The true sleeping giants of the game

[Kirmonds pouch]

I'm a traditionalist, and I don't care who that upsets. I'm not against expansion if done right, which apart from Catalans it never has. I believe you can't be an expansive sport until you have a truly strong base, see the NSWRL mid eighties. We do not have that, far to many of our heartland clubs are failing in areas where they should be dominating, and until they are, then that is where we should concentrate all our efforts.

I've always been an optimist where my club Trinity are concerned, I knew we had more than we were offering, but even I'm stunned that we are nearly up to 5,000 season tickets, in November! Forget the discounts and the free kids tickets, you still have to be interested no matter how cheap it is. It just goes to show how much goodwill and interest there is in the game in the heartland areas if done well, and of course with a bit of money. That's what the Aussies did in the 1980's, there was not a weak club in that comp, some were richer, some were more successful, but all were to some degree competitive. Even the cinderella clubs such as Cronulla and Norths did ok, with only Newtown a failure. I know because I was there, and the interest in the comp was intense.

The people of NSW didn't care that at that point the game wasn't national, in fact it was virtually all based in Sydney. They just decided that in a sporting sense NSW was a country in it's own right, just like the North of England. Later they invited Queensland to add their own fairly strong teams to the mix, but you get the idea. Always made me laugh that the NSWRL had no qualms about calling their international team Australia, and being so determined to do so, when clearly it wasn't remotely representative of the whole nation. Of course we did the same, but we always seemed embarrassed by it.

So if it were up to me, these are the heartland teams we need to help out, that imho have the ability to become 'giants' or at least far better than they currently are, and as such create that far more desirable 16 team SL, and a vibrant set of lower leagues. I'm aware that we would also need to be producing far more young players to fill those teams, but it all goes hand in hand imo. We just need to find the people to do it, there has to be more than one Matt Ellis out there.

Sleeping giants, or at least quite big lads

Trinity: With BV on the mend and a very good pool of local talent, easily average gates of 8,000+ in SL, and no serious soccer threat.

Halifax: Possibly the most forgotten club in the game, a founder member of SL. Great ground, decent player pool, some soccer interest but not huge, another 8,000+

Bradford: There is so much wrong with Bradford, but it could all be made so right. Without doubt the most daunting in terms of investment required, but massive potential and the most recently successful, probably SL 's most iconic club. 12,000+

York: On the fringes of the heartland, but still a RL area, great stadium, 8,000+. Soccer an issue, but not overly so. York is probably one of the most famous cities in the UK, why not exploit that.

Doncaster: A bit like Halifax, a forgotten club, yet it's not that long ago that Tony Fisher created something there and the population did respond, they got some great crowds at Tattersfield. True they went bust in double quick time , but for a while they were top of the league! What matters though is that people were interested. Now they have a fantastic ground, in the right hands they could be a 6,000+. Soccer club is an issue.

Clubs with more potential than they are currently showing.

Oldham (another founder member of SL) and Rochdale: I'm not sure either will ever be SL, Rochdale has the ground, Oldham possibly has more fan/player potential. They could and should both be much better than they are. Oldhams biggest problem is the lack of a ground, so it's a biggy.

Cumbrian clubs: God knows, there is potential but it would take some serious development. I'm pretty sure that none of the existing clubs can go it alone, but maybe. What is for sure is we can't let them wither and die, in a sense Cumbria the games only real domestic expansion success story, how tragic is that.

Sheffield: Lets see how the ground situation develops, but in truth Sheffield is a soccer city, and I can only ever see Sheffield as a niche club, but it does have some history, it does produce players, and it is a big city.

Get this lot running well, then we can spread the game from a position of strength, that is what the NSWRL did, we did have a chance at the start of SL but totally ballsed it up, lets hope we can rectify that should the chance ever arise again.

I know the expansionist won't like this because it's not immediate enough or flashy enough, but it's the only model that actually seems to work, get the foundations in first.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Kirmonds pouch

[Eddie]

Halifax 8,000+, Donny 6,000+, York 8,000+. Can I have some of what you're having please. 
 

Also did you deliberately miss Widnes out? 

[Kirmonds pouch]

4 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Halifax 8,000+, Donny 6,000+, York 8,000+. Can I have some of what you're having please. 
 

Also did you deliberately miss Widnes out? 

Yep, add Widnes in, you can't remember them all, good call.

Donny and York are optimistic I accept, not sure what your issue is with Fax, a very well supported club in the 1980's.

You don't need to have what I'm having, I'm talking of  a possible potential, not fact, I didn't wake up this morning and suddenly think it had actually happened. I leave that to the London brigade.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Kirmonds pouch

[roughyed8]

Oldham now have a long term lease at Boundary Park, and a new board who have already put their money where their mouth is!

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

12 minutes ago, Kirmonds pouch said:

Oldham (another founder member of SL) and Rochdale: I'm not sure either will ever be SL, Rochdale has the ground, Oldham possibly has more fan/player potential. They could and should both be much better than they are. Oldhams biggest problem is the lack of a ground, so it's a biggy.

Haven't they agreed a deal to go back to Boundary Park?

[Kirmonds pouch]

1 minute ago, roughyed8 said:

Oldham now have a long term lease at Boundary Park, and a new board who have already put their money where their mouth is!

That's great news, Oldham are definitely one of the lost clubs of the game. When I first started watching the game they seemed to produce more players than anyone, Wigan seemed to be full of Oldham products.

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

3 minutes ago, roughyed8 said:

Oldham now have a long term lease at Boundary Park, and a new board who have already put their money where their mouth is!

Beat me to it!

[roughyed8]

1 minute ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

Haven't they agreed a deal to go back to Boundary Park?

See my post, long term lease, £1m spent on pitch to facilitate soccer and RL, New board with vision.

[The Blues Ox]

Quite an interesting read. Nice post.

On Halifax, I would agree with some of what you wrote, tidy little stadium, such an amateur stronghold in the game for producing players as well, and to be honest if we had been in SL over the past few years we would probably hve faired just as well as Huddersfield, Wakefield, and Salford crowd wise and probably over periods performance wise as well. I have said that for many Championship teams though, give them that injection of cash and I think a lot of them are interchangable but the big question is could we have out performed those teams on a regular basis and I am really not too sure.

Crowd wise we have to remember that for our best season in SL in 1998 we were only averaging just about 5k fans which is a long way removed from the days at Thrum Hall where we could pull in over 8k and have more than we currently have turning up to watch our reserve team. Put us in SL now and we would just be making up the numbers with very little chance of making a real difference and that is the same for teams like Fax, Fev, York, Bradford, and others. We don't want teams just making up the numbers and need teams that can raise overall standards and none of the teams mentioned would do that but that is a discussion on another thread.

[bobbruce]

The sooner the Wembley of the north is built in Tydlesley the better and they can go back to being a giant of the game. 

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, Kirmonds pouch said:

a very well supported club in the 1980's.

Their average crowd, according to Rugby League Project, in their Challenge Cup winning season of 1986/7 was 4,939.

[The Blues Ox]

7 minutes ago, Kirmonds pouch said:

Donny and York are optimistic I accept, not sure what your issue is with Fax, a very well supported club in the 1980's.

The problem with been well supported in the 80's is that its about 40 years ago and sadly a lot of people watching back there are no longer with us and we have generations that have simply not bought in to Rugby League as a viable sport. Its hard to actually say the potential is there as we are currently struggling to get 2k fans to watch in the current state and although promotion to SL might take us to crowd figures of the worst supported teams, I just can't see where the club pulls in an extra 5k or so fans, there is just so much more to do in the town and it is not like its a cash rich town and people watch their money infact I would say this season we will see another drop off in crowds for us with the new IMG rankings and an increase in entry prices making it even more expensive for families to watch a level of the sport hat is not that far removed from the standard that you can watch a few hundred yards down the road for a lot less money.

[Eddie]

11 minutes ago, Kirmonds pouch said:

Yep, add Widnes in, you can't remember them all, good call.

Donny and York are optimistic I accept, not sure what your issue is with Fax, a very well supported club in the 1980's.

You don't need to have what I'm having, I'm talking of  a possible potential, not fact, I didn't wake up this morning and suddenly think it had actually happened. I leave that to the London brigade.

They’re a great club and are doing well but Halifax (population 88,000, many of whom don’t know RL exists) will never average 8,000 or anywhere near it, even if they win super league. 

[The Blues Ox]

3 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Their average crowd, according to Rugby League Project, in their Challenge Cup winning season of 1986/7 was 4,939.

That was our League winning year and it went up slightly the following year but interestingly enough we got higher crowds in the old second division than we did over those 2 years. 

[Ragingbull]

56 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Halifax 8,000+, Donny 6,000+, York 8,000+. Can I have some of what you're having please. 
 

Also did you deliberately miss Widnes out? 

I think the Wetherspoons in Wakey opens at 8am so that might explain a lot of the original post.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Ragingbull

[Stirlin]

4 minutes ago, Ragingbull said:

I think the Wetherspoons in Wakey opens at 8am so that might explain a lot of the orinal post.

Urinal , or original ?.

[Eddie]

33 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

That was our League winning year and it went up slightly the following year but interestingly enough we got higher crowds in the old second division than we did over those 2 years. 

There you have it then, as we can rely on crowds from 40 years ago to predict those in the future, you’d be down to 1,400 if you got into SL. 

[Ragingbull]

5 minutes ago, Stirlin said:

Urinal , or original ?.

Dyslexia strikes again.

Thankfully its an online forum not a spelling test

[Midlands hobo]

Heartlands are the best, expansion clubs are taking money out of my team's pocket. Let's write it all off apart from Catalan as failed and pull up the draw bridge and sit smugly as the games dies around us. But we probably won't be alive then so we can die happy.

How long have you worked for IMG?

 

[Fevrover]

22 minutes ago, Ragingbull said:

I think the Wetherspoons in Wakey opens at 8am so that might explain a lot of the original post.

It's closed till February, bought pub next door ( I've forget it's name) and making it one big pub.

[Gooleboy]

30 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

It's closed till February, bought pub next door ( I've forget it's name) and making it one big pub.

Does that mean extra IMG points?

[M j M]

The only clubs which can realistically lay claim to be Sleeping Giants are Widnes and Bradford IMO.

[Click]

So how do we actually help all of these sleeping giants?

Not sure you've said much other than name a bunch of heartland clubs that should be doing better anyway.

[fighting irish]

1 hour ago, Kirmonds pouch said:

I'm a traditionalist, and I don't care who that upsets. I'm not against expansion if done right, which apart from Catalans it never has. I believe you can't be an expansive sport until you have a truly strong base, see the NSWRL mid eighties. We do not have that, far to many of our heartland clubs are failing in areas where they should be dominating, and until they are, then that is where we should concentrate all our efforts.

I've always been an optimist where my club Trinity are concerned, I knew we had more than we were offering, but even I'm stunned that we are nearly up to 5,000 season tickets, in November! Forget the discounts and the free kids tickets, you still have to be interested no matter how cheap it is. It just goes to show how much goodwill and interest there is in the game in the heartland areas if done well, and of course with a bit of money. That's what the Aussies did in the 1980's, there was not a weak club in that comp, some were richer, some were more successful, but all were to some degree competitive. Even the cinderella clubs such as Cronulla and Norths did ok, with only Newtown a failure. I know because I was there, and the interest in the comp was intense.

The people of NSW didn't care that at that point the game wasn't national, in fact it was virtually all based in Sydney. They just decided that in a sporting sense NSW was a country in it's own right, just like the North of England. Later they invited Queensland to add their own fairly strong teams to the mix, but you get the idea. Always made me laugh that the NSWRL had no qualms about calling their international team Australia, and being so determined to do so, when clearly it wasn't remotely representative of the whole nation. Of course we did the same, but we always seemed embarrassed by it.

So if it were up to me, these are the heartland teams we need to help out, that imho have the ability to become 'giants' or at least far better than they currently are, and as such create that far more desirable 16 team SL, and a vibrant set of lower leagues. I'm aware that we would also need to be producing far more young players to fill those teams, but it all goes hand in hand imo. We just need to find the people to do it, there has to be more than one Matt Ellis out there.

Sleeping giants, or at least quite big lads

Trinity: With BV on the mend and a very good pool of local talent, easily average gates of 8,000+ in SL, and no serious soccer threat.

Halifax: Possibly the most forgotten club in the game, a founder member of SL. Great ground, decent player pool, some soccer interest but not huge, another 8,000+

Bradford: There is so much wrong with Bradford, but it could all be made so right. Without doubt the most daunting in terms of investment required, but massive potential and the most recently successful, probably SL 's most iconic club. 12,000+

York: On the fringes of the heartland, but still a RL area, great stadium, 8,000+. Soccer an issue, but not overly so. York is probably one of the most famous cities in the UK, why not exploit that.

Doncaster: A bit like Halifax, a forgotten club, yet it's not that long ago that Tony Fisher created something there and the population did respond, they got some great crowds at Tattersfield. True they went bust in double quick time , but for a while they were top of the league! What matters though is that people were interested. Now they have a fantastic ground, in the right hands they could be a 6,000+. Soccer club is an issue.

Clubs with more potential than they are currently showing.

Oldham (another founder member of SL) and Rochdale: I'm not sure either will ever be SL, Rochdale has the ground, Oldham possibly has more fan/player potential. They could and should both be much better than they are. Oldhams biggest problem is the lack of a ground, so it's a biggy.

Cumbrian clubs: God knows, there is potential but it would take some serious development. I'm pretty sure that none of the existing clubs can go it alone, but maybe. What is for sure is we can't let them wither and die, in a sense Cumbria the games only real domestic expansion success story, how tragic is that.

Sheffield: Lets see how the ground situation develops, but in truth Sheffield is a soccer city, and I can only ever see Sheffield as a niche club, but it does have some history, it does produce players, and it is a big city.

Get this lot running well, then we can spread the game from a position of strength, that is what the NSWRL did, we did have a chance at the start of SL but totally ballsed it up, lets hope we can rectify that should the chance ever arise again.

I know the expansionist won't like this because it's not immediate enough or flashy enough, but it's the only model that actually seems to work, get the foundations in first.

As an avowed expansionist I agree with everything you say.

There is nothing wrong with continually strengthening what we have and so I stand aside cheering you on.

Having said that, I don't think using expansionist clubs as an excuse is an accurate explanation of why the game is weak. The current state of the game, isn't due to money wasted on expansionist development. It's due to a crippling incompetence an arrogant self satisfied unwillingness to improve and a dog eat dog determination not to share best practice amongst their bitter rivals. Listen to all the wailing about what IMG are encouraging the clubs to do. 

Hopefully IMG will improve the clubs business acumen and thereby bolster their sustainability. Time will tell.

Hardly any RFL effort/expertise/or money has been ''spent'' on expansion pro' clubs and even less on the amateur game (none).

The ''new'' pro clubs pop into existence, funded by hapless amateurs, with a few bob in their pockets, naively eager to cash in on the ''big time''. If it wasn't so tragic, it'd be laughable.

The development of the game outside the heartlands has been achieved entirely through the efforts of amateur enthusiasts who in the main, are motivated by the pure joy of being involved in a great game. Speaking plainly, there is no development plan. I'm happy with that. What we have is a tribute to all the real lovers of the game, (the Bob Browns) who have given their heart, soul and tireless efforts over many years, to build clubs in the communities they live in.

If you contrast what we have here with what they have in Australia the difference is glaring. They (the Aussies) have an enormous pyramid, under NRL. The clubs at various levels are very substantial businesses in their own rights with thousands of members and playing in thriving competitions for which the only reward is pride in their local clubs and the communities they represent.

We haven't got any of that.

Any attempt to graduate from this rich amateur base to the NRL is subject to huge scrutiny, very detailed due-dilligence and must be congruent with a wise, forward-looking strategy, despite being very substantial entities in their own right.  Look at the process the Dolphins were involved in before being accepted.

We'll let any chancer in, if it seems as if he's got a few quid, whether the area he intends to operate in has any history in the game or not.

Regarding real expansion here (I use Wales as an example), if we (Rugby League ''fans'') are not disparaging to our amateur pioneers we just ignore them completely. There's a kind of condescending, ''Daddy knows best'' attitude, a smirking arrogance based on their meagre achievements (to date) instead of warm heartfelt congratulations. The attitude of many posters here is one of mild embarrassment about our amateur players, clubs and structures, because their not on the telly.

I'm immensely proud of our local club, that's enough for me. I say keep building the amateur game and let the ''circus'' take care of itself. 

[Tommygilf]

Sleeping giant fishes in a very small pond... maybe