League One

[DavidM]

12 minutes ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

However, dkw, Barrow are not older than Workington Town or Whitehaven as a Cumbrian club.  They did not become that until the great  re-organisation of local government in 1974; previously the town was in Lancashire and no doubt many of an older generation will still consider it to be so.

For the purposes of this debate they’re a Cumbrian club , and none of this changes the fact the original argument disparaging the 3 pro clubs was totally ignorant tripe !

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

Just now, dkw said:

Both very good points, I'm going down a rabbit hole here trying to find out if Workington were the first Cumbrian Professional side, no luck so far. 

The best of luck!  My own historical knowledge is generally very hazy on the issue of who paid players and who didn't.

I do know that in the first season or two of Northern Union it was forbidden for players to be full-time professional rugby players, but that process soon proved unworkable and broke down by about 1898.  What I don't know is whether certain leagues, playing under NU rules, specifically banned payment for playing. 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

6 minutes ago, dkw said:

Were they Cumbrian then though, as Wiltshire said was it not Lancashire? 

I think, being on the west side of the Duddon estuary, Millom would have been in Cumberland.

[Derwent]

8 minutes ago, dkw said:

Were they Cumbrian then though, as Wiltshire said was it not Lancashire? 

Millom has always been in Cumberland. Even though they are more affiliated with Barrow they have always been Cumbrian.

[dkw]

16 minutes ago, Derwent said:

Millom has always been in Cumberland. Even though they are more affiliated with Barrow they have always been Cumbrian.

Really, did not know that. It's a fun learning type of day today... 

[JonM]

Slightly odd turn this thread has taken.  Seems like there's almost no topic that people on here can't turn into a discussion of historic county boundaries

Some of the West Cumbrian amateur clubs have a very long history. Egremont joined the NU in 1900, Wath Brow at around the same time. The Cumberland league has been in existence since the 19th century, although it became the north-western league with the addition of Furness clubs for quite a while.

Easy to forget how lengthy the journeys could be at that time. No cars, of course. Teams from S.W Lancs would sometimes travel to Barrow by train to Fleetwood and then steamer the rest of the way.

[Eddie]

3 minutes ago, JonM said:

 

Easy to forget how lengthy the journeys could be at that time. No cars, of course. Teams from S.W Lancs would sometimes travel to Barrow by train to Fleetwood and then steamer the rest of the way.

More of a ball ache than getting on a flight to Toronto is now. 

[DavidM]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

More of a ball ache than getting on a flight to Toronto is now. 

There weren’t many options in the nineteenth century mind 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

More of a ball ache than getting on a flight to Toronto is now. 

Dare I suggest, Eddie, that that is a very 'modern' way of looking at it?  

For early Northern Union pioneers, escaping the tough, grinding existence of daily life amongst mills, pits and row upon row of terraced housing for just a day with a trip by train and boat to the edge of the Lakes must have seemed wonderful.

Nowadays, many travellers seem to think that a journey is a tedious necessity, whereas, for me, a train journey, for instance, is always a chance to look out and see new places or familiar ones from a different visual perspective.  Then I look at my fellow travellers, all glued to their little screens and silently weep for the future sanity of mankind...!

[dkw]

4 minutes ago, DavidM said:

There weren’t many options in the nineteenth century mind 

How did you travel?

 

 

 

[DavidM]

14 minutes ago, dkw said:

How did you travel?

 

 

 

[JonM]

You joke, but of course, Victorian/Edwardian era teams did sometimes travel by horse and cart from the railway station to the ground before and after matches.

[Blind side johnny]

49 minutes ago, JonM said:

You joke, but of course, Victorian/Edwardian era teams did sometimes travel by horse and cart from the railway station to the ground before and after matches.

Through the baying masses too, I recall.

[DavidM]

50 minutes ago, JonM said:

You joke, but of course, Victorian/Edwardian era teams did sometimes travel by horse and cart from the railway station to the ground before and after matches.

This is west cumbria , that picture was took in 1987

[JonM]

39 minutes ago, DavidM said:

This is west cumbria , that picture was took in 1987

I was waiting for someone to post that they still do in Whitehaven/ Workington (delete as appropriate) so I'm impressed that you took the high ground there 

[DavidM]

3 minutes ago, JonM said:

I was waiting for someone to post that they still do in Whitehaven/ Workington (delete as appropriate) so I'm impressed that you took the high ground there 

When I say West  Cumbria I did of course mean Whitehaven . And that was state of the art technology 

[Bearman]

1 hour ago, DavidM said:

This is west cumbria , that picture was took in 1987

Was that the proverbial equine in town?

[DavidM]

15 minutes ago, Bearman said:

Was that the proverbial equine in town?

It was . It’s got a statue now 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

I've not read the full thread, but I assume someone has mentioned a North/South split. I personally agree with this idea because travel costs at that level are substantial. I know the Southern teams like to play the Northern over, so could do cross conference game too?

You guarantee some Southern teams in the playoffs then, making them more attractive to players.

I'd look at (based on clubs in this year's L1 and rumoured/potential future clubs) a structure like this:

League One North:

Barrow, Doncaster, Hunslet, Keighley, Newcastle, Rochdale, Workington

League One South:

Coventry, London Skolars, North Wales, West Wales, Ottawa, New York + new/returning club

12 round robin games + 7 cross group games. Should be enough games there for that level. Add in 4 round play offs (top 6 format, so top 3 from each.

Suppose the size of each conference doesn't have to be fixed and they don't need an equal number of games, as long as those in that conference play equal games. You could see NY go up and Whitehaven go down for example (making 8 Northern and 6 Southern teams), and you'd still have around 18-20 games in each conference.

[JonM]

3 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I've not read the full thread, but I assume someone has mentioned a North/South split. I personally agree with this idea because travel costs at that level are substantial. I know the Southern teams like to play the Northern over, so could do cross conference game too?

You guarantee some Southern teams in the playoffs then, making them more attractive to players.

I'd look at (based on clubs in this year's L1 and rumoured/potential future clubs) a structure like this:

League One North:

Barrow, Doncaster, Hunslet, Keighley, Newcastle, Rochdale, Workington

League One South:

Coventry, London Skolars, North Wales, West Wales, Ottawa, New York + new/returning club

12 round robin games + 7 cross group games. Should be enough games there for that level. Add in 4 round play offs (top 6 format, so top 3 from each.

Suppose the size of each conference doesn't have to be fixed and they don't need an equal number of games, as long as those in that conference play equal games. You could see NY go up and Whitehaven go down for example (making 8 Northern and 6 Southern teams), and you'd still have around 18-20 games in each conference.

This is pretty much how League 1 did operate for a while - play teams in your own area twice and those in the other area once. It made it easier for the southern clubs to make the play-offs, which some people didn't like.  Of course, that was when we had Oxford, Gloucester & Hemel in the southern half - the travel arrangements with the set-up above don't look quite so good for the southern half.

[Number 16]

On 09/08/2020 at 17:41, GUBRATS said:

Explain to me why there are Cumbrian amateur RL clubs ? 

Bearing in mind RL was born due to the introduction of payment to play RL , prior to the Cumbrian Pro clubs , there were no Cumbrian amateur clubs 

Others had already corrected you on this, but to add...

Cumberland clubs Millom and Haverigg switched in 1896-97 alongside the Furness clubs with which they were more geographically aligned.

The west Cumberland clubs started to move to the Northern Union from March/April 1898, with Workington, Wath Brow and Maryport being the first. In September 1898 Workington and Maryport joined the NWL alongside Askam, Barrow 'A', Dalton, Lancaster 'A', Millom and Ulverston. 

In 1899 the Cumberland Senior League began, underpinned by a Junior league, and for a few years, an Intermediate competition. At one point in the mid 00s there were approximately forty clubs in the county. By the summer of 1909 it was down to only three! Chronic mismanagement being the main cause.

This is the full list of clubs that played in the Cumberland Senior League prior to WW1, plus their years in the Junior league.

* DNF the season

Clubs came and went. Brookland Rovers were the only club to participate in all fifteen seasons. Some clubs paid 'Broken Time'.

Aspatria were, in effect, three different clubs. Seaton were two. Neither Workington nor Whitehaven have any connection with the current pro clubs.

History Lesson endeth!!!

	Senior	Junior
Aspatria	1900-02, 1904-06, 1912-14	1902-03
Barrow 'A'	1908-09
Barrow St George	1908-09
Brookland Rovers	1899-1900, 1902-14	1900-02
Broughton Moor	1909-14	1900-07
Broughton Red Rose	1912-13	1913-14
Cleator	1902-04	1899-1902, 1906-08
Cleator Moor Athletic	1905-06, 1907-08	1906-07
Crosby United	1909-12*
Dearham Rangers	1911-13
Dearham United	1909-14
Egremont	1902-07*, 1908-11*	1900-02
Flimby	1902-03	1900-02
Fothergill United	1909-13	1900-05
Glasson Rangers	1912-13
Harrington	1907-08	1902-07
Hensingham	1902-03	1900-02
Highmoor Rovers	1902-04, 1907-09	1900-02, 1904-07
Kells United	1903-04	1902-03
Maryport	1899-1907, 1909-11
Millom	1906-10*
Parton	1901-06, 1908-09	1899-1901
Penrith United	1900-02
Seaton	1899-1905, 1911-14
Wath Brow	1899-1906*	1906-07
Whitehaven	1899-1900*
Whitehaven Recreation	1899-1909, 1911-12
Workington	1899-1909

[Toby Chopra]

6 hours ago, Number 16 said:

Others had already corrected you on this, but to add...

Cumberland clubs Millom and Haverigg switched in 1896-97 alongside the Furness clubs with which they were more geographically aligned.

The west Cumberland clubs started to move to the Northern Union from March/April 1898, with Workington, Wath Brow and Maryport being the first. In September 1898 Workington and Maryport joined the NWL alongside Askam, Barrow 'A', Dalton, Lancaster 'A', Millom and Ulverston. 

In 1899 the Cumberland Senior League began, underpinned by a Junior league, and for a few years, an Intermediate competition. At one point in the mid 00s there were approximately forty clubs in the county. By the summer of 1909 it was down to only three! Chronic mismanagement being the main cause.

This is the full list of clubs that played in the Cumberland Senior League prior to WW1, plus their years in the Junior league.

* DNF the season

Clubs came and went. Brookland Rovers were the only club to participate in all fifteen seasons. Some clubs paid 'Broken Time'.

Aspatria were, in effect, three different clubs. Seaton were two. Neither Workington nor Whitehaven have any connection with the current pro clubs.

History Lesson endeth!!!

	Senior	Junior
Aspatria	1900-02, 1904-06, 1912-14	1902-03
Barrow 'A'	1908-09
Barrow St George	1908-09
Brookland Rovers	1899-1900, 1902-14	1900-02
Broughton Moor	1909-14	1900-07
Broughton Red Rose	1912-13	1913-14
Cleator	1902-04	1899-1902, 1906-08
Cleator Moor Athletic	1905-06, 1907-08	1906-07
Crosby United	1909-12*
Dearham Rangers	1911-13
Dearham United	1909-14
Egremont	1902-07*, 1908-11*	1900-02
Flimby	1902-03	1900-02
Fothergill United	1909-13	1900-05
Glasson Rangers	1912-13
Harrington	1907-08	1902-07
Hensingham	1902-03	1900-02
Highmoor Rovers	1902-04, 1907-09	1900-02, 1904-07
Kells United	1903-04	1902-03
Maryport	1899-1907, 1909-11
Millom	1906-10*
Parton	1901-06, 1908-09	1899-1901
Penrith United	1900-02
Seaton	1899-1905, 1911-14
Wath Brow	1899-1906*	1906-07
Whitehaven	1899-1900*
Whitehaven Recreation	1899-1909, 1911-12
Workington	1899-1909

Fascinating, thank you. Just so I'm clear, were these Cumberland League clubs making broken time payments to players in the 1900s? Did they switch to amateur after WW1? Cheers. 

[Tommygilf]

So in short, Cumbrian RL wasn't reliant on the existence of professional clubs at Workington and Whitehaven. (Barrow since '74)

[Griff]

22 hours ago, JonM said:

Slightly odd turn this thread has taken.  Seems like there's almost no topic that people on here can't turn into a discussion of historic county boundaries

Some of the West Cumbrian amateur clubs have a very long history. Egremont joined the NU in 1900, Wath Brow at around the same time. The Cumberland league has been in existence since the 19th century, although it became the north-western league with the addition of Furness clubs for quite a while.

Easy to forget how lengthy the journeys could be at that time. No cars, of course. Teams from S.W Lancs would sometimes travel to Barrow by train to Fleetwood and then steamer the rest of the way.

Barrow's in Lancashire.  Just accept it.

Cumbria's not a place.  It's the name of the organisation who empty bins in the north western part of England.

[Tommygilf]

16 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I've not read the full thread, but I assume someone has mentioned a North/South split. I personally agree with this idea because travel costs at that level are substantial. I know the Southern teams like to play the Northern over, so could do cross conference game too?

You guarantee some Southern teams in the playoffs then, making them more attractive to players.

I'd look at (based on clubs in this year's L1 and rumoured/potential future clubs) a structure like this:

League One North:

Barrow, Doncaster, Hunslet, Keighley, Newcastle, Rochdale, Workington

League One South:

Coventry, London Skolars, North Wales, West Wales, Ottawa, New York + new/returning club

12 round robin games + 7 cross group games. Should be enough games there for that level. Add in 4 round play offs (top 6 format, so top 3 from each.

Suppose the size of each conference doesn't have to be fixed and they don't need an equal number of games, as long as those in that conference play equal games. You could see NY go up and Whitehaven go down for example (making 8 Northern and 6 Southern teams), and you'd still have around 18-20 games in each conference.

I think that sort of set up could encourage new/returning Southern clubs. Not getting hammered every week or so and a few more local rivalries. 

Not sure how I'd fit in new international sides, I'd be inclined to put them straight in the championship tbh.