Does rugby league need another fighter like Maurice Lindsay?

[Dave T]

Can anyone clarify this point from the Wigan Warriors site:

Lindsay left the RFL to become the Chief Executive of the newly formed Super League (Europe) Ltd in February 2008. with Lindsay immediately securing a new lucrative TV contract exclusively for Super League. He remained at Super League until he voluntarily retired at the end of 1999.

[Scubby]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Can anyone clarify this point from the Wigan Warriors site:

Lindsay left the RFL to become the Chief Executive of the newly formed Super League (Europe) Ltd in February 2008. with Lindsay immediately securing a new lucrative TV contract exclusively for Super League. He remained at Super League until he voluntarily retired at the end of 1999.

Looks like 2008 should be 1998?

[Dave T]

Just now, Scubby said:

Looks like 2008 should be 1998?

That's what I assumed, that fits in with my rough memory on timings. 

This exact para is also on Wiki, so either that has been borrowed by Wigan or from their site. 

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

That's what I assumed, that fits in with my rough memory on timings. 

This exact para is also on Wiki, so either that has been borrowed by Wigan or from their site. 

He left the game and then came back to Wigan with Dave W in the early 2000s IIRC.

[Harry Stottle]

18 hours ago, Damien said:

We've had years of co-operation and trying to pander to all. That isn't a new approach. It has been the approach of Rimmer and Wood. It has merely led to stagnation, then decline and ludicrous ideas like the middle 8s and giving large sums of money to prop up full time professional clubs in the Championship. 

You are correct Damien the only thing that should matter in this country is Super League, everything else should just be left to wither away and die.

[Damien]

38 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

You are correct Damien the only thing that should matter in this country is Super League, everything else should just be left to wither away and die.

What a weird view. I completely disagree.

[Harry Stottle]

3 minutes ago, Damien said:

What a weird view. I completely disagree.

Read back what you said in the post I answered.

[Mark S]

On 20/05/2022 at 11:07, Harry Stottle said:

If Mr Lyndsey had fought harder with his streamlining and amalgamation project, do people think we would be in a better or worse state than we are today?

There would have been a few annoyed people for a short amount of time but in the longer term it would have been a success.

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Read back what you said in the post I answered.

I know what I said. I completely disagree with what you said though.

What you said was a very odd take, especially for the fan of a Championship club. It also jumps to conclusions. 

[Derwent]

Just as an aside, if it hadn’t been for Maurice’s persuasive manner then Ben Stokes would never have played cricket for England. When Ged Stokes was appointed coach at Workington it was subject to him getting a visa. The Home Office turned his application down twice and the Stokes family were on the verge of permanently returning to NZ. So Tony Cunningham, Workington MP at the time, asked Maurice to accompany him to a meeting at the Home Office to discuss it. Ged got his visa 2 days later. Maurice was extremely well connected with friends in high places, something that the game has lacked over the last few years.

[Dave T]

48 minutes ago, Mark S said:

There would have been a few annoyed people for a short amount of time but in the longer term it would have been a success.

I'm not sure there are guarantees of that at all, and tbh I'm not sure there are any signs that this would be true. 

It is a high likelihood that many fans of the merged clubs refuse to support merged clubs and probably end up either walking away or setting up a new community club at a lower level. So Cheshire and Calder bumble along before being replace din 5 years by another club. 

And Paris still go bust. 

And London do what they did. 

And South Wales do what Crusaders did. 

Unfortunately there was no real plan. No investors lined up for mergers, no investors for new clubs. 

It was the definition of fantasy RL CEO tbh. 

The plan was terrible because there was no plan. It was an idea. 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure there are guarantees of that at all, and tbh I'm not sure there are any signs that this would be true. 

It is a high likelihood that many fans of the merged clubs refuse to support merged clubs and probably end up either walking away or setting up a new community club at a lower level. So Cheshire and Calder bumble along before being replace din 5 years by another club. 

And Paris still go bust. 

And London do what they did. 

And South Wales do what Crusaders did. 

Unfortunately there was no real plan. No investors lined up for mergers, no investors for new clubs. 

It was the definition of fantasy RL CEO tbh. 

The plan was terrible because there was no plan. It was an idea. 

The treatment of South Wales was really odd given the mood music at the time.

There really must have been more to it than met the eye.

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The treatment of South Wales was really odd given the mood music at the time.

There really must have been more to it than met the eye.

How do you mean? 

I think South Wales made the cutbhere because when this was being drawn up on a fag packet we had the likes of Davies, Bateman, Harris etc. Playing. 

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

How do you mean? 

I think South Wales made the cutbhere because when this was being drawn up on a fag packet we had the likes of Davies, Bateman, Harris etc. Playing. 

I mean that there was all this talk of franchising teams and then, obviously, up went London and Paris but South Wales (with an obvious player pool and supporter base) were playing in the division below. 

[Damien]

I have no doubt that mergers do not and will not work. In English RL they have always been out of desperation and have simply been the take over by one club of another and the stronger club getting all the benefits in terms of resources and in some cases a bonus payment for doing so. 

Mergers that are often touted like Rochdale and Oldham to form Manchester will never work either. You are merging diddly Squat. There's no money or assets to form something bigger and all their fans will be against anyhow. I'm much more in favour of having Oldham and Rochdale as separate entities and an additional Manchester club. This is why I am really against a reduction in the number of professional clubs, it solves nothing and we don't grow by contracting. We need a true pyramid with clubs having an appropriate level to play at. We should be looking to expand League 1, not cut it.

The only way that mergers work for me is if it is a true merger where fans and clubs gets on board to form a team to play at a higher level aka known as Catalans.

[Oxford]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

when this was being drawn up on a fag packet

I didn't realise the planning was a rigorous and well thought out as that. Now I'll have to re-assess all my ideas and thoughts on this era and the RFL. You've ruined my weekend Dave!

1 minute ago, Damien said:

I have no doubt that mergers do not and will not work.

It's the sporting equivalent of Partition.

RL was built like some other sports on Local affiliation and pride, mergers take no notice of that or of the geographical realities of the sport. By this, I mean they're too close for comfort and too far apart to make one club for both a feasible or even sensible notion, not the usual rubbish about being bound to the M62!

 

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I mean that there was all this talk of franchising teams and then, obviously, up went London and Paris but South Wales (with an obvious player pool and supporter base) were playing in the division below. 

Ah, I had forgotten that detail. 

This was the original 14:

Wigan

St Helens

Leeds

Bradford

Halifax

----------

Cheshire

Manchester

Calder

Cumbria

South Yorkshire

Humberside

------------

Paris

Toulouse

London

 

 

[Dave T]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

I have no doubt that mergers do not and will not work. In English RL they have always been out of desperation and have simply been the take over by one club of another and the stronger club getting all the benefits in terms of resources and in some cases a bonus payment for doing so. 

Mergers that are often touted like Rochdale and Oldham to form Manchester will never work either. You are merging diddly Squat. There's no money or assets to form something bigger and all their fans will be against anyhow. I'm much more in favour of having Oldham and Rochdale as separate entities and an additional Manchester club. This is why I am really against a reduction in the number of professional clubs, it solves nothing and we don't grow by contracting. We need a true pyramid with clubs having an appropriate level to play at. We should be looking to expand League 1, not cut it.

The only way that mergers work for me is if it is a true merger where fans and clubs gets on board to form a team to play at a higher level aka known as Catalans.

I think that's the problem. The mergers were expecting weak teams to merge and become strong clubs. But its not as if we had I vestors and councils behind mergers - there was nobody driving Wire and Widnes to get in bed together for example. 

The whole proposal was muddled, and retaining some small towns and telling others to merge rightly caused issues and showed that there were agendas at play. It's difficult to justify big city or county teams being forced and then leaving in some of the towns they did. 

[sweaty craiq]

On 21/05/2022 at 09:19, Wigan Riversider said:

Many will disagree with me but in 1995 the game was on it's knees.

The Murdoch money saved the game.

Murdoch was only interested in putting the game on his pay per view channel (s). Streamlining and amalgamation was no issue to Murdoch.

I believe that the game is now in a very similar position to 1995.

1990-1996 was a golden era for the UK game, Sky saw a fantastic sport on the up at domestic and Intl level and bought it on the cheap. The 1990 ashes series live on BBC1 had huge viewing figures and saw sell outs at OT and Elland rd - with 134k paying to watch the 3 games live. The 92 away series was the tightest for decades with fantastic interest over here in the UK and of course the birth of the barmy army. The 95 world cup was a huge success, Wales were truly competitive due to code switchers at the time - the last truly Welsh team imho. CCF selling out every year virtually year. Great attendances outside SL - where did those fans go after SL? etc etc

RL was on the up and conversion to summer should have brought a longer and better deal.

[Scubby]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Ah, I had forgotten that detail. 

This was the original 14:

Wigan

St Helens

Leeds

Bradford

Halifax

----------

Cheshire

Manchester

Calder

Cumbria

South Yorkshire

Humberside

------------

Paris

Toulouse

London

 

 

Just goes to show even visionaries can be swept away with how clubs were actually going at the time.

Hull and Hull KR and got a combined 18,500 fans yesterday as an example. Bradford will have got 3.5k last night.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, Scubby said:

Just goes to show even visionaries can be swept away with how clubs were actually going at the time.

Hull and Hull KR and got a combined 18,500 fans yesterday as an example. Bradford will have got 3.5k last night.

It's my challenge around this lovely nostalgic view. The plan was bad. The principles were sound, and these were provided by independent consultants. In reality Lindsays RFL plan was poor, and what was delivered not much better (worse depending on your personal viewpoint). 

We should look at the positive outcomes though from the whole FTF piece that drove this though:

More sustainable clubs, less boom or bust and the cap has helped that (ignoring any negatives the cap brings). 

Wider geographical spread 

Superior facilities. 

Move to a summer sport. 

[Scubby]

14 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

1990-1996 was a golden era for the UK game, Sky saw a fantastic sport on the up at domestic and Intl level and bought it on the cheap. The 1990 ashes series live on BBC1 had huge viewing figures and saw sell outs at OT and Elland rd - with 134k paying to watch the 3 games live. The 92 away series was the tightest for decades with fantastic interest over here in the UK and of course the birth of the barmy army. The 95 world cup was a huge success, Wales were truly competitive due to code switchers at the time - the last truly Welsh team imho. CCF selling out every year virtually year. Great attendances outside SL - where did those fans go after SL? etc etc

RL was on the up and conversion to summer should have brought a longer and better deal.

That is incorrect. As someone who was a journalist in Yorkshire at the time, Wakefield and Featherstone were in terrible strife, Doug Laughton's Leeds were millions in debt, Oldham were in an awful state and having to sell their ground shortly after. Widnes were in trouble after overspending in the previous decade. A RU club was even flirting with buying Wigan due to the debt they were in. There were more clubs on the edge but these are just examples I know of.

Don't let the rose tinted action on the field sugar coat a perilous time for the sport.

As far as tests are concerned games v Australia were an outlier, more people attended the Eng v NZ test in London in 2015 than attended GB v NZ test at Wembley in 1993. Only 18.5k turned up at Old Trafford for the Kiwis in 1989 and 13k at Elland Road.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Scubby

[Just Browny]

1 hour ago, Mark S said:

There been a few annoyed people for a short amount of time but in the longer term it would have been a success.

Yes, us Cheshire fans would be looking back fondly together on our 1989 WCC triumph over Canberra and enjoying our new found domination of the game from our massive ground in Daresbury.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Just Browny

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

1990-1996 was a golden era for the UK game, Sky saw a fantastic sport on the up at domestic and Intl level and bought it on the cheap. The 1990 ashes series live on BBC1 had huge viewing figures and saw sell outs at OT and Elland rd - with 134k paying to watch the 3 games live. The 92 away series was the tightest for decades with fantastic interest over here in the UK and of course the birth of the barmy army. The 95 world cup was a huge success, Wales were truly competitive due to code switchers at the time - the last truly Welsh team imho. CCF selling out every year virtually year. Great attendances outside SL - where did those fans go after SL? etc etc

RL was on the up and conversion to summer should have brought a longer and better deal.

It really was. The game went from really going places to seemingly giving up in a few short years. The years around the 2000 World Cup were dismal and the only time I've been really fearful for the games future.

 

[Scubby]

14 minutes ago, Damien said:

It really was. The game went from really going places to seemingly giving up in a few short years. The years around the 2000 World Cup were dismal and the only time I've been really fearful for the games future.

 

It was built on straw and clubs were on their knees financially. No TV income, beer and fag sponsorships and salaries out of control compared to club incomes.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Scubby