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Living in a rugby league town


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21 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

... This is a slightly drunken musing by the way

I thought they all were!

Except for Saintlass and Parky of course.

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Tre Cool said:

I saw a guy in a Cas Tigers shirt in Tring the other day, I nearly wet myself with excitement.  Sad but true.

I know what you mean. I saw a Wigan RLFC sticker on a hoarding just outside Liverpool Street station in London today and it made my day.

Last year on holiday in menorca we did a coach trip. A guy joined our table at lunch. My heart sank as on holiday I hate small talk with people I don’t know but turned out he was from Leeds and loved RL. My poor partner had to sit through 80mins of rugby talk. We did contrast how normal liking RL was in Yorkshire compared to London. 

Last story - in early 80s I used to watch Reading FC home and away (don’t follow football anymore). We went up to Wigan. Asked where the football ground was and was directed to the RL ground. I don’t think they were taking to ######. 

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19 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

Rugby League has always been a big part of life in Hull and with two clubs there is always someone who you can talk RL with. Now I live somewhere with zero interest in the game means I can't talk to anyone I know about it and when I mention that I watched a game on TV I get a quizzical "you watched Rugby?" response. There have been times when I have worn a Rovers shirt and someone has mistaken it for a Liverpool shirt ?.  I do see the occasional St Helens shirts and when I was going into work the day after the derby the other week I actually saw someone who was wearing a Hull FC shirt.

I wore my Hull FC cycling jersey the other week whilst delivering my charities quarterly mag( I do all 700 by bike), went into one place and the women on reception says, oh you probably won't like me as I support Liverpool! I was thinking WTF, my shirt has Hull FC written on it, no other soccer team has this distinct design, not ever AFAIK, and yet you still mistook me for a nonceball fan.  I told her that it's a rugby league cycling jersey,, "oh right" was her response.

The local free paper gets write ups for the local onion teams and when North Herts Crusaders play they get a few column inches from what I've seen, but there's a lot of cricket, field hockey, tennis, soccer, bowls etc, there's no real big local paper. The biggest town in this side of the county is Stevenage but aside from Stevenage Town the nearest big sporting team is Watford around 25 miles away as the crow flies and Luton town which is in Bedfordshire about 12 miles West. Saracens sometimes get mentioned if they are doing something with some of the local clubs.

There's a lot of connection with the London soccer teams by the local population in Herts, I guess that's due to the older family members who moved out of London to the new towns like Hemel, Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City and when the other smaller/older towns have expanded.

I don't miss chatting RL tbh because I've been here 30 years now and have other interests though always missed playing especially when my condition prevented me from doing so.

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Spent the Majority of my life living in Sydney near Parramatta and the last 19 years in Brisbane.

Rugby League is part of the fabric of life in these two cities.

Talent is secondary to whether players are confident.

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6 hours ago, Tre Cool said:

I saw a guy in a Cas Tigers shirt in Tring the other day, I nearly wet myself with excitement.  Sad but true.

I went to wedding in Tring about 15 years ago. I still wake up in cold sweats thinking of the price of a pint.

TESTICULI AD  BREXITAM.

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6 minutes ago, corvusxiii said:

I went to wedding in Tring about 15 years ago. I still wake up in cold sweats thinking of the price of a pint.

It's become very overpriced of late. But if you want to see extreme wealth harnessed with extreme stupidity, try Berkhamsted. Two Bedroom Victorian Terraced House £400,000.00 !!!!! Normal people with normal wages, whose families are from these areas, are being squeezed out. ?

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Talking of football/ rugby attitudes, this guy (Cas)was outside a London pub after the cc final when a local asked if he'd won.

No, we weren't playing. We were just watching.

What!!! Well who won then?

Them in there with the red shirts.

Well who are those with the blue shirts?

Them who lossed.

WHAT!!!!!

Might have been the same guy was in South Wales following the Welsh/Cas connection of the time. Ended up in a bleary pub being confronted by some local when in the bog. A few moments later a gang turned up suggesting:

1, leave him alone, he's one of ours.

2, you might want to consider moving on while you are still able to walk.

There were no further problems.

TESTICULI AD  BREXITAM.

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11 minutes ago, Hemel Stag said:

It's become very overpriced of late. But if you want to see extreme wealth harnessed with extreme stupidity, try Berkhamsted. Two Bedroom Victorian Terraced House £400,000.00 !!!!! Normal people with normal wages, whose families are from these areas, are being squeezed out. ?

Thats the place that Billy the #### met the Anglo Saxons I think. Yes, two speed UK is all the rage these days. Medieval almost.

TESTICULI AD  BREXITAM.

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10 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Christ alive.... Like a sunny utopia.... Can't wait to visit Aus one day. My missus used to live there and never saw a live game... She has been berated for this before you ask

Went in 1988. Rugby (RL) players on breakfast tv! Not for eating babies etc! 

Can remember reading the Sydney Sun? on the Monday and finding just a few to articles on the back pages. In the middle there was an 8 page pull out of all the weekends matches : metres, penalties, blood groups, scoring passes to the left in the 4th tackle, coefficient of drag,........ unbelievable!

TESTICULI AD  BREXITAM.

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11 minutes ago, corvusxiii said:

It's become very overpriced of late. But if you want to see extreme wealth harnessed with extreme stupidity, try Berkhamsted. Two Bedroom Victorian Terraced House £400,000.00 !!!!! Normal people with normal wages, whose families are from these areas, are being squeezed out. ?

 

11 minutes ago, corvusxiii said:

Thats the place that Billy the #### met the Anglo Saxons I think. Yes, two speed UK is all the rage these days. Medieval almost.

Yes, you are quite correct. Berkhamsted Castle is the place where  the English finally surrendered and died as a unique culture, in the face of the irresistible Norman Onslaught, post Battle of Hastings. The English Army having seen off the Vikings, and enduring a march from Yorkshire to Hastings were in no fit state to take on the world's foremost war machine of the day. Today the castle is a ruin, but a nice place for a picnic, almost next door to the main line railway station.

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7 hours ago, Hemel Stag said:

 

Yes, you are quite correct. Berkhamsted Castle is the place where  the English finally surrendered and died as a unique culture, in the face of the irresistible Norman Onslaught, post Battle of Hastings. The English Army having seen off the Vikings, and enduring a march from Yorkshire to Hastings were in no fit state to take on the world's foremost war machine of the day. Today the castle is a ruin, but a nice place for a picnic, almost next door to the main line railway station.

Used to take my son there when I lived in Watford (rugby league connection - he would sometimes wear a London Harlequins RL top). 

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On 17/07/2019 at 00:24, dixiedean said:

Growing up in Wigan was strange. When I first started going regularly, (c'74) I was considered weird. As an 8 yo I vividly remember being asked by an incredulous classmate "Is it really true you like rugby better than football?" I remember my Dad telling his mate we were off to Central Park. "Fancy a laugh, do you?"

The game really WAS on its backside then. But I went to every game, and every home A team game too. Wigan Athletic were elected to the League in '78 and football became dominant and uber trendy for a while.

I kept going. Even when we went down. And back up again. Meantime, there were some really great St Pats Youth sides emerging, Wane, Lydon, Mike and Andy Gregory, as well as others who didn't make it, who started to get really decent crowds to watch them. Four figure crowds for Amateur u-19s! Widnes picked the best, as the power house of the time. I went to play for Pats under 14s after previously playing in a Union side with 3 future full GB internationals in it.

Then, when Lindsay took over, and Shaun Edwards (the finest player I ever was honoured to share a field with, by a country mile) signed for Wigan, it just kinda exploded. Success led to crowds growing, to more money, to better signings, to every single youth prospect wanting to sign etc, etc. We became not just the best side in the League, but the best club rugby team of either code in the world!

Suddenly every ###### was, and had always been, a bloody expert and die hard fan! I do recommend Paul Wilsons "Best Days of Our Lives" for the full story, if it is still in print.

I recall going to watch Leigh at the old Tattersfield ground of Doncaster in the 1970/71 season, the season that Leigh beat Leeds at Wembley, the turnout that day was in the low hundreds, funnily enough more than half the town descended on Wembley later that year for the CC final, and everyone you talked to as you say had not missed a single game home or away in the whole of that season!

Should Leigh beat Widnes in the 1895 semi a week on Sunday I suspect that they will take over 5000 to Wembley and it will be the same again, if only they would all turn up each and every week.

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3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I recall going to watch Leigh at the old Tattersfield ground of Doncaster in the 1970/71 season, the season that Leigh beat Leeds at Wembley, the turnout that day was in the low hundreds, funnily enough more than half the town descended on Wembley later that year for the CC final, and everyone you talked to as you say had not missed a single game home or away in the whole of that season!

Should Leigh beat Widnes in the 1895 semi a week on Sunday I suspect that they will take over 5000 to Wembley and it will be the same again, if only they would all turn up each and every week.

Its the same in most sports. I followed Reading FC religiously in the 80s and we were struggling on gates of a couple of thousand - somehow managed to get to a Wembley final (the Symod Cup or 'the cup for clubs who can't win any other cups' as we called it) and somehow managed to sale 30,000 tickets. I had no idea where they had all come from and they didn't reappear until we got into the Premier League, by which time I'd switched my allegiance to RL.

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9 hours ago, Hemel Stag said:

 

Yes, you are quite correct. Berkhamsted Castle is the place where  the English finally surrendered and died as a unique culture, in the face of the irresistible Norman Onslaught, post Battle of Hastings. The English Army having seen off the Vikings, and enduring a march from Yorkshire to Hastings were in no fit state to take on the world's foremost war machine of the day. Today the castle is a ruin, but a nice place for a picnic, almost next door to the main line railway station.

We go for picnics there too.  The history of the place completely lost on the kids

I have however played touch rugby with them there and we had other kids join in..... Teaching PTBs and run around plays  to Herts kids! 

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2 hours ago, Reverend Ram said:

How about adding Wood Green as an RL town!! Was in a coffee joint close to Wood Green tube yesterday and they had Skolars flyers on the tables, nice bit of marketing.

I wish. It’s population is bigger than many northern RL towns but we are only getting 350 or so to New River. 

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On 16/07/2019 at 22:18, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

.... This is a slightly drunken musing by the way so ignore this thread if it sounds nonsense

Very good thread  ?  Inspired :kolobok_crazy:

IMG_9178.JPG

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On 17/07/2019 at 15:25, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Ha ha... I was drunk so doesn't count

Got a selection of Poland's finest beers, from my corner shop, so I'm all set for tonight''s match ? ? ?

IMG_9127.JPG

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19 hours ago, Hemel Stag said:

It's become very overpriced of late. But if you want to see extreme wealth harnessed with extreme stupidity, try Berkhamsted. Two Bedroom Victorian Terraced House £400,000.00 !!!!! Normal people with normal wages, whose families are from these areas, are being squeezed out. ?

it's ridiculous in Berko and everywhere in the London commuter belt, mate of mine and his wife sold up their Tring town house in '92/93 and moved to a large property just off the A41. Extended three bed, large garden, driveway etc, the town house is worth 10-15% more he was telling me! New build 3 bed bungalow's in Tring are £850k ffs!

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5 hours ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

it's ridiculous in Berko and everywhere in the London commuter belt, mate of mine and his wife sold up their Tring town house in '92/93 and moved to a large property just off the A41. Extended three bed, large garden, driveway etc, the town house is worth 10-15% more he was telling me! New build 3 bed bungalow's in Tring are £850k ffs!

Got in laws in St. Albans and their house is worth over a million.... It's a midterrace Victoria 3 bed..... Mental does not begin to describe it

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6 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Got in laws in St. Albans and their house is worth over a million.... It's a midterrace Victoria 3 bed..... Mental does not begin to describe it

They should flog it and move north. They could buy a palace and leave the south to the loonies.

rldfsignature.jpg

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8 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Got in laws in St. Albans and their house is worth over a million.... It's a midterrace Victoria 3 bed..... Mental does not begin to describe it

Agreed. Eight years ago, my wife's parents sold a detached house in Farnham, Surrey, for £875,000. They'd bought it, in 1970, for £20,000.

Between birth and 18 (1965-83), I lived in Keighley, Doncaster and Halifax. Rugby league was pretty low profile in all three (interest was virtually non-existent in Doncaster, where we watched Doncaster Rovers FC), though it picked up appreciably in Halifax once David Brook arrived and provided money for decent players.

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