worst ever game was my only ever rugby union match in 1967, South of Scotland v NZ All Blacks, it was pathetic ( and that was the All Blacks and they won by 40 points!) but it was a compulsory school trip. My best ever came a week later, when Cumberland beat a full strength Australia 17-15 at Derwent Park, a week before the 1st test on that Ashes trip. When I told my PE teacher about the vast gap in class between the 2 games, the bigot made my life hell, but that’s rugger union people for you.

How sad , but how typical. He wasn’t fit to lace Boxer’s boots.

Ruck….. a stupid rugger union word that should never be heard in rugby league.

Paul Charlton, best full back I’ve ever seen.

How typically arrogant and ignorant of the average rugger fan.

It’s a great shame when we lose any club, but the Skolars’ decision to step down has to mean a restructuring below SL, but if you do the obvious and combine the championship with L1, how do you produce a fixture list for 23 clubs who require 26 games? One way would be to have each club play the rest once and have 4 extra fixtures with local teams to you, to produce derbies? Another way would be to go back to the days of one division in the whole league ( pre mid 70s) where for instance my club Workington played all the other Cumbrian and Lancs teams home and away, plus 4 Yorkshire or “eastern “ teams to get 34 fixtures. The problem there was that sometimes an eastern team or 2 might be reclassified as western to even up the 2 sides. If that format returned, looking at the teams below SL, would say Keighley and Newcastle be happy about being put into the western half? Its a bit of a minefield, but something needs to be done, and for certain a L1 of 9 clubs is not sustainable.

You’re right Ian, I’m listening from Scotland and the commentary is abysmal. I’m afraid that Walshy is having a bad day ( sorry John) and Joe Kirkup ( presumably) isn’t miked up correctly. There are long periods of crowd noise and nothing else.

Good riddance to him then, if that’s the limit of his ambitions.

Yes Bob, with Ian Wright and Eric Bell.

Nah, he’s not as bad as our original Lord Lucan, that centre from Oldham called Mark Lord, a mate of Ray Ashton.

Are you trying to be offensive, comparing Cumbrian RL fans to the maggots from rugger union?

Yes indeed, by defrauding the Exchequer out of PAYE, NIC &VAT, which gave them the finance. And also by getting sponsors to “reward” their players.

When was rugger union ever amateur, ffs?

We quite possibly did Wolford6, I was an open side prop or loose forward ( ahead of my time, as I lost a lot of weight in my 3rd year!). I can recall one game at Bradford played in about 2 inches of snow, it was bitter mate.

I recall playing for Lancaster Uni away at Sheffield Uni in 1973 or thereabouts. I hadn’t taken out my denture before going on the field, so looked around and saw Fred on the touch line and went over to ask him to keep it for me. “No problem” he said. When I got it back afterwards, I thanked him… then added “ mind you, whenever I’ve seen you referee up at Workington, you’ve been rubbish!” He just laughed, a proper gentleman!

Or, League 1 could just have its own cup competition??? Format to be decided.

That’s red wine for you, Griff !

Sorry, I dated to play rugby league at uni, not the dark side

You don’t know me so I’ll forgive your cynicism, but I’ve had 2 life bans from rugger union, first from daring to play rugger union over the age of 18 at uni in 1972 after enduring rugger at a grammar school…and secondly for becoming a director of my local pro RL club in 1982. Both times the rugger union had to rescind the bans, firstly to continue receiving Sports council grants in the mid 80s and secondly in 1995 when they stopped being shamateur and went openly professional. But I’ve never received an apology from “ twickers” so still consider myself banned, my proudest achievement in sport. So I’ve earned my views.

We do Irish, but we shouldn’t. We should raise merry hell at each and every perceived slight.

Some things never change , do they?