Do York have SL potential?

[West Leeds Riviera]

Good crowds in L1 could they make it to SL one day and be a success?

[Scubby]

14 minutes ago, West Leeds Riviera said:

Good crowds in L1 could they make it to SL one day and be a success?

York could easily be as big as Wakefield or Salford or Huddersfield in terms of crowds and commercial success. We don't even know what is expected of a SL club anymore?

One thing for sure is that the Knights have brought a buzz back to rugby followers in the city. Should be a very exciting season for them and a new stadium on the horizon is a great incentive to climb the leagues.

[Manx RL]

10 minutes ago, Scubby said:

York could easily be as big as Wakefield or Salford or Huddersfield in terms of crowds

Can you set that bar lower?

?

[Scubby]

6 minutes ago, Manx RL said:

Can you set that bar lower?

?

Well I understand the new stadium they are building is only around 7-8k so they are hardly going to be posting 10k crowds any time soon.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, West Leeds Riviera said:

Good crowds in L1 could they make it to SL one day and be a success?

Yes and yes.

York is a decent sized city with a population of around 200,000 with obviously more in the metropolitan area. Plus the local football side isn’t upto much. Not so sure if York has a professional union side??

[mickhornet]

Donny at the Keepmoat should go higher.

[Hopping Mad]

2 hours ago, walter sobchak said:

 Not so sure if York has a professional union side??

York does have a rugby union team. Nice little set-up at Clifton Park. On a good day, they attract 150 spectators. York will be part-time - maybe even amateurs. They are strolling Yorkshire One (level seven) this season. Twenty wins from 21 league games. This Saturday, they travel to Droitwich for the RFU Intermediate Cup semi-final. Even with a trip to Twickers up for grabs, York are struggling to fill a single coach of supporters. I'd suggest York RUFC don't - and never will - have any impact on York RLFC.

With the new stadium coming, and the ailing, up-for-sale football club in the doldrums, this season and next is a great opportunity for the Knights to attract new (and lapsed) supporters.

[jayemm]

9 hours ago, Scubby said:

Well I understand the new stadium they are building is only around 7-8k so they are hardly going to be posting 10k crowds any time soon.

The design of the stadium is such that the capacity can be  increased to 10k in the future if required. 

[Yorkie44]

Could York make an SL team, probably yes. Should York be an SL team, for me no. I think SL teams should be big profitable money making clubs with crowds upwards of 10,000 with good commercial arms and a recognisable brand, although that vision is a long way off and probably never likely to come into fruition. The game is held back by the clubs pinioning themselves and those who have the potential to grow.

 

Regarding York, I would love the Knights to be an SL side, there is no better place in the country (proven) and for me, the world to live in or visit, but as I have written above I just don’t think a York club would have the potential the be a viable ‘super’ club. I think they could and should be one of the top championship clubs. Realistically I think we could attract crowds of 3000-4000 in the top echelons of the 2^nd division and be in and around the top of the table each year, truthfully I think we should be bigger than Batley, Dewsbury and probably even Fev but we have a long way to go before we reach those levels. I would love to be proven wrong and in a decades time we are threatening to outgrow the new stadium and happily competing in SL. For now though we need to get out of League 1 in the next couple of years and continue to grow our crowd and bring back our reserves / academy which has produced some cracking players overs the past few years.

 

Team wise, I think we have the potential to go up this year and in James Ford we have an excellent coach who has a keen eye for good young (and even the right ‘experienced’) players and the nous to bring them on and help them fulfil their potential.

 

Club wise, we are in a very good place in fact we are in Nirvana to where we were 2 years ago. I believe in John Flatman we have a very astute owner who knows where he wants to take the club and the potential of it. We have of course this boards own Gav Wilson, pushing our brand and doing an incredible job of it too. There is also the foundation run by Neil Gulliver and Adam Prentis who are doing some fantastic work in and around the schools of York and into North Yorkshire. I am also sure everyone else involved with the club are working extremely hard and most importantly all seem to have the same remit and goals for the club.   

 

As I have mentioned above I really do feel we need to reintroduce the academy / reserves (the game as a whole need to), we have had some great success here in previous years with the likes of Greg Minikin, Kriss Brining, Ed Smith, Harry Carter et al coming through recently Fordy has dipped into the amateur game unearthing star forward Joe Porter and this year half back Liam Jackson who has bags of potential, he also has given trails to other quality York lads such as Matt Chilton but rather than keep them hanging on and not playing the game he has released them back to their clubs where they are monitored and I believe still in touch about their progress. There is lots of prospective pro’s in York in fact you could probably make competitive League 1 side out of the talent running around with the amateur clubs in the York & District. Over the years there have been a lot of York juniors go to SL academies in Hull, Leeds, Cas, Bradford etc. although some return to the game after been ‘let go’ a lot do not return to playing and are lost to the game, these are the players York need to be picking up and been local I believe they will be treated better and encouraged a lot more to stay with the game rather than just be dumped. There are 4 amateur clubs in the city, Acorn, Heworth, Lokos and New Earswick as well as other clubs in the area in which the Knights should be looking to, Catterick, Scarborough, Sherburn, Selby, Wetherby and also they should be trying to poach the best RU talent from the area too where there are many good clubs in York, Malton, Pocklington, Harrogate, Wharfedale etc.   

 

Crowd wise, I think we are at about 1000-1200 average and I think we can mobilise 1500-2000 for bigger games and surpass 2500-3000 for the biggest games, this I believe is no way near our potential. There are many rugby fans and the city who do not attend every game or even every other, I myself are one of these people. I probably go to maybe 5-6 games a season then there are players at my amateur club that go maybe once or twice or even never at all, and mine is by far the smallest amateur club in the city so this will be replicated tenfold at the other clubs. Then you have the fans of SL clubs in the city, I know of many that go to Leeds, Hull, Cas and even Bradford religiously, the club need to somehow capture these people before they get tied into clubs out of the city. As for potential fans York has a population of just under 200,000 the nearby Selby District 80,000, Ryedale 50,000, Scarborough around 60,000, Harrogate and District 80,000. North Yorkshire as a whole is around 600,000 added to York’s population that gives us a county wide 800,000 (I do realise a lot of these places are nearer to other clubs than York) to go at so there is the potential to grow.

 

So to recap York easily has the potential to be an SL club in their current guise, I just think that we don’t have the potential to be what an SL club should be, that is definitely not to say we shouldn’t try to be.

[thepimp007]

49 minutes ago, Yorkie44 said:

Could York make an SL team, probably yes. Should York be an SL team, for me no. I think SL teams should be big profitable money making clubs with crowds upwards of 10,000 with good commercial arms and a recognisable brand, although that vision is a long way off and probably never likely to come into fruition. The game is held back by the clubs pinioning themselves and those who have the potential to grow.

 

 

 

Regarding York, I would love the Knights to be an SL side, there is no better place in the country (proven) and for me, the world to live in or visit, but as I have written above I just don’t think a York club would have the potential the be a viable ‘super’ club. I think they could and should be one of the top championship clubs. Realistically I think we could attract crowds of 3000-4000 in the top echelons of the 2^nd division and be in and around the top of the table each year, truthfully I think we should be bigger than Batley, Dewsbury and probably even Fev but we have a long way to go before we reach those levels. I would love to be proven wrong and in a decades time we are threatening to outgrow the new stadium and happily competing in SL. For now though we need to get out of League 1 in the next couple of years and continue to grow our crowd and bring back our reserves / academy which has produced some cracking players overs the past few years.

 

 

 

Team wise, I think we have the potential to go up this year and in James Ford we have an excellent coach who has a keen eye for good young (and even the right ‘experienced’) players and the nous to bring them on and help them fulfil their potential.

 

 

 

Club wise, we are in a very good place in fact we are in Nirvana to where we were 2 years ago. I believe in John Flatman we have a very astute owner who knows where he wants to take the club and the potential of it. We have of course this boards own Gav Wilson, pushing our brand and doing an incredible job of it too. There is also the foundation run by Neil Gulliver and Adam Prentis who are doing some fantastic work in and around the schools of York and into North Yorkshire. I am also sure everyone else involved with the club are working extremely hard and most importantly all seem to have the same remit and goals for the club.   

 

 

 

As I have mentioned above I really do feel we need to reintroduce the academy / reserves (the game as a whole need to), we have had some great success here in previous years with the likes of Greg Minikin, Kriss Brining, Ed Smith, Harry Carter et al coming through recently Fordy has dipped into the amateur game unearthing star forward Joe Porter and this year half back Liam Jackson who has bags of potential, he also has given trails to other quality York lads such as Matt Chilton but rather than keep them hanging on and not playing the game he has released them back to their clubs where they are monitored and I believe still in touch about their progress. There is lots of prospective pro’s in York in fact you could probably make competitive League 1 side out of the talent running around with the amateur clubs in the York & District. Over the years there have been a lot of York juniors go to SL academies in Hull, Leeds, Cas, Bradford etc. although some return to the game after been ‘let go’ a lot do not return to playing and are lost to the game, these are the players York need to be picking up and been local I believe they will be treated better and encouraged a lot more to stay with the game rather than just be dumped. There are 4 amateur clubs in the city, Acorn, Heworth, Lokos and New Earswick as well as other clubs in the area in which the Knights should be looking to, Catterick, Scarborough, Sherburn, Selby, Wetherby and also they should be trying to poach the best RU talent from the area too where there are many good clubs in York, Malton, Pocklington, Harrogate, Wharfedale etc.   

 

 

 

Crowd wise, I think we are at about 1000-1200 average and I think we can mobilise 1500-2000 for bigger games and surpass 2500-3000 for the biggest games, this I believe is no way near our potential. There are many rugby fans and the city who do not attend every game or even every other, I myself are one of these people. I probably go to maybe 5-6 games a season then there are players at my amateur club that go maybe once or twice or even never at all, and mine is by far the smallest amateur club in the city so this will be replicated tenfold at the other clubs. Then you have the fans of SL clubs in the city, I know of many that go to Leeds, Hull, Cas and even Bradford religiously, the club need to somehow capture these people before they get tied into clubs out of the city. As for potential fans York has a population of just under 200,000 the nearby Selby District 80,000, Ryedale 50,000, Scarborough around 60,000, Harrogate and District 80,000. North Yorkshire as a whole is around 600,000 added to York’s population that gives us a county wide 800,000 (I do realise a lot of these places are nearer to other clubs than York) to go at so there is the potential to grow.

 

 

 

So to recap York easily has the potential to be an SL club in their current guise, I just think that we don’t have the potential to be what an SL club should be, that is definitely not to say we shouldn’t try to be.

 

Great insight to where you are at York at the moment. Obviously I was over at Acorn for our game saturday, not sure if it was the TV cameras that boosted it but the club was rammed (overheard someone moaning they stuck 40p on price of a pint not sure if true or not) and plenty going over the bar.

The thing I did notice though was a lack of junior sides at Acorn on their fixture board. I know Heworth have always had decent amount of kids as have New Earswick, not sure if its just a tough spell or whether they normally run with that amount of juniors. All in all though a lot of people all enjoying the rugby.

I do think talks of SL are very premature put the work being put in by the likes of Gav Wilson is obvious to see and i'm sure you would comfortably cope with going  up and competing should you carry on progressing

[terrywebbisgod]

1 hour ago, Yorkie44 said:

Could York make an SL team, probably yes. Should York be an SL team, for me no. I think SL teams should be big profitable money making clubs with crowds upwards of 10,000 with good commercial arms and a recognisable brand, although that vision is a long way off and probably never likely to come into fruition. The game is held back by the clubs pinioning themselves and those who have the potential to grow.

 

 

 

Regarding York, I would love the Knights to be an SL side, there is no better place in the country (proven) and for me, the world to live in or visit, but as I have written above I just don’t think a York club would have the potential the be a viable ‘super’ club. I think they could and should be one of the top championship clubs. Realistically I think we could attract crowds of 3000-4000 in the top echelons of the 2^nd division and be in and around the top of the table each year, truthfully I think we should be bigger than Batley, Dewsbury and probably even Fev but we have a long way to go before we reach those levels. I would love to be proven wrong and in a decades time we are threatening to outgrow the new stadium and happily competing in SL. For now though we need to get out of League 1 in the next couple of years and continue to grow our crowd and bring back our reserves / academy which has produced some cracking players overs the past few years.

 

 

 

Team wise, I think we have the potential to go up this year and in James Ford we have an excellent coach who has a keen eye for good young (and even the right ‘experienced’) players and the nous to bring them on and help them fulfil their potential.

 

 

 

Club wise, we are in a very good place in fact we are in Nirvana to where we were 2 years ago. I believe in John Flatman we have a very astute owner who knows where he wants to take the club and the potential of it. We have of course this boards own Gav Wilson, pushing our brand and doing an incredible job of it too. There is also the foundation run by Neil Gulliver and Adam Prentis who are doing some fantastic work in and around the schools of York and into North Yorkshire. I am also sure everyone else involved with the club are working extremely hard and most importantly all seem to have the same remit and goals for the club.   

 

 

 

As I have mentioned above I really do feel we need to reintroduce the academy / reserves (the game as a whole need to), we have had some great success here in previous years with the likes of Greg Minikin, Kriss Brining, Ed Smith, Harry Carter et al coming through recently Fordy has dipped into the amateur game unearthing star forward Joe Porter and this year half back Liam Jackson who has bags of potential, he also has given trails to other quality York lads such as Matt Chilton but rather than keep them hanging on and not playing the game he has released them back to their clubs where they are monitored and I believe still in touch about their progress. There is lots of prospective pro’s in York in fact you could probably make competitive League 1 side out of the talent running around with the amateur clubs in the York & District. Over the years there have been a lot of York juniors go to SL academies in Hull, Leeds, Cas, Bradford etc. although some return to the game after been ‘let go’ a lot do not return to playing and are lost to the game, these are the players York need to be picking up and been local I believe they will be treated better and encouraged a lot more to stay with the game rather than just be dumped. There are 4 amateur clubs in the city, Acorn, Heworth, Lokos and New Earswick as well as other clubs in the area in which the Knights should be looking to, Catterick, Scarborough, Sherburn, Selby, Wetherby and also they should be trying to poach the best RU talent from the area too where there are many good clubs in York, Malton, Pocklington, Harrogate, Wharfedale etc.   

 

 

 

Crowd wise, I think we are at about 1000-1200 average and I think we can mobilise 1500-2000 for bigger games and surpass 2500-3000 for the biggest games, this I believe is no way near our potential. There are many rugby fans and the city who do not attend every game or even every other, I myself are one of these people. I probably go to maybe 5-6 games a season then there are players at my amateur club that go maybe once or twice or even never at all, and mine is by far the smallest amateur club in the city so this will be replicated tenfold at the other clubs. Then you have the fans of SL clubs in the city, I know of many that go to Leeds, Hull, Cas and even Bradford religiously, the club need to somehow capture these people before they get tied into clubs out of the city. As for potential fans York has a population of just under 200,000 the nearby Selby District 80,000, Ryedale 50,000, Scarborough around 60,000, Harrogate and District 80,000. North Yorkshire as a whole is around 600,000 added to York’s population that gives us a county wide 800,000 (I do realise a lot of these places are nearer to other clubs than York) to go at so there is the potential to grow.

 

 

 

So to recap York easily has the potential to be an SL club in their current guise, I just think that we don’t have the potential to be what an SL club should be, that is definitely not to say we shouldn’t try to be.

 

The Knights used to come to Sherburn High School but when the club went belly up that obviously stopped.

Nothing since the clubs resurrection though.

They were also supposed to be running a Category 3 Academy at York College in the next academic year but for whatever reason that fell through.

[Yorkie44]

45 minutes ago, thepimp007 said:

Great insight to where you are at York at the moment. Obviously I was over at Acorn for our game saturday, not sure if it was the TV cameras that boosted it but the club was rammed (overheard someone moaning they stuck 40p on price of a pint not sure if true or not) and plenty going over the bar.

The thing I did notice though was a lack of junior sides at Acorn on their fixture board. I know Heworth have always had decent amount of kids as have New Earswick, not sure if its just a tough spell or whether they normally run with that amount of juniors. All in all though a lot of people all enjoying the rugby.

I do think talks of SL are very premature put the work being put in by the likes of Gav Wilson is obvious to see and i'm sure you would comfortably cope with going  up and competing should you carry on progressing

Yes NEAB and Heworth have I believe a full complement of juniors, with Heworth winning best junior sports club in York this year I've heard.

York Acorn when I was a junior many years ago always had a full junior section, although they don't now they only have a couple of age groups missing and I am sure they are trying to rectify it. I'm not sure the juniors are in full swing yet so perhaps that is why they didn't have many up?

For my club, York Lokomotive been realtivley new (and fairly nomadic), we are yet to have any juniors we did have our Little Lokos (u7s-u9s) which was quite sucessful but due to a number of reasons we had to knock it on the head, we are hopefully trying to get it back up and running this year. We have also tried to start an u14s but again this is proving difficult, although we won't give up.

[Chris Taylor]

53 minutes ago, terrywebbisgod said:

The Knights used to come to Sherburn High School but when the club went belly up that obviously stopped.

Nothing since the clubs resurrection though.

They were also supposed to be running a Category 3 Academy at York College in the next academic year but for whatever reason that fell through.

Did they? I never saw that at SHS.

[terrywebbisgod]

8 minutes ago, Chris Taylor said:

Did they? I never saw that at SHS.

Certainly in the past 5-6 years.

[Chris Taylor]

1 minute ago, terrywebbisgod said:

Certainly in the past 5-6 years.

That's good! Sherburn is an untapped area and in the middle of so many clubs.

[Yorkie44]

1 hour ago, terrywebbisgod said:

The Knights used to come to Sherburn High School but when the club went belly up that obviously stopped.

Nothing since the clubs resurrection though.

They were also supposed to be running a Category 3 Academy at York College in the next academic year but for whatever reason that fell through.

I am sure the Knights foundation will have plans to get back to the outlying towns and villages, again it's a combination of time, resource, volunteers and funds that will be holding them back not willing.

 

The York College Academy was pretty successful when it was up and running. It was another victim of the Knights demise though. I know York College are hoping to acquire the funding to get it back up and running. As we are wanting to use the pitch which will be right in front of our changing rooms, which will be much better than using the school pitch through the hedge. We were supposed to find out this week. 

[Tre Cool]

They could be a very strong club with a bit of investment.  Certainly a better proposition than the likes of Sheffield or Doncaster imo.  Much more local respect and awareness of RL, a decent amateur scene and less of a soccer town too.  With a population of 200k in a relatively isolated part of Yorkshire it should be much easier to attract locals to games too.

[fieldofclothofgold]

York is my Favourite City and I don't think I'm alone in that . I used to love going to Clarence Street and they had a decent following in those days .It would need a great deal of effort and promotion to get it ready for a SL push ,but imagine if Toronto got going[ and ive still to be convinced about them] and maybe NewYork too promoting their games away for their fans to visit the historic city of York ? .York should be a SL club ,but its still a dream 

[fairfolly]

York along with lots more clubs need to stop using D/R and play there own home grown players if the want to progress.There is no way any club can make progress using other clubs player.You never know when they can call them back,risk losing your own players for being messed about.One week you are in next week you are out because x is coming from x for a month.i.e Sheffield.

Time to scrap this D/R garbage.Then we will see which clubs are progressing and which are failing.York have always produced good players they should not have to rely on D/R.Homegrown is the way to go.

[davet]

29 minutes ago, fairfolly said:

York along with lots more clubs need to stop using D/R and play there own home grown players if the want to progress.

Really??

You don't think York don't play their own players??

Last couple of seasons they have developed and sold their own players to SL clubs, and there is currently further interest in the current squad form SL.

York as a club over the last 10 years have had a lot of players move on from them and progress to high championship / low SL level and i think this has become very recognisable to the wider RL community.

DR is a constant issue, but without it i am sure a lot of teams could be a lot worse off.

Anyhow this is NOT ANOTHER DR thread, it's about if and how York can further develop under their still new regime.

[DEANO]

Everyone has the potential. All you need is a rich backer

[fairfolly]

I have already posted that York have always developed their own players.Of course some move on to higher leagues,that happens to all lower league clubs. The question was " can York progress to S.L.".My answer was not whilst they are using D.R. How do you measure whether your club are progressing when you are using other clubs players? This is not specifically aimed at York all clubs using D.R. are in the same boat.So in answer to can York progress to S.L. my answer is quite simple at the moment they have no chance.That is of course unless as Deano says they have somebody come in and throw a few million pound at them.

[West Leeds Riviera]

5 hours ago, Tre Cool said:

They could be a very strong club with a bit of investment.  Certainly a better proposition than the likes of Sheffield or Doncaster imo.  Much more local respect and awareness of RL, a decent amateur scene and less of a soccer town too.  With a population of 200k in a relatively isolated part of Yorkshire it should be much easier to attract locals to games too.

I think York could easily establish themselves in the Championship and the new stadium is a big step towards doing that.

Donny army doing too bad I think their on the right track. As for Sheffield the most important thing is their back in Sheffield and have a future there although the clubs starting from scratch more or less

[Steve Slater]

19 hours ago, Scubby said:

Well I understand the new stadium they are building is only around 7-8k so they are hardly going to be posting 10k crowds any time soon.

Neither are Wakey, Huddersfield or Salford, unless they get massive away support coming through the gates. When they play each other lucky to get 4K.

[Mumby Magic]

I was going to start a different thread on a similar line the other week but it was going to be "When 2900 attendance in League 1 is a disappointment". That is of course relating to the Bulls attendance at Keighley the other week. York with heavy marketing attracted 30% more fans through its gates against us. Keighley had loads to market. The on BD postcode derby, 40 years since last competitive game etc and I think they fell flat. I follow both on twitter and get 2/3 tweets from the Knights daily. Game week versus Bulls there was about a handful if that from Keighley.

To revert to the OP - Yes why not