Jump to content

Swinton Lions rebrand,and what are other clubs outside Super League doing in anticipation of 2021?


Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, RugbyLeagueMan said:

You sound exactly like a minority of other naysayers who 'threaten' to walk away because "tradition has been lost" b0ll0x.....
Listen, get a reality check, the game is in danger....so a golden opportunity to embrace change, rebuild, target new demography and build, build, build!!! Persistence to success! As for the minority of whingers, let them go....pruning out dead wood triggers new growth. ?

So how is the experiment in football going. MK Dons are losing £10,000 a day , 300k a month, £3.6m a year.

As I said early, majority are club before the game which is the lifeblood. RL is nothing without any clubs.
People will not just switch if there is no alternative. Not one shred of evidence you can put forward by way of example it will work, it's pie in the sky unicorn theory stuff to think it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Replies 166
  • Created
  • Last Reply

As our current ground isn't, as many have pointed out, in Manchester itself, why don't we rebrand ourselves "Trafford", many Manchester United fans still support MUFC, even though they live in London, and their ground is in Trafford, so why not? As Trafford is not a City itself, but a Metropolitan Borough, we could use that bit, and call ourselves Trafford Borough...…...

What do you mean, someone's already tried that and it died?

We might not be the biggest supported club in the competition (I speak from 250 miles away, and haven't seen a live game in 4 years), but we are solvent, we don't have HMRC knocking on our door every week, unlike some SL clubs. 

Sheffield, as someone mentioned, is still a relatively young club, if they want to rebrand to South Yorkshire, and merge with Doncaster to do so, then try it on your fanbase. It would be as welcome as a Whitehaven/Workington merger to produce West Cumbria RLFC.

The name Swinton has history. 1866 it says on the badge. That's before your Grandparents were born. We are one of the Oldest clubs in Rugby History, Union or League. The only reason we didn't join the Northern Union in 1895 was stubbornness. Remember my old signature said "Swinton RLFC, supplying England with players when your teams were still in nappies" 

If I write a letter or send a card to my Brother, cousins or Aunts in Swinton, Clifton or Pendlebury, I have to add Manchester to the bottom to prevent them ending up in Rotherham, or Bristol.

I don't think a name change will help either the clubs profile, through the RL media or locally. The People of Sale (from what I remember) are such snobs, they still call Sale, Cheshire. I used to go ice skating in Altrincham with a girl from Sale, and she always said it was Sale, Cheshire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, paulwalker71 said:

I don't think supporting the game is about picking the most enticing looking fixture and going to watch it. I've seen barely a small handful of games that didn't involve the Bulls in over 50 years of supporting.

It's more about having the best interests of the game at heart, and wanting the overall game to prosper. After all, if the games as a whole prospers then everyone 'wins' in the end.

When I lived in Salford, I used to go and watch many teams as a neutral, Leeds, Oldham, Rochdale, Halifax, Leigh, Wigan, Warrington, after I moved to London I saw many games, just to watch Broncos, Crusaders, Quins RL, even Skolars. If you doubt my love of RL, just see how far it is, and how long it takes to get to/from UB8 3UB to Skolars ground

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, SINGE said:

So how is the experiment in football going. MK Dons are losing £10,000 a day , 300k a month, £3.6m a year.

As I said early, majority are club before the game which is the lifeblood. RL is nothing without any clubs.
People will not just switch if there is no alternative. Not one shred of evidence you can put forward by way of example it will work, it's pie in the sky unicorn theory stuff to think it.

Agreed entirely, if Norwich went bust I wouldn’t start supporting Ipswich or anybody else for that matter, I just wouldn’t support a team. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

Agreed entirely, if Norwich went bust I wouldn’t start supporting Ipswich or anybody else for that matter, I just wouldn’t support a team. 

If Leigh disappeared I'd start watching Wigan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Athletic ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, RugbyLeagueMan said:

Manchester City Region is here and is staying. Accept it or keep up the pointless résistance .

I'm not resisting anything, I just wouldn't support anything that's not representative of me and where I come from(at club level that is). Still ain't a manc. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

I'm not resisting anything, I just wouldn't support anything that's not representative of me and where I come from(at club level that is). Still ain't a manc. 

Saying Oldham is in Manchester is like saying St Helens or Widnes are in Liverpool, utterly ridiculous. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Saying Oldham is in Manchester is like saying St Helens or Widnes are in Liverpool, utterly ridiculous. 

Indeed , on these boards we've had people suggesting Leigh is in Manchester , when a couple of miles further west and we'd be closer to Liverpool 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 03/09/2019 at 08:42, Robthegasman said:

A lot has been said here and elsewhere about the rebrand that is happening at Swinton Lions to be known as Manchester Lions on the field in anticipation of the potential loss of funding for clubs outside Super League,and there are certainly some robust opinions on that given what it is. But what is going on elsewhere at other clubs?are some clubs just happy to sit back until the last moment and potentially see themselves either die or become amateur clubs?Of course some may well survive in their current format.

And let’s be frank,it has been suggested that potentially Super League itself could be reduced to 10 clubs depending on the money available(and we all know they will grab it)and it has I believe been suggested that the only division below Super League will be 16 clubs.That therefore means we could see 11 clubs disappear altogether from the competition.

Great OP and thread and lets get it clear that if the Pro game here is to suffer a reduced TV deal and a need to pare down the number of clubs, then Perez's phoney baloney American dream is certainly dead in the water. Enough of that......

You suggest 26 clubs may be the target for the new deal, but we did read about the future structure being 2x12 early this year. I suppose the size of the league will depend on what the size of the deal may be, but I do think that clubs who were invented to basically create Nigel Woods three divisions with that third being the "expansion league" are definitely going so clubs like North Wales, West Wales and Coventry must be on the casualty list following the cull of Gloucester, Hemel and Oxford. I hate to say this but obviously Hunslet are at risk, and even Doncaster who after 68 years have failed to get the town playing RL or watching RL - with Sheffield equally unable to do this either this last 34 years, are facing the end of the road. I doubt there will be a place for two London clubs and Skolars boasts that Argyle was getting on board, and their early season peak in form gone, means they may be gone too.

As for traditional clubs 148 years of Rochdale Hornets must be under serious threat.

Two divisions is a must as the process of clubs failing and succeeding needs the incentive of promotion and conversely the pressure relief valve of relegation. Even now the SL clubs claim a need to require all TV funds to go into the top division (the main argument at the last deal that caused SL and RFL to split) so a reduced contract simply means nothing for the second tier. It will be a place rich owners can use to make their pitch for Superleague and I think we can be sure Semore Kurdi intends Newcastle to be in there.

Certs for me appear to be Saints, Wigan, Wire, Hull, HKR, Leeds, Cas, Wakey, Fartown, Toulouse Newcastle and Catalans. Leigh and York have the facilities and backing to be in there, Broncos have the backing, but as for Salford I haven't a clue as they seem to have the money to compete AT THE MOMENT - but from where will it come for the future?? 

The above to me means that 14 clubs look certain to survive, and 9 clubs (inc TWP) certain to go.....

As for the rest I really don't know? Mergers seems the only way to try to limit the damage  but there's an argument mergers will actually do more damage than good! One thing is for sure, clubs will just have to work out what they want to do (because it may be some chairmen who fund their clubs will use this cull to call it a day so some clubs may not even apply and put themselves up for sale) but if they want to carry on they will have to put together a formal documented application that the Superleague bosses will consider accordingly.........

Swinton are indeed first out of the blocks to try to ensure they offer enough to get one of the remaining places. I think that if their application is stronger than Oldham's and Rochdale's they have a much better chance. If Salford don't have the backing down the line Swinton ?  (oop's sorry "Manchester") could be certs!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, RugbyLeagueMan said:

The problem most older RL fans have is that they were youngsters before 1974 and are stuck in that era and cannot move on sadly. They all think we ought to be driving Ford Consul's rather than Ford Focus'....

I was at a meeting recently and one of the protagonists complained that part of her problem was moving house, from Accrington to London, away from her friends when she was 8. I jokingly said, when I was 11 they moved my whole city from one county to another, to astonished looks from around the room. I gave it 30 or so seconds, then explained that when I was born, Salford was in Lancashire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, RugbyLeagueMan said:

I disagree, sorry. Times are changing are so are those attitudes you mention. You correctly state 'Manchester' is the location of Swinton, Clifton, Pendlebury etc, hence why the majority of people who live in those surburbs identify with Manchester. They call 'town' (Manchester CBD) their own despite 'town' administered by the City of Manchester, not the City of Salford.
People are either fooled or confused by political boundaries and regions.
Look at a satellite map of Gtr Mcr and you see that Manchester CBD is smack bang in the middle of the whole urban country! It makes perfect sense to have developed Manchester as a greater region much like most larger cities in the world.
The problem most older RL fans have is that they were youngsters before 1974 and are stuck in that era and cannot move on sadly. They all think we ought to be driving Ford Consul's rather than Ford Focus'....

It is quite possible to work/shop/socialise in Manchester while still retaining an affinity for your home town, it's locality and it's sporting sides. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Contrast talk of becoming less localised and abandoning our smaller town clubs in favour of an all-encompassing (Greater) Manchester side versus the annual discussion about London Broncos struggling because they've failed to become more localised.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Leyther_Matt said:

It is quite possible to work/shop/socialise in Manchester while still retaining an affinity for your home town, it's locality and it's sporting sides. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Contrast talk of becoming less localised and abandoning our smaller town clubs in favour of an all-encompassing (Greater) Manchester side versus the annual discussion about London Broncos struggling because they've failed to become more localised.

I'd say that the comparisons, whilst understandable, are on a continuum that hasn't come close to crossing.

Swinton is tiny. It has about 23k people. Manchester is about half a million. They're not going for Greater Manchester because it has clubs in other areas already (and even if they did, it's only about 2.8m).

Compare that to London. It's about 9m people, with the Metro area being about 14m. It's huge. Three population of the Borough of Ealing is larger than Hull's. I'm not saying they should be THAT localised, but it goes to show the complete difference in argument between Manchester and London. The continuum is miles apart.

Wells%20Motors%20(Signature)_zps67e534e4.jpg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I'd say that the comparisons, whilst understandable, are on a continuum that hasn't come close to crossing.

Swinton is tiny. It has about 23k people. Manchester is about half a million. They're not going for Greater Manchester because it has clubs in other areas already (and even if they did, it's only about 2.8m).

Compare that to London. It's about 9m people, with the Metro area being about 14m. It's huge. Three population of the Borough of Ealing is larger than Hull's. I'm not saying they should be THAT localised, but it goes to show the complete difference in argument between Manchester and London. The continuum is miles apart.

In contrast though, I would suggest that the population of Ealing - and most London boroughs - is far more fluid and much certainly less parochial than is the case with pretty much every small town in the north of England. People here do relate to their clubs because they represent a relatively small area, something that is similarly applicable to Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Hull KR, even. Parochialism might be one of our games weaknesses, but it’s also one of its biggest strengths.

The difference with Swinton is that they have been separated from their community for so long, yet still attract comparatively decent crowds. If they still played within Swinton then, based on the attendances of 27 years of exile, I’d suggest they would be pretty well supported all in all. It’s all about connecting with the community that you represent rather than simply aligning with a well-populated area and thinking that is the solution. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 04/09/2019 at 07:07, Eddie said:

In the city yes, and in some areas (other than Everton) more than 50%. 

No chance. Everton don’t sell out most weeks (deducting the away end that’s 35k seats that they struggle to fill). Their proposed new ground is a 52k seater, that’s 2k less than Anfield is now and will be at least 10k less once the Anfield road End gets done. 

Liverpool might have global support but the club also has a good 70% of the fanbase in the city. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.