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Derek Beaumont: Leigh will win SL or Challenge Cup in 3-5 years


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1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

I think that is down to 1.5/1.6M now.

Serious question. If central funding for Cat B SL clubs remains at £1.5/£1.6m compared with a couple of hundred thousand for Cat B clubs at Championship level, how are the Cat B championship clubs going to have a realistic chance of being ranked above their SL Cat B counterparts?

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8 minutes ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Serious question. If central funding for Cat B SL clubs remains at £1.5/£1.6m compared with a couple of hundred thousand for Cat B clubs at Championship level, how are the Cat B championship clubs going to have a realistic chance of being ranked above their SL Cat B counterparts?

Moreover how are teams that get a 'B' rating going to decided upon who is in SL and who is in the Championship?

Until we see the criterion we will not know, but it won't be just a tick in a box, it will be like last time when there will be different marks say from 1 to 5 in each of the criteria, then the fun starts with the challenges of why one club gets better grading than another and it won't be for nothing the difference could be as much as 1.3M

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18 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Moreover how are teams that get a 'B' rating going to decided upon who is in SL and who is in the Championship?

Until we see the criterion we will not know, but it won't be just a tick in a box, it will be like last time when there will be different marks say from 1 to 5 in each of the criteria, then the fun starts with the challenges of why one club gets better grading than another and it won't be for nothing the difference could be as much as 1.3M

Completely agree - you are not comparing apples with apples, so how can that work without effectively avoiding a closed shop like last time around with licensing which didn't work and saw crowds reduce. 

If I'm running Leigh as a SL Cat B club, I'll be pouring that differential resource into beating the Championship Cat B clubs (my real competition being off the pitch now) to ensure that I'm ranked higher (or make Cat A) and guarantee that £1.3m differential as nothing else matters. Therefore, the criteria will still have to heavily weighted towards results, crowds etc. otherwise there is a real danger that clubs will use that £1.6m away from the pitch and the end product suffers.  

Edited by Roughyed Rats
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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Not a chance, and I am a Leigh supporter, 6,000 Leigh folk represents 14% of the population if the 42000 published by Wigan metro is correct, that is not a bad return for any demographic. Then obviously add in the away fans, 

Harry, within a few miles of Leyth you have about 130k folk living in Leyth, Bent, Bongs, Gowburn/Lowtun, Glazebury, Culcheth and Astley - all have which have historical ties to the owd Borough of L,BnB. Then add in Cawyeds plus Bowtun and thats enough to fill LSV with a winning team every week

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39 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

Harry, within a few miles of Leyth you have about 130k folk living in Leyth, Bent, Bongs, Gowburn/Lowtun, Glazebury, Culcheth and Astley - all have which have historical ties to the owd Borough of L,BnB. Then add in Cawyeds plus Bowtun and thats enough to fill LSV with a winning team every week

That’s all we’ll & good but according to Harry,you have to be bor,n & bred in a town to support its RL club & any ‘foreign’ fans are not proper ones. 👍

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55 minutes ago, sweaty craiq said:

Harry, within a few miles of Leyth you have about 130k folk living in Leyth, Bent, Bongs, Gowburn/Lowtun, Glazebury, Culcheth and Astley - all have which have historical ties to the owd Borough of L,BnB. Then add in Cawyeds plus Bowtun and thats enough to fill LSV with a winning team every week

Would be fantastic to see Leigh drawing fans from those areas - if they aren't already doing so.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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35 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I quite like it....I assume there is a Roman link somehow in Leigh? At. Alban's have it because if the link withe town's Roman walls etc 

No Roman links whatsoever apart from a single Roman coin once got found in the east of the town.

It's just an affectation. In similar vein, Leeds has never been noted for its rhinoceroses either.

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1 hour ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I quite like it....I assume there is a Roman link somehow in Leigh? At. Alban's have it because if the link withe town's Roman walls etc 

No, none whatsoever. After we got rid of the Bears name I think you had to have one at the start of the SL era, and some bright spark went with Centurions as it was 100 years since the breakaway and we were a founder. Personally hate it, but kids seem to like it

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1 hour ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I quite like it....I assume there is a Roman link somehow in Leigh? At. Alban's have it because if the link withe town's Roman walls etc 

I used to think that, and if there were it would be a cool name. As it is it’s because they thought of it 100 years after RL broke away, so it’s desperately lame. The Leigh Railwaymen would be better. 

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3 hours ago, sweaty craiq said:

Harry, within a few miles of Leyth you have about 130k folk living in Leyth, Bent, Bongs, Gowburn/Lowtun, Glazebury, Culcheth and Astley - all have which have historical ties to the owd Borough of L,BnB. Then add in Cawyeds plus Bowtun and thats enough to fill LSV with a winning team every week

Don't forget us Ingley Greeners on the border!!

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25 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I used to think that, and if there were it would be a cool name. As it is it’s because they thought of it 100 years after RL broke away, so it’s desperately lame. The Leigh Railwaymen would be better. 

Before that it was Leigh Bears, were the fish did that come from?

Anyway this year it should be the Leigh 1.26 Centurions, I have always thought it was a naff name.

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3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Before that it was Leigh Bears, were the fish did that come from?

Anyway this year it should be the Leigh 1.26 Centurions, I have always thought it was a naff name.

How about the Leigh Six Vills? I like that. 

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I noticed Derek came over to applaud the Batley fans and encouraged his players to do the same. This was at the end of the game when Leigh were entitled to solely enjoy winning.

I thought this showed a very magnanimous and respectful attitude.

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On 05/10/2022 at 00:48, The Daddy said:

I don't doubt that Leigh with Derek's backing has the resources to win silverware.

Here's where I have a problem though, RL in the UK already has several issues around geographical diversity and lack of clubs within large catchment areas. This leads to the major issue with perception the sport has with sponsors and the casual sports and entertainment customer. 

Leigh being in SL in itself compounds this image and makes the competition look even more small time than what it already is.

Gradually over time the world of UK RL is shrinking and is starting to become an echo chamber for supporters of small town clubs to assert their identity in allegiance with their club at the expense of the commercial growth and health of RL overall. To them, this is not just about sport it's about self identity, culture and ownership. To be honest I find many of these supporters and owners selfish, it's the attitude that they should be in SL regardless of the fact that there are 5 or 6 other clubs down the road all competing over what little  sponsors, youth players and supporters are left, this mindset is cannibalising the potential RL has. It's just nonsensical.

In my view IMG made some very good proposals but they didn't go far enough, which is understandable given that these same clubs get to vote on the proposals (turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas).

In saying this I would have hoped in IMG's plans that clubs outside of SL that do not enhance the geographical diversity of the sport would have to demonstrate that they bring significant added commercial and more importantly strategic value to the competition in order to play in the league. This is taking into account that we now currently have 5 clubs in the North West alone in SL just a few miles apart and 4 in West Yorkshire this is just not sustainable and I wanted IMG to really tackle this imbalance head on. 

Derek Beaumont coming out and saying that Leigh can win silverware in 3-5 years tells me that despite IMG'S well thought through proposals the lunatics are still in charge of the asylum. 

On your last point would you be happier if Beaumont had said "Oh well, we will give it a shot, we'll probably go straight back down again as we have no chance of competing against clubs that have been established in SL for years. They have been able to recruit sooner than us, because they knew there fate months before us. They have established academies etc.etc.

What is wrong with a bit of confidence and trying to inspire the local community to support them?

On your other point about geographic diversity, I'm all for it, even as a heartland club supporter. I would love nothing more than Rugby League being a truly national sport. But the issue has always been the top down approach to funding. 

None heartland clubs have always been reliant on heartland based players, because not enough people play the game in those communities to sustain the clubs in those diverse areas long term. 

If a top player is going to up sticks and move to play, it costs more than them staying local to friends and family.

Catalan has worked, because it has a USP of much better weather than the UK and I would imagine most players would prefer to live in the south of France rather than say the drizzle of the M62 corridor. 

More money to the grassroots, means more players. More people playing, higher standard of the game, more interest in the game and higher attendances. 

I can only liken SL's approach to Kwasi Kwarteng's trickle down economics stategy. They have tried it for 20 plus years at SL, and it has only served to strengthen a few at the top. 

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