OnStrike

Yeah I noticed that too, thought he was good though. More natural rhan some of the other players they have had on

Really good point

Great post. Just finished readIng 'Touch and Go' the history of professional RL in London. The introduction says "The approach (to expansion) has too often been top down, attempting to establish the game as a paying proposition before it has any serious roots in a community....clubs that have no real roots in their community lack staying power." He then goes on to quote Gary Hethrington who says "If I were starting again, I'd do it from the bottom up. Get the game into the schools, start up amateur clubs. And only then try and set up a professional club" This was written in the mid 90s. Everything you said in your post has been known a long time.

That is quite shocking

Yeah I've said the same before. Clubs being separated from their grounds from the 90s on has been a disaster. Without being too dramatic, I'm not sure if we can ever recover fully.

Yeah I think so too. Would love Fev up but have a feeling Toulouse will do it

I listen to a couple of non league football podcasts and stumbled across this. It's a podcast from a volunteer at Nairn County in Scotland explaining how he markets the club. It starts from scratch and explains things step by step. He had no budget and most was done remotely as he lives in Glasgow. He's managed to grow attendances and increase sales etc. For context, Nairn have an average attendance of about 300 I thought If anyone here is involved at any level with their club, or knows someone who is, then this may be an interesting listen and a helpful resource.

That sounds good...

Have Oxford carried on as an amateur club locally like Hemel or are they gone completely?

Cornwall, London and Toulouse are going to do more travel than anyone else, that can't be avoided. If we had 2 divisions 1: Fev, Bradford, Sheffield, Batley, Halifax, York, Keighley, Dewsbury, Hunslet, Doncaster 2 Swinton, Widnes, Oldham, Rochdale, Crusaders, Midlands, Workington, Whitehaven, Barrow, Newcastle And then invite London, Toulouse and Cornwall to play in whichever one they would find easier. Winners of 1 play winners of 2 to go into SL (if they meet criteria etc) Again, loads probably wrong with it, but surely better than trying to keep a 9 team League 1 going

Definitely. You'd be asking Cornwall to go up to Workington twice in a season or vice versa for example

Seems to be a lot of talk about League becoming unsustainable if/when the Skolars pull out. If this is the case, what do people see happening with it? The 9 remaining clubs have to be put somewhere and can't be written off. Given that the Super League clubs don't look like they'll agree a 14 team SL, could we have a 12 team SL and the 23 other clubs split into two 12 and 11 team leagues maybe based on location (lessens travel, more derbies). Winner of those two play off for the promotion spot into SL? That's just off the top of my head, probably loads wrong with it but something will have to be done as a 9 team League 1 is surely unsustainable.

At the risk of sparking off three pages of people having a pop, any idea of the crowd at Huddersfield? I know they were doing a bit to try and get a good crowd today

A week!

There is at all levels. Even in the Championship some clubs are losing around £500,000 a week.

Jenna Brooks often sounds embarrassed by Wilkin on their Sky Sports pod. He was going on about her breast feeding her baby on one of them a while back. She sounded mortified. Hard to listen to

Not from Leigh or ever been there but there is a pub called the Centurion which looks a proper Leigh RL pub. Featured in that Beaumont video on the Our League App

Disgraceful from McDermott. If you want someone out to free up cap space, how about acting like an adult and having that conversation and not acting like a bullying p****? Also, I wonder would Amor reflect that after someone opens up about an obviously difficult period in their life and how difficult it was for their family, saying that sometimes you need to your 'big boy pants on' is out of order. At best it was insensitive at worst it was ignorant and rude. I'm sure he didn't mean it that was and I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. But a man has just come on your podcast, described himself pretty much being bullied/intimidated, being in tears, the deep impact on his mother and his relationship with his kids and you reply that 'sometimes in sport you need to put your big boy pants on'? Amor is better than that surely.

Cringe? I don't see it that way at all. We all go on about the low profile of the game, this kind of stuff raises the profile of clubs with younger people.

Exactly what we want clubs doing

Seems like a very important point too that makes alot of other things possible

Or maybe Stevenage!

Nice one...didn't realise that

Yeah apologies, misread that. I'm in Stevenage and Wakefield, Leeds and Cas are probably easiest for me. Getting to Wimbledon would be a fast train into Finsbury Park, Vic Line to Stockwell, Northern to Tooting then a bus up to Plough Lane. Do-able but not exactly easy. Hopefully they can get local people interested. If they can build links with the supporters associations that built AFC Wimbledon from nothing, they'll have a wealth of experience to tap into

Ah, I obviously misread that