Funding cuts could mean the end for Coventry Bears

[Eddie]

9 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

It's suggestion for if they went back to being a community club. I'd rather League 1 secured enough funding so all the clubs could stay semi pro and Coventry Bears continued developing the community game in the West Midlands 

I doubt a community (fully amateur) club with that distance to travel every fortnight would be viable. 

[Angelic Cynic]

2 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

It's alright because its little old Coventry. Imagine suggesting someone like Keighley (who Coventry have beaten twice in the last 3 years) being asked to drop down to the NW counties league 

Imagine imagining that rugby league is decided by what happens on the field:after merges,promotions,and Toronto,in recent times.

Imagine where Keighley Cougars may have been if,because of what happened on the field in the 1990's,they had been allowed the rightful promotion into Super League. 

[Derwent Parker]

I feel awfully sad for Coventry as they are an improving team, and for that matter I feel sorry for all the League One teams.

BUT your not looking at the BIG PICTURE.

By Taking 50k of all the 10 L1 teams that means we can add 41K to each of the teams in Super Greed

£1,800000 plus £41,000 = £1,841000  -- Brilliant innit - Fix all the problems, that will?

And as an added plus -  for every L1 that folds this will mean an additional £1666 for each Super Greed team

[OriginalMrC]

1 hour ago, Angelic Cynic said:

Imagine imagining that rugby league is decided by what happens on the field:after merges,promotions,and Toronto,in recent times.

Imagine where Keighley Cougars may have been if,because of what happened on the field in the 1990's,they had been allowed the rightful promotion into Super League. 

I don't think that at all. However Coventry are consistently judged on their on field performance. Who knows where Keighley would be but they are where they are. No one in a million years would suggest they become an amateur club though. 

[JM2010]

3 hours ago, Eddie said:

I doubt a community (fully amateur) club with that distance to travel every fortnight would be viable. 

And that's where the problem is. If they did go back to amateur what league could they play in?

[JM2010]

3 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

The point still stands, please don't resort to cheap insults 

What is your point then?

[Eddie]

10 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

And that's where the problem is. If they did go back to amateur what league could they play in?

There isn’t one for them to play in at any suitable level. 

[Eddie]

6 minutes ago, Saint 1 said:

Gateshead manage it in the NCL don't they? Nottingham in Yorkshire Prem. Some of the CLS teams? Some of the Cumbrian NCL teams?

The NCL is leagues ahead of the Lancs or Yorks leagues, and I think Gateshead have withdrawn from it anyway. 
 

Nottingham, we’ll yes they do, though the distances are less, though I’m sure Coventry would be delighted to hear that they should be forced play in some rank amateur league 100 miles away just because one other team far inferior to them choose to. 

[Spidey]

I think Coventry fulfill current NCL criteria if it did come to that (not that I want it to of course) there are other clubs that are more at risk of having nowhere to go to if League One is canned

[OriginalMrC]

17 minutes ago, Saint 1 said:

 

Yeah that's right. One of my mates played for Dragons at the time and said in part it was because a few of their best players had joined Cov Bears. I think they might have been at Cov Bears originally and then gone to Dragons, but as those players were the best and most committed, them leaving had a disproportionately large impact. 

Sorry but this is rubbish. Only 1 player joined from Dragons (Harry Kaufman) and that was as part of an agreement between the clubs at the time. The Dragons folded for a number of reasons, none of which had anything to do with the Bears who were working with them at the time to provide support. 

 

[Yorks Tim]

My recollection is that Cov Dragons gave up because they were not getting any games due to other teams in their league folding.

[newbe]

All very well saying they could join NCL but who pays for the travel every other week.

[Damien]

I really can't see how forcing the likes of Coventry to play in regional amateur leagues is good for the game and progress. 

Also what does this mean for any prospective professional team going forward? How will a team actually become professional going forward? If numbers fall and the professional league sizes shrink I can see it becoming awfully difficult for any team to ever join the professional ranks.

[Eddie]

29 minutes ago, Damien said:

I really can't see how forcing the likes of Coventry to play in regional amateur leagues is good for the game and progress. 

Also what does this mean for any prospective professional team going forward? How will a team actually become professional going forward? If numbers fall and the professional league sizes shrink I can see it becoming awfully difficult for any team to ever join the professional ranks.

Don’t worry, the RFL have promised that any decision will be for the good of the whole game at all levels. 

[OriginalMrC]

1 hour ago, Saint 1 said:

Fair enough, my mate played for Dragons but by no means was a core player so happy to believe he was misinformed. What were those reasons, out of curiosity? 

Amongst other things they, like Northampton, were too good for the midlands league and things started going wrong from there. They couldn't get games and had no league to play in. They also changed the ground they were playing at and as I understand things hadn't gone as well there. They decided to play in the London league but were going to struggle for players due to all the extra games and travel. It was also a big step up in standard from what they'd been used to at the time. I think a couple of important directors and key players had also decided to call it a day so it was untenable for them. Its a shame because a couple of years later the Southern conference started and they would have probably fitted in well there. 

It's a bit of a perennial problem for clubs in the south. The game has to be better at giving ambitious clubs opportunities to grow. The southern conference was supposed to help with that but a number of clubs have called off games or not finished the season. Its also weakened the leagues below with many teams not even bothering to finish the season. 

[The Frying Scotsman]

17 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

Imagine suggesting someone like Keighley (who Coventry have beaten twice in the last 3 years) being asked to drop down to the NW counties league 

Yorkshire League would be more appropriate for them. 

[zylya]

Amazing how people can come into this topic and start throwing around suggestions for an amateur league for Cov to play in like that sorts everything out.

A pro/semi-pro club can be in a league with extra travel because they have the funding to do so.

An amateur club needs to be in a league that's relatively local because, get this, they don't have the funding for travel and their players aren't getting paid.

Believing that you can stick Coventry in an amateur league with round trips of over 200 miles and think that's going to work out is the height of delusion. Creating a situation where they have to take a significant step backwards and do extra work to fulfil fixtures - assuming the opposition even travel for the away games. Absolute madness.

As though anyone outside the heartlands would try to build their club towards the pro ranks when they see how easily the RFL will abandon them over £50,000. 

[Spidey]

39 minutes ago, zylya said:

Amazing how people can come into this topic and start throwing around suggestions for an amateur league for Cov to play in like that sorts everything out.

A pro/semi-pro club can be in a league with extra travel because they have the funding to do so.

An amateur club needs to be in a league that's relatively local because, get this, they don't have the funding for travel and their players aren't getting paid.

Believing that you can stick Coventry in an amateur league with round trips of over 200 miles and think that's going to work out is the height of delusion. Creating a situation where they have to take a significant step backwards and do extra work to fulfil fixtures - assuming the opposition even travel for the away games. Absolute madness.

As though anyone outside the heartlands would try to build their club towards the pro ranks when they see how easily the RFL will abandon them over £50,000. 

You have heard of the National Conference League haven’t you?

[Derwent]

1 hour ago, zylya said:

 

Believing that you can stick Coventry in an amateur league with round trips of over 200 miles and think that's going to work out is the height of delusion. Creating a situation where they have to take a significant step backwards and do extra work to fulfil fixtures - assuming the opposition even travel for the away games.

I’m not saying they should do it but the above isn’t really a valid reason for not doing it. The Cumbrian clubs in the NCL do that sort of travelling routinely and seem to manage ok.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

If the funding does drop to £20k a year would Coventry, West Wales Raiders and London Skolars be better splitting into a League One South. Bring back in teams like Hemel, Gloucestershire all golds, Oxford, and South Wales Scorpions. Yes the standard would be lower than the current League One (to be renamed League One North) but the teams in League One South could run on much smaller budgets.

[zylya]

33 minutes ago, Spidey said:

You have heard of the National Conference League haven’t you?

The point is that the RFL is essentially saying that it's worth potentially ruining a semi-pros club future so that the Super League clubs can share an extra £50,000 a year and everyone's solution is "well we could stick them in an amateur league." I don't get why you guys are so fixated on the amateur leagues - it's not the solution here. I'm sure they're great for the clubs that are in them, but that doesn't make it the best place to put a League 1 club because the RFL can't stick with anything for more than 10 minutes. 

To take a club that has turned itself semi-pro and say "sorry that we set you up with all this stuff and sorry that you've worked hard to build your club up on that basis - how do you feel about 200+ mile trips every other week for no money instead?" Shambles.

[zylya]

16 minutes ago, Derwent said:

I’m not saying they should do it but the above isn’t really a valid reason for not doing it. The Cumbrian clubs in the NCL do that sort of travelling routinely and seem to manage ok.

I'm not saying that SOME amateur teams don't do an amazing job getting fixtures played - that's not the issue here and we shouldn't conflate the two.

And though Cumbrian clubs in the NCL will often have to play a handful of away games in East Yorks, they'll also have some games that are a lot closer - e.g. other Cumbrian teams. Coventry won't have any close games, no local derbies to create any interest. They'd also be playing against amateur in teams in a league that, IIRC, doesn't allow any payment. They'd be done as a semi-pro outfit.

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, zylya said:

I'm not saying that SOME amateur teams don't do an amazing job getting fixtures played - that's not the issue here and we shouldn't conflate the two.

And though Cumbrian clubs in the NCL will often have to play a handful of away games in East Yorks, they'll also have some games that are a lot closer - e.g. other Cumbrian teams. Coventry won't have any close games, no local derbies to create any interest. They'd also be playing against amateur in teams in a league that, IIRC, doesn't allow any payment. They'd be done as a semi-pro outfit.

London Skolars started in the NCL before League One (or whatever it’s called). It’s doable and Coventry have done it before also. I don’t this Travel is a blocker

[Damien]

16 minutes ago, zylya said:

The point is that the RFL is essentially saying that it's worth potentially ruining a semi-pros club future so that the Super League clubs can share an extra £50,000 a year and everyone's solution is "well we could stick them in an amateur league." I don't get why you guys are so fixated on the amateur leagues - it's not the solution here. I'm sure they're great for the clubs that are in them, but that doesn't make it the best place to put a League 1 club because the RFL can't stick with anything for more than 10 minutes. 

To take a club that has turned itself semi-pro and say "sorry that we set you up with all this stuff and sorry that you've worked hard to build your club up on that basis - how do you feel about 200+ mile trips every other week for no money instead?" Shambles.

No offence to the likes of Wigan St Pats, Wigan St Judes etc but they are amateur clubs through and through with zero aspirations to be professional or to ever progress further than that. They will be the first to admit that and are great at what they do. However that is not the level that clubs representing entire towns and areas like Coventry, London, West Wales, and lets not forget towns and historic areas like Rochdale, Keighley Doncaster etc, should be playing at. Rochdale should be playing at a level above Rochdale Mayfield or what is the point.

This issue is partly the result of never properly building a pyramid, base and infrastructure that exists in other sports. That is 100% the games fault but we are where we are and cant change that. However League 1 is meant to be the base of the professional pyramid and provides an important role for the game. It has allowed heartland clubs like Barrow to drop down, regroup and build again and provides an important role for the introduction of new clubs. To cast it aside and/or inflict death by a thousand cuts would be one of the worst things the game has ever done in my opinion.

[OriginalMrC]

16 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

If the funding does drop to £20k a year would Coventry, West Wales Raiders and London Skolars be better splitting into a League One South. Bring back in teams like Hemel, Gloucestershire all golds, Oxford, and South Wales Scorpions. Yes the standard would be lower than the current League One (to be renamed League One North) but the teams in League One South could run on much smaller budgets.

I've heard this suggestion before and I'm sorry it just won't work. There is just not the clubs to make it work. Hemel are happy where they are, All Golds talk a good game but didn't even finish their season this year, Oxford no longer exist, and South Wales no longer exist. Its pointless even thinking about it until the Southern conference manages to grow further and clubs finish a full season.