2023 Summer Bash is going to be...

[Guest]

LSV?

Seems to be the go to choice for everything else,

Excellent transport links as well.

[EggFace]

On 02/06/2023 at 20:56, Jughead said:

Bring back the Northern Rail Cup. 

That must have past me by for some reason and just wiki it and it seemed to get some great crowds at Blackpool.

I wonder why it was pulled.

[LeytherRob]

1 minute ago, EggFace said:

That must have past me by for some reason and just wiki it and it seemed to get some great crowds at Blackpool.

I wonder why it was pulled.

I think it was a mixture of the following:

• Expansion of the Championship to 14 teams meaning less appetite for the additional fixtures (prior to 2013 the first round was a pool system involving Championship and League 1 teams, in 2013 it became a pool for L1 only going into straight knockout)
• Advent of the 8's system - the NR cup served as part of the qualifying process for licensing mark 1, only NR cup winners or Championship Grand final winners could apply
• Availability of Bloomfield road - the last final was held at Halifax 
• Sky's falling desire to show RL below SL level - the peak years of the NR cup were during the era of Thursday night Championship coverage on Sky and they'd also show the final and usually one of the semi finals i think

As with most things in RL it was short term thinking and shooting itself in the foot. It was a great comp which produced some really memorable finals - Batley's 25-24 win against Widnes in 2010 and Leigh's last minute comeback against Fax in 2011. The latter I would still count amongst my all time favourite Leigh games i've been to.

 

 

[EggFace]

37 minutes ago, LeytherRob said:

I think it was a mixture of the following:

• Expansion of the Championship to 14 teams meaning less appetite for the additional fixtures (prior to 2013 the first round was a pool system involving Championship and League 1 teams, in 2013 it became a pool for L1 only going into straight knockout)
• Advent of the 8's system - the NR cup served as part of the qualifying process for licensing mark 1, only NR cup winners or Championship Grand final winners could apply
• Availability of Bloomfield road - the last final was held at Halifax 
• Sky's falling desire to show RL below SL level - the peak years of the NR cup were during the era of Thursday night Championship coverage on Sky and they'd also show the final and usually one of the semi finals i think

As with most things in RL it was short term thinking and shooting itself in the foot. It was a great comp which produced some really memorable finals - Batley's 25-24 win against Widnes in 2010 and Leigh's last minute comeback against Fax in 2011. The latter I would still count amongst my all time favourite Leigh games i've been to.

 

 

That looked great with the crowd and love the Jerseys back then.