Fri 7th Jul: SL: Castleford Tigers v Leigh Leopards KO 20:00

[Snowys Backside]

6 minutes ago, LeytherRob said:

Took off after 30 mins, precaution over some tightness in the groin according to Lam on Leopards radio

 

Let’s hope he’s ok. Good that Mellor had a good stint though. Proof that the squad in general can hold its own. 

[meast]

I bet the Leythers are loving this 'sooper dooper closed shop' they often critiqued while they were in the championship.

The bubble doesn't look like bursting does it?

[Harry Stottle]

9 minutes ago, meast said:

I bet the Leythers are loving this 'sooper dooper closed shop' they often critiqued while they were in the championship.

The bubble doesn't look like bursting does it?

I am one Leyther who loathes any mention of a closed shop, always have done. It won't be any good whatsoever for the Championship and will create to many nothing games in SL, the way this season is panning out at the bottom with jeapordy at stake is getting very exiting, take away the jeopardy and 3 clubs including your own could put their cues on the rack knowing they would not have to do anything to earn their SL funding, now they are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain SL status.

[LeytherRob]

21 minutes ago, meast said:

I bet the Leythers are loving this 'sooper dooper closed shop' they often critiqued while they were in the championship.

The bubble doesn't look like bursting does it?

We'll see how things look after the next month with a very tough run of Salford away, Saints in the cup, Wigan away, Leeds away then Cats at home. Could be top of the league and in a cup final or out the cup and out of the playoffs come mid August. We're staying up though and recruitment looks to be well on the way for next year which is the most important thing for me.

I'm just going to keep enjoying week to week, we do love it against the Yorkies this season though, 12 wins out of 12 games against Yorkshire sides in cup and league this year.

[GUBRATS]

Hard fought game tonight , CAS kept coming back , but eventually we opened the gap and that was that 

Just a comment on the overall SL experience at Wheldon Rd , yes it's old and tired , but the Tigers make the most of everything they've got , a good ' feel ' about the place 

[sweaty craiq]

It’s a dump and unsafe - lack of barriers and the steps in/out are a disaster waiting to happen. Pitch is on par with Fevs and facilities are dark ages. They serve beer well and have genuinely decent fans who love their club.

[sentoffagain2]

8 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Hard fought game tonight , CAS kept coming back , but eventually we opened the gap and that was that 

Just a comment on the overall SL experience at Wheldon Rd , yes it's old and tired , but the Tigers make the most of everything they've got , a good ' feel ' about the place 

  My daughter supports Giants and she loves going to Cas ex Fev supporter before she got married so i can't get my head round it.

[ATLANTISMAN]

6 hours ago, sweaty craiq said:

It’s a dump and unsafe - lack of barriers and the steps in/out are a disaster waiting to happen. Pitch is on par with Fevs and facilities are dark ages. They serve beer well and have genuinely decent fans who love their club.

Pretty fair comment that Cas classic RL Club but total unsponsorable in the bigger picture.

The stadium is an embarrassment to SL not a dig at the club or the fans just reality how many years to sort this out?

[Harry Stottle]

On 07/07/2023 at 11:05, Kenilworth Tiger said:

Upturn at Wakey??

Yes upturn at Wakey, don't you agree?

[Fevrover]

1 hour ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Pretty fair comment that Cas classic RL Club but total unsponsorable in the bigger picture.

The stadium is an embarrassment to SL not a dig at the club or the fans just reality how many years to sort this out?

Too many iam afraid just how long do they need, certain teams wouldn't have been given this long to sort ground out.

[Kenilworth Tiger]

On 08/07/2023 at 16:34, Fevrover said:

Too many iam afraid just how long do they need, certain teams wouldn't have been given this long to sort ground out.

Certain teams would still be playing in sh*tholes like us if they weren't gifted a stadium or sharing with a football team

[Kenilworth Tiger]

Anyway, relegate us now - we are an absolute basket case. I have never ever felt so  little interest in the club I've supported for over 40 years and that breaks my heart.

[Fevrover]

11 minutes ago, Kenilworth Tiger said:

Certain teams would still be playing in sh*tholes like us if they weren't gifted a stadium or sharing with a football team

Featherstone FANS got on with it and dismantled and rebuilt two stands themselves not wait for a free stadium. Cas have had more then adequate time to sort their ground out. Wheldon Rd is their ground with 90% of their history there and should be 'done up', but there doesn't seem to be anything at all happening. I don't know about gifted a stadium but didn't Saints and Wire sell their old ones to fund a new ground ? Sharing with football is another matter and  they are in the same city/ town.

[Kenilworth Tiger]

18 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

Featherstone FANS got on with it and dismantled and rebuilt two stands themselves not wait for a free stadium. Cas have had more then adequate time to sort their ground out. Wheldon Rd is their ground with 90% of their history there and should be 'done up', but there doesn't seem to be anything at all happening. I don't know about gifted a stadium but didn't Saints and Wire sell their old ones to fund a new ground ? Sharing with football is another matter and  they are in the same city/ town.

Never mentioned Fev - what they did was commendable

 

Sell the ground? Now that's not a bad idea, if only it had been thought of previously 

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Fevrover said:

Featherstone FANS got on with it and dismantled and rebuilt two stands themselves not wait for a free stadium. Cas have had more then adequate time to sort their ground out. Wheldon Rd is their ground with 90% of their history there and should be 'done up', but there doesn't seem to be anything at all happening. I don't know about gifted a stadium but didn't Saints and Wire sell their old ones to fund a new ground ? Sharing with football is another matter and  they are in the same city/ town.

Wire sell ? , No , they were still using Wilderspool for a decade after the HJ was built , but KTs point does stand , some ( mostly this side of the hill ) have been fortunate , less so in Yorkshire 

[Fevrover]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

Wire sell ? , No , they were still using Wilderspool for a decade after the HJ was built , but KTs point does stand , some ( mostly this side of the hill ) have been fortunate , less so in Yorkshire 

Cheers, what was HJ used for then for  10 years ?

[Harry Stottle]

4 hours ago, Kenilworth Tiger said:

Certain teams would still be playing in sh*tholes like us if they weren't gifted a stadium or sharing with a football team

That sounds like conceding Wheldon Rd is a sh*thole, no amount of fabrication can justify it any other way, it will be a great shame that given a warning in 2010 to improve the facilities which has been totally ignored comes back to bite them in the ######, the officers at the club over those years completely disregarded the advice that was given but one reaps what they sow.

[GUBRATS]

11 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

Cheers, what was HJ used for then for  10 years ?

Wire used Wilderspool as a training base and reserve venue , also community as I understand it 

[Saint Toppy]

18 hours ago, Fevrover said:

 I don't know about gifted a stadium but didn't Saints and Wire sell their old ones to fund a new ground ? 

Saints got around £8M for KR and surrounding land. The clubs directors (mainly Mike Coleman) put in all the other cash (around £17M) in the form of directors loans to buy the land & build the new stadium.

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:

Saints got around £8M for KR and surrounding land. The clubs directors (mainly Mike Coleman) put in all the other cash (around £17M) in the form of directors loans to buy the land & build the new stadium.

Did he charge a % or a fixed fee on the loan notes, or was it straight repayment?

Edited July 11, 2023 by Harry Stottle

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Saints got around £8M for KR and surrounding land. The clubs directors (mainly Mike Coleman) put in all the other cash (around £17M) in the form of directors loans to buy the land & build the new stadium.

The council built you a bridge didn't they 

Oh , and finished the roof ( with the wrong size screws as I recall )

Edited July 11, 2023 by GUBRATS

[Saint Toppy]

29 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

The council built you a bridge didn't they 

Oh , and finished the roof ( with the wrong size screws as I recall )

The council built the bridge to service the entire development site which includes the Tesco, the Glass futures research centre and the as yet undeveloped pieces of land. It wasn't built to just service the stadium. The council also contributed a portion of the land remediation costs to Langtree so the whole site could be redeveloped due to the high levels of contamination in the area.

As for the 2nd point I presume you mean the additional cladding - the council hasn't contributed a single penny to the actual stadium development. Saints took the stadium designers to a tribunal claiming 'fitness for purpose' wasn't met, though the outcome of that tribunal and exactly who paid what portion of the extra £1M to install the extra cladding was never made public.

[Saint Toppy]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Did he charge a % or a fixed fee on the loan notes, or was it straight repayment?

No idea, I don't think that info was ever made public within the clubs accounts. Either way i'm not sure that loan is likely to ever be called in given Mike Coleman's wealth. His Singapore office manages investments of over £2Bn a year and god knows just how much goes through his business in Switzerland given the level of secrecy surrounding swiss banking.

[GUBRATS]

25 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

The council built the bridge to service the entire development site which includes the Tesco, the Glass futures research centre and the as yet undeveloped pieces of land. It wasn't built to just service the stadium. The council also contributed a portion of the land remediation costs to Langtree so the whole site could be redeveloped due to the high levels of contamination in the area.

As for the 2nd point I presume you mean the additional cladding - the council hasn't contributed a single penny to the actual stadium development. Saints took the stadium designers to a tribunal claiming 'fitness for purpose' wasn't met, though the outcome of that tribunal and exactly who paid what portion of the extra £1M to install the extra cladding was never made public.

Just messing Toppy , yes I know the bridge wasn't just for the stadium , and at the time I did score a few points locally about the roof , the contractor went bust or something , and the council finished it off , but used the wrong fixing resulting in a few sheets coming loose , I had a few customers in St Helens at the time 

[Saint Toppy]

1 hour ago, GUBRATS said:

Just messing Toppy , yes I know the bridge wasn't just for the stadium , and at the time I did score a few points locally about the roof , the contractor went bust or something , and the council finished it off , but used the wrong fixing resulting in a few sheets coming loose , I had a few customers in St Helens at the time 

I've seen that story pop up a few times and the actual truth has been somewhat twisted. The Principal Contractor was Barr Construction who completed the stadium at the end of 2011. They also built one of the Olympic Park venue's (can't remember which one now) not completing that until early 2012.

They'd been bought out around 5 years earlier, incidentally by McLaughlin & Harvey who were also the designers of the stadium but kept the Barr Construction name up until around 2015, so essentially it was a D&B contract. They never went bust at all. They did have an issue with one of their Sub-contractors who I believe did go bust during construction, but as Principal Contractor Barr's remained responsible for completing construction of the whole stadium. They also had an issue with some loose cladding after a storm just before the first game in Jan 2012 which was later found to be down to some defective fixings. Saints hired their own local company to fix the damage and billed Barr's for it as a defect.

As i said in an earlier post they also had  a dispute with the Architects over the 'fitness of purpose' regarding not having the cladding all the way to the roofline. The 2 parties agreed a settlement (which was never made public as far as I know) and the remaining cladding was put up a year later.