Autumn Internationals

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

If England are playing away in France it could do with been officially announced ASAP to give people the best chance they can to sort travel etc. The same is true for French fans travelling to England tbf, let’s get the date and venue announcement out. 

[Tippingsarmswarrior]

54 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

If England are playing away in France it could do with been officially announced ASAP to give people the best chance they can to sort travel etc. The same is true for French fans travelling to England tbf, let’s get the date and venue announcement out. 

I’ve already booked flights and hotel. Couldnt resist at £25return direct to Perpignan. And get 2 free flight changes included in the price aswell so not losing out on anything if it don’t go ahead. 

[Griff]

5 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Without the Aussies. 

Yeah - bit like us then, eh ?

The assertion was that only Rugby League could put together teams from a boat load of countries.

Obviously not true.

But if you want to change the parameters, let me know.

[Big Picture]

On 27/08/2021 at 03:07, roughyed8 said:

And Australia dont play in it! , its basically a bunch of park players from various countries having a holiday in Melbourne and playing a few games on surburban park fields.

Australia don't play in it for the simple reason that their suburban and country league players are still a lot better than the best of the players who spent their formative years in other countries.  Even with a team of players from that level they'd thrash the best of the other teams with ease.

[paulwalker71]

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Given that the largest concentration of Jamaicans in the UK is around Tottenham, is there any mileage in taking the game to the New River Stadium. So it's not exactly a fantastic stadium but since it won't be on TV (I assume) that doesn't really matter.

With really good and well-targeted publicity is it conceivable that the RFL could sell out the game? The stadium holds 5K according to Wiki, which is only 2% of the total number of Jamaican heritage people in London.

You could even give every person through the gate a voucher to get a half-priced ticket for next years Challenge Cup final, just literally down the road.

Or we could just take the 'let's do the minimum' and hold it in Featherstone for absolutely no discernible reason

[paulwalker71]

Just now, paulwalker71 said:

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Given that the largest concentration of Jamaicans in the UK is around Tottenham, is there any mileage in taking the game to the New River Stadium. So it's not exactly a fantastic stadium but since it won't be on TV (I assume) that doesn't really matter.

With really good and well-targeted publicity is it conceivable that the RFL could sell out the game? The stadium holds 5K according to Wiki, which is only 2% of the total number of Jamaican heritage people in London. Imagine what an occasion it could be with packed stadium! You could have a street food area with Jamaican food, steel bands etc. What an atmosphere it could be...

You could even give every person through the gate a voucher to get a half-priced ticket for next years Challenge Cup final, just literally down the road.

Or we could just take the 'let's do the minimum' and hold it in Featherstone for absolutely no discernible reason

 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

10 hours ago, paulwalker71 said:

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

[paulwalker71]

1 hour ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

I take it that was meant to be ironic?

Of course there are no Jamaican ‘supporters’ or Scottish ‘fans’. At least not yet. My guess is 99.99% of Scottish people have zero idea what RL is, so the idea that they’d travel to some West Yorkshire ex-pit village is fanciful at best.

To be fair, having the game at New River (or in the middle of Glasgow for that matter) isn’t going to be much better unless the RFL put some marketing budget behind it.

The point of my idea was to start the long term work of creating NEW fans, something that we have pitifully failed to do in Rugby League. Well, Toronto created a few thousand, but how did that end?

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, paulwalker71 said:

I take it that was meant to be ironic?

Of course there are no Jamaican ‘supporters’ or Scottish ‘fans’. At least not yet. My guess is 99.99% of Scottish people have zero idea what RL is, so the idea that they’d travel to some West Yorkshire ex-pit village is fanciful at best.

To be fair, having the game at New River (or in the middle of Glasgow for that matter) isn’t going to be much better unless the RFL put some marketing budget behind it.

The point of my idea was to start the long term work of creating NEW fans, something that we have pitifully failed to do in Rugby League. Well, Toronto created a few thousand, but how did that end?

7k at Headingley for Jamaica's game there. Its not just because there is a relatively strong Jamaican presence in the city, but because Leeds and London consistently deliver our best crowds and support for international RL.

Jamaica in RL can also potentially be a (a bit crudely) seen as stand in for a wide range of Caribbean/West Indian nationalities. Growing up in Leeds that I had a fair few friends with West Indian heritage, but actually Jamaican was a minority amongst them.

[Ray Cashmere]

I think in an ideal world we could have had an England v France headline game preceded by Jamaica v Wales/Scotland at the new Spurs ground. That really would've been a statement of intent by the sport.

 

 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

9 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

Obviously you made me curious with this comment and so I had to actually look up where the midpoint was.

So using an online distance calculator. I found that the distance between Tottenham and Gretna Green is 265.8 miles as the crow flies and the midpoint, at 132.9 miles, is closest to the town of Dronfield in Derbyshire which is just a little bit south of Sheffield. It gives the driving distance as 315 miles and the midpoint is just west of Stoke-on-Trent. 

According to wiki, Sheffield FC play in Dronfield at a stadium with a capacity of 2,000 so there is an option to play in that town. Apparently there is also a rugby league club in the town and so is probably an established RL field somewhere that the game could be played on as well. Problem solved!

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Obviously you made me curious with this comment and so I had to actually look up where the midpoint was.

So using an online distance calculator. I found that the distance between Tottenham and Gretna Green is 265.8 miles as the crow flies and the midpoint, at 132.9 miles, is closest to the town of Dronfield in Derbyshire which is just a little bit south of Sheffield. It gives the driving distance as 315 miles and the midpoint is just west of Stoke-on-Trent. 

According to wiki, Sheffield FC play in Dronfield at a stadium with a capacity of 2,000 so there is an option to play in that town. Apparently there is also a rugby league club in the town and so is probably an established RL field somewhere that the game could be played on as well. Problem solved!

One of the fellas who owns the Eagles lives in Dronfield and has a really big back garden, have it there!

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

One of the fellas who owns the Eagles lives in Dronfield and has a really big back garden, have it there!

Now you're thinking, we won't have anymore of this small time thinking with places like Featherstone, we need to branch out into new markets! Dronfield here we come! 

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Now you're thinking, we won't have anymore of this small time thinking with places like Featherstone, we need to branch out into new markets! Dronfield here we come! 

Sounds perfectly logical if you ask me

[fighting irish]

On 28/08/2021 at 19:55, paulwalker71 said:

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Given that the largest concentration of Jamaicans in the UK is around Tottenham, is there any mileage in taking the game to the New River Stadium. So it's not exactly a fantastic stadium but since it won't be on TV (I assume) that doesn't really matter.

With really good and well-targeted publicity is it conceivable that the RFL could sell out the game? The stadium holds 5K according to Wiki, which is only 2% of the total number of Jamaican heritage people in London.

You could even give every person through the gate a voucher to get a half-priced ticket for next years Challenge Cup final, just literally down the road.

Or we could just take the 'let's do the minimum' and hold it in Featherstone for absolutely no discernible reason

This is illuminating.

With 250k in North London, why on earth aren't we taking the game to London?

The Jamaican team is a completely new way of promoting RL, in the capital.

The possibility/opportunity of capturing some of the West Indian residents is surely too good to miss.

This is new people, in a new area, with the Bronco's providing the way to keep them in the game after the Jamaica match.

The legacy could be really beneficial to the Bronco's and increase participation in RL in the capital. 

[Big Picture]

4 hours ago, fighting irish said:

This is illuminating.

With 250k in North London, why on earth aren't we taking the game to London?

The Jamaican team is a completely new way of promoting RL, in the capital.

The possibility/opportunity of capturing some of the West Indian residents is surely too good to miss.

This is new people, in a new area, with the Bronco's providing the way to keep them in the game after the Jamaica match.

The legacy could be really beneficial to the Bronco's and increase participation in RL in the capital. 

The trouble is that cutting through to those 250,000 in North London would require some serious advertising and promotion which in all likelihood would cost serious money which the Jamaican, Welsh and Scottish RL governing bodies don't have.  It's also open to question whether the RFL could afford (or justify) the necessary expense for a match not involving England.

Then there's the question of whether a match at a tiny stadium like New River could ever match their expectations of an appropriate venue for an International which in all probability have been set by their experience/knolwedge of where soccer, RU and cricket Internationals are played.

[Ray Cashmere]

7 hours ago, fighting irish said:

This is illuminating.

With 250k in North London, why on earth aren't we taking the game to London?

The Jamaican team is a completely new way of promoting RL, in the capital.

The possibility/opportunity of capturing some of the West Indian residents is surely too good to miss.

This is new people, in a new area, with the Bronco's providing the way to keep them in the game after the Jamaica match.

The legacy could be really beneficial to the Bronco's and increase participation in RL in the capital. 

Completely agree hence my earlier post regarding a double header with England v France @ Spurs. Really hope we don't let this opportunity pass.

[The Frying Scotsman]

10 hours ago, fighting irish said:

 

The Jamaican team is a completely new way of promoting RL, in the capital.

The possibility/opportunity of capturing some of the West Indian residents is surely too good to miss.

"Too good to miss"?? 

Apparently not. The RFL prefer to base the Jamaican team in a depressed former mining village.

I can't wait to see the colourful, multi-cultural crowd this one attracts. A real shop window for international Rugby League 

[gingerjon]

12 hours ago, Big Picture said:

The trouble is that cutting through to those 250,000 in North London would require some serious advertising and promotion which in all likelihood would cost serious money which the Jamaican, Welsh and Scottish RL governing bodies don't have.

The Voice is an official partner of the World Cup. You'd hope there was some conversation going on between them, the RFL and Jamaica RL about promoting any internationals Jamaica play this year, regardless of where they are held.

[fighting irish]

6 hours ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

"Too good to miss"?? 

Apparently not. The RFL prefer to base the Jamaican team in a depressed former mining village.

I can't wait to see the colourful, multi-cultural crowd this one attracts. A real shop window for international Rugby League 

If I had a pound for every opportunity the RFL have missed during my association with them, I'd be well away.

The prospect of an England v Jamaica game in London, where there are 250,000 West Indians, some of whom might just become lifelong fans, is still a prospect too good to miss, but sadly, it looks as if they/we are going to miss it anyway.

[Tommygilf]

For those complainin about "fake" national sides. 15 of the Jamaica Football team squad play in England.

[Big Picture]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

For those complainin about "fake" national sides. 15 of the Jamaica Football team squad play in England.

Not quite, Wikipedia lists 34 players on their roster for their upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers, 12 of whom play in England.  In any case though where they play doesn't matter as no one seriously thinks that a poor country like Jamaica could support a major pro team let alone a major pro league. 

At a quick glance it looks like most of the Jamaican soccer team are Jamaicans by birth, so again it's a case of a few heritage players strengthening a team primarily comprised of players who spent their formative years in Jamaica.  That's a far cry from a team full of players who only qualified by heritage, plus it's only one out of the 100+ national soccer teams in the world.

[Tommygilf]

53 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Not quite, Wikipedia lists 34 players on their roster for their upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers, 12 of whom play in England.  In any case though where they play doesn't matter as no one seriously thinks that a poor country like Jamaica could support a major pro team let alone a major pro league. 

At a quick glance it looks like most of the Jamaican soccer team are Jamaicans by birth, so again it's a case of a few heritage players strengthening a team primarily comprised of players who spent their formative years in Jamaica.  That's a far cry from a team full of players who only qualified by heritage, plus it's only one out of the 100+ national soccer teams in the world.

The BBC put 15 on the article about Michael Antonio's call up.

 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

54 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Not quite, Wikipedia lists 34 players on their roster for their upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers, 12 of whom play in England.  In any case though where they play doesn't matter as no one seriously thinks that a poor country like Jamaica could support a major pro team let alone a major pro league. 

At a quick glance it looks like most of the Jamaican soccer team are Jamaicans by birth, so again it's a case of a few heritage players strengthening a team primarily comprised of players who spent their formative years in Jamaica.  That's a far cry from a team full of players who only qualified by heritage, plus it's only one out of the 100+ national soccer teams in the world.

I’ve genuinely never come across anyone watching live sport with concerns over the players place of birth, try caring about it less and just watch the game, you might enjoy it.

[Gooleboy]

15 hours ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

"Too good to miss"?? 

Apparently not. The RFL prefer to base the Jamaican team in a depressed former mining village.

I can't wait to see the colourful, multi-cultural crowd this one attracts. A real shop window for international Rugby League 

I take it you will be attending?