Manchester

[The Frying Scotsman]

On 09/04/2021 at 23:48, JohnM said:

Manchester has in my experience always been on the  league /union boundary.  Although Swinton (4 cups) Salford and Oldham have had strong sides and great success, it's always been a struggle for them. It's only got worse as these boroughs were gradually absorbed into metropolitan Manchester. 

Broughton Rangers became Belle Vue Rangers but it just didn't last. I lived in Swinton and played briefly and feebly for Moorside Juniors and Swinton Supporters. I went to secondary school in Salford 1957 to 1962. We played union. Tipton, the history teacher,  told me not to bring my rugby league way of playing with me. 

We really struggled to put a side together at Moorside Juniors but when a mate dragged me down to the Manchester YMCA playing fields on Princess Parkway in the early to mid 1960s, I found they were running three teams. 

That's all very interesting, but we are talking about how to approach problems I. 2021. Neither Swinton nor Oldham have had "great success" for about 50 years. Brouton Rangers/Belle Vue have been dead for nearly 70 years.

Am very sorry to hear about the attitude of Mr Tipton your history teacher though. That's an amazing story. You should post about him more often.

 

[Gerrumonside ref]

23 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Of course the Grand Final doesn't cut through, it's the GF of a small regional league contested by teams from smallish towns which Mancunians don't rate.  There wasn't the interest in Toronto either until Eric Pérez set up the Wolfpack and they created the interest which wasn't there before, that's what would be needed in Manchester or indeed any other big city in Britain.

 

24 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Of course the Grand Final doesn't cut through, it's the GF of a small regional league contested by teams from smallish towns which Mancunians don't rate.  There wasn't the interest in Toronto either until Eric Pérez set up the Wolfpack and they created the interest which wasn't there before, that's what would be needed in Manchester or indeed any other big city in Britain.

Not this again.

[Big Picture]

3 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

29 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Of course the Grand Final doesn't cut through, it's the GF of a small regional league contested by teams from smallish towns which Mancunians don't rate.  There wasn't the interest in Toronto either until Eric Pérez set up the Wolfpack and they created the interest which wasn't there before, that's what would be needed in Manchester or indeed any other big city in Britain.

Not this again.

Are you taking issue with the facts as I stated them?  If so by all means state which fact(s) I'm wrong about.

[Gerrumonside ref]

1 hour ago, Big Picture said:

Are you taking issue with the facts as I stated them?  If so by all means state which fact(s) I'm wrong about.

Are you from Britain originally?  I only assume not as you keep recycling this argument about having a big city league.

You appear to be labouring under the illusion that what worked briefly in Toronto must be applicable in Manchester and all other population centres in the U.K.

Salford reached a Grand Final and have been unable to generate any major bounce from neighbouring Manchester as a result (admittedly COVID-19 will not have helped).

It might not seem immediately apparent from across the Atlantic, but the northwest of England is a football hotbed like no other, particularly in Manchester and Liverpool - there’s simply little chance for anything else to prosper.  This is a massive problem.

Mancs in general just don’t have rugby league on their sporting radar, only an extremely small minority will have played it, will understand it and will pay any attention to it all even when our biggest game is in town.  

 

[Big Picture]

1 hour ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Are you from Britain originally?  I only assume not as you keep recycling this argument about having a big city league.

You appear to be labouring under the illusion that what worked briefly in Toronto must be applicable in Manchester and all other population centres in the U.K.

Salford reached a Grand Final and have been unable to generate any major bounce from neighbouring Manchester as a result (admittedly COVID-19 will not have helped).

It might not seem immediately apparent from across the Atlantic, but the northwest of England is a football hotbed like no other, particularly in Manchester and Liverpool - there’s simply little chance for anything else to prosper.  This is a massive problem.

Mancs in general just don’t have rugby league on their sporting radar, only an extremely small minority will have played it, will understand it and will pay any attention to it all even when our biggest game is in town.

In fact I am, I was born in England but came to Canada with my parents when I was 8 so I'm Canadian in all the ways which matter though I have family ties to Britain and I was back to visit twice many years ago now as a young man.  My roots aren't in the RL heartland though, my dad's family all come from Hampshire.

I am under no illusion whatever about the challenges facing RL in Britain, on the contrary the events of the past four years have shown me just how much the game's traditional basis and structure over there limits its options and hems it in.

Yes, Salford reached a Grand Final and have been unable to generate any major bounce from neighbouring Manchester as a result, because Salford is to all intents and purposes just a suburb of Manchester.  Thus to Mancunians who've become used to Manchester United (and now Manchester City too) routinely playing in multinational competition against the likes of Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona, Salford vs St Helens (which they'd probably see as just a suburb of Liverpool) is never going to interest them.  And yes that is a massive problem for the sport in the era when the younger generation are apparently only interested in big events.

So the question then becomes how can the game ever break through the dominance of soccer not only in Manchester but in other British cities too?  The more naive posters here think that an England win in the RL World Cup (however unlikely that may) could do it but let's be realistic.  RU despite all their establishment connections shot their bolt in regard to Manchester by having England play there during their World Cup yet did they gain any ground in Manchester from that?  It doesn't seem so.

Yes only an extremely small minority of Mancunians will pay attention when the GF of a small northern regional league played in smallish economically deprived towns is played there.  In their eyes that quite naturally pales in comparison to the exploits of Manchester United and now Manchester City year in and year out in the Champions League and Europa League and always will no matter how good the RL match might be.

Thus I say that the one and only way the game could break through in Manchester and other comparable British cities is via a league which would offer them an RL equivalent of the Champions League and Europa League, week in and week out every season.

[JohnM]

8 hours ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

That's all very interesting, but we are talking about how to approach problems I. 2021. Neither Swinton nor Oldham have had "great success" for about 50 years. Brouton Rangers/Belle Vue have been dead for nearly 70 years.

Am very sorry to hear about the attitude of Mr Tipton your history teacher though. That's an amazing story. You should post about him more often.

 

The past is important though.it would be daft to ignore it when considering a resurgence of the sport in such a union stronghold. Sure, past ferformance isn't a guarantee of future success.  However, reversing a gradual decline that has lasted 60 or 70 years is worse than starting again. I attended a number of Interntionals, tour games and cup semis at Station Road between 1957 and 1964 where there were decent crowds. However, a glance at the crowds there during Swinton's consecutive Div 1 championships were dissapointingly small, averaging IIRC something like 5000.  This to me was an indication of the weak position of rugby league in the Manchester conurbation. Just down the road, less than three miles away, there we were playing union at school. We even had a trip out to Manchesters White City to see a union north west counties game. Can't confirm it but I guess also the sport at schools in Bolton, Bury, Radcliffe, Prestwich etc would have been union, not league. Same goes for Sale, Stockport etc.

I lost all respect for history when told by Tipton that I was handling the ball like a greasy ######.

[gingerjon]

7 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Can't confirm it but I guess also the sport at schools in Bolton, Bury, Radcliffe, Prestwich etc would have been union, not league.

The schools I went to in Bury were ... neither. No interest in either code whatsoever. Football only.

[Lowdesert]

On 09/04/2021 at 23:15, yipyee said:

Well I think a team had a plan (was it manchester rangers?) playing out of the modern man city campus, they also wanted to link in with the colkeges and university..

The RFL said no thanks.

Didnt Koukash try to buy Swinton?

Wasnt Koukash forced out of Salford?

Seems like the powers that be dont want a strong Manchester region, they also seemed scared of Toronto and Tolouse and any other potential club that would upset the status quo

Yes, it’s been a few years since that.  Was there any report or public statement/response made available by the RFL?

[Tommygilf]

18 hours ago, Spidey said:

Balls. They gave up too easily

Nonsense, they got backers for a professional club, not an amateur one.

[Tommygilf]

Very good overview here. 

[Spidey]

9 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Nonsense, they got backers for a professional club, not an amateur one.

So they only had a plan A?  Like I’ve mentioned they could have proved they had what it takes with a couple of years in the NCL like Coventry did. Got proper foundations in place. They gave up too easily

[Whippet13]

If RL can work in a football mad city like Newcastle, I believe it can work in Manchester but it needs the same type of long term development plan putting in place. Manchester Rangers were wanting to be the equivalent of Newcastle Thunder in that process but the local clubs cynically killed them off as they saw a potential threat. They would have all benefited long term but in classic British RL style the clubs completely lacked that understanding and vision.

[Spidey]

12 minutes ago, Whippet13 said:

If RL can work in a football mad city like Newcastle, I believe it can work in Manchester but it needs the same type of long term development plan putting in place. Manchester Rangers were wanting to be the equivalent of Newcastle Thunder in that process but the local clubs cynically killed them off as they saw a potential threat. They would have all benefited long term but in classic British RL style the clubs completely lacked that understanding and vision.

Newcastle Thunder were years in the making and worked hard in the community to make their own pipeline

Rangers seemed to want to be a “trendy” new pro club without the long term investment in the community. 

[Damien]

15 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Newcastle Thunder were years in the making and worked hard in the community to make their own pipeline

Rangers seemed to want to be a “trendy” new pro club without the long term investment in the community. 

But started with a professional sports club.

[Spidey]

Just now, Damien said:

But started with a professional sports club.

Fair enough. Newcastle was in different circumstances though, new area, no other competing teams etc 

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Fair enough. Newcastle was in different circumstances though, new area, no other competing teams etc 

To all intents and purposes Manchester is a new area with no competing teams. Its a big area in its own right and I simply don't buy the argument that if people in Manchester were interested in RL that they should go and watch Wigan, Oldham, Salford or Rochdale. I don't think any of those teams would appeal to many Mancunians. We should want teams representing all areas and I'm not sure the issue with having a new trendy sports club, surely that is what we want as a sport.

I'm also not sure how you can say Manchester Rangers planned no long term investment in the local community, that's a huge assumption. A professional sports club with grassroots development seems pretty much the perfect model and is what has worked in Newcastle and Coventry. For some reason, most likely because of self interest, people don't want the same for unrepresented areas much closer to home.

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

So they only had a plan A?  Like I’ve mentioned they could have proved they had what it takes with a couple of years in the NCL like Coventry did. Got proper foundations in place. They gave up too easily

Like Newcastle Thunder they wanted professional league to keep the investors in.

 

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

Like Newcastle Thunder they wanted professional league to keep the investors in.

 

At what expense? Was one new trendy club worth more than existing clubs that had foundations in place and links to the community. 

There absolutely is room for expansion in Manchester, I just think Rangers went about it wrong.  

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Spidey said:

At what expense? Was one new trendy club worth more than existing clubs that had foundations in place and links to the community. 

There absolutely is room for expansion in Manchester, I just think Rangers went about it wrong.  

They were never going to grow as a community club into the type of club they had the potential and wanted to be. If there was a route from the NCL to the professional game then they may have taken that but there isn't so those ambitions are fundamentally divergent.  

Rugby league is one of the few sports in this country which actually does run like the US in splitting the professional game from the strictly amateur. It asks new clubs exactly what they want to be and offers them an opportunity to join the (semi)professional ranks from the off. Manchester Rangers clearly saw themselves as an outlet for the professional game in "Manchester proper" and a continuation of the spirit of the former Broughton Rangers club - where like Newcastle, London etc the community game would build up around them as the central foundation.

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

They were never going to grow as a community club into the type of club they had the potential and wanted to be. If there was a route from the NCL to the professional game then they may have taken that but there isn't so those ambitions are fundamentally divergent.  

Rugby league is one of the few sports in this country which actually does run like the US in splitting the professional game from the strictly amateur. It asks new clubs exactly what they want to be and offers them an opportunity to join the (semi)professional ranks from the off. Manchester Rangers clearly saw themselves as an outlet for the professional game in "Manchester proper" and a continuation of the spirit of the former Broughton Rangers club - where like Newcastle, London etc the community game would build up around them as the central foundation.

Coventry spent two seasons in the bottom division of the NCL then went on to League One. So there is a route. Not automatic but I think they set a blueprint for new clubs that was sensible. 

Investors can be fickle - it should not be the only criteria for a new club

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Spidey said:

Coventry spent two seasons in the bottom division of the NCL then went on to League One. So there is a route. Not automatic but I think they set a blueprint for new clubs that was sensible. 

Investors can be fickle - it should not be the only criteria for a new club

Pah, they did that when the RFL decided on a whim that L1 would become a development league - hence All Golds, Hemel, Oxford etc joining, then they dumped half the championship in too. To pretend that is "a route" is silly.

Regardless the point is RL allows you if you so wish to apply to be a professional club and so that's what the Rangers did.

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Pah, they did that when the RFL decided on a whim that L1 would become a development league - hence All Golds, Hemel, Oxford etc joining, then they dumped half the championship in too. To pretend that is "a route" is silly.

Regardless the point is RL allows you if you so wish to apply to be a professional club and so that's what the Rangers did.

The other clubs didn’t go in the NCL

Point being - Rangers said pro or nothing. If they offered a plan B maybe they would have been taken on. 

[Gerrumonside ref]

7 hours ago, Big Picture said:

In fact I am, I was born in England but came to Canada with my parents when I was 8 so I'm Canadian in all the ways which matter though I have family ties to Britain and I was back to visit twice many years ago now as a young man.  My roots aren't in the RL heartland though, my dad's family all come from Hampshire.

I am under no illusion whatever about the challenges facing RL in Britain, on the contrary the events of the past four years have shown me just how much the game's traditional basis and structure over there limits its options and hems it in.

Yes, Salford reached a Grand Final and have been unable to generate any major bounce from neighbouring Manchester as a result, because Salford is to all intents and purposes just a suburb of Manchester.  Thus to Mancunians who've become used to Manchester United (and now Manchester City too) routinely playing in multinational competition against the likes of Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona, Salford vs St Helens (which they'd probably see as just a suburb of Liverpool) is never going to interest them.  And yes that is a massive problem for the sport in the era when the younger generation are apparently only interested in big events.

So the question then becomes how can the game ever break through the dominance of soccer not only in Manchester but in other British cities too?  The more naive posters here think that an England win in the RL World Cup (however unlikely that may) could do it but let's be realistic.  RU despite all their establishment connections shot their bolt in regard to Manchester by having England play there during their World Cup yet did they gain any ground in Manchester from that?  It doesn't seem so.

Yes only an extremely small minority of Mancunians will pay attention when the GF of a small northern regional league played in smallish economically deprived towns is played there.  In their eyes that quite naturally pales in comparison to the exploits of Manchester United and now Manchester City year in and year out in the Champions League and Europa League and always will no matter how good the RL match might be.

Thus I say that the one and only way the game could break through in Manchester and other comparable British cities is via a league which would offer them an RL equivalent of the Champions League and Europa League, week in and week out every season.

You entertain me.

[Big Picture]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

But started with a professional sports club.

And so another indication that top-down works, bottom-up not so much.

[JohnM]

6 hours ago, Whippet13 said:

If RL can work in a football mad city like Newcastle, I believe it can work in Manchester but it needs the same type of long term development plan putting in place. Manchester Rangers were wanting to be the equivalent of Newcastle Thunder in that process but the local clubs cynically killed them off as they saw a potential threat. They would have all benefited long term but in classic British RL style the clubs completely lacked that understanding and vision.

Not sure if RL in Newcastle is working yet , though, in any sustainable,way, though it wouod be great if it were to happen.Manchester is surrounded by existing RL teams that although  not in the Manchester conurbation (as distinct from and smaller than Greater Manchester) are within 30 to 45 minutes travel time from the city centre. Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds, enough to attract fans from the City area.  Prior to the vast improvement in the areas road infrastructure, a trip from Swinton to watch George Parkinson get hammered by Dave Bolton was more like a day out than a quick trip through Westhoughton.

Another way to look at this is to measure things against Sheffield. How much has been spent over how many years since their clubs formation and with what outcome?  

Or Liverpool? Why no team there? How and why would Manchester be any different!