2026 Championship of 21 clubs

[dkw]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Call them Red Rose Conference and White Rose Conference if you like

You can ###### off if your including us Cumbrian teams, we arent either of them.....

[Click]

25 minutes ago, dkw said:

You can ###### off if your including us Cumbrian teams, we arent either of them.....

Well technically with the county revisions of 1487 ........

[dkw]

2 minutes ago, Click said:

Well technically with the county revisions of 1487 ........

NOOOO!!!! for the love of god dont start that again.....

Dont mention counties, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.....

Edited August 4 by dkw

[Roughyed Rats]

54 minutes ago, dkw said:

You can ###### off if your including us Cumbrian teams, we arent either of them.....

Are you disowning your Lancashire Cup win in 1978? 

[Expatknight]

13 minutes ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Are you disowning your Lancashire Cup win in 1978? 

I think there should be  Lancashire, Yorkshie and Cumbria leagues, but as this is Rugby League we would put Toulouse and London in with the Cumbrian ones, it's a pity Cornwall folded or they could have been in there too, makes perfect sense to me. Have to go, time for my medicine  

Edited August 4 by Expatknight

[dkw]

13 minutes ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Are you disowning your Lancashire Cup win in 1978? 

It was an invitational competition.....

 

 

Damn you.

[Griff]

4 hours ago, Ackroman said:

Have you thought of running a league 1 club? I'm sure they would be desperate for a salesman capable of signing up a 10 year lease on a stadium with surity of use and availability, staffing etc but with a pay as you go model just in case the governing body deliberately reduce league numbers with 12 months notice to increase the clubs in the league above, or just in case a club goes bust?

And for those clubs with their own facilities, Im sure they would appreciate this magic dust you possess sprinkling over their suppliers.

I'm taking it that I'm earning this disrespect because I had the temerity to suggest that it should be cheaper to hire a ground for ten matches rather than twelve.

No, I haven't considered running a tier 3 club.  Done tiers 1 and 2 though - albeit as part of a management team.  Paid money in to the project.  Not particularly expecting to see it again ever.  

[sam4731]

3 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Call them Red Rose Conference and White Rose Conference if you like

Oooh WotR. Let's start a fresh discussion about that.

[Blind side johnny]

On 03/08/2025 at 09:11, dkw said:

I'm sure we will find out the structure and funding levels with ample time for clubs to sort things out....

Nah, not really, the clown show now running the place will likely tell the clubs about 3 weeks before the league starts. 

Isn't there a meeting of club chairmen scheduled for this Wednesday (6th) to decide upon the structures for the non-SL clubs?

[LeeF]

32 minutes ago, Blind side johnny said:

Isn't there a meeting of club chairmen scheduled for this Wednesday (6th) to decide upon the structures for the non-SL clubs?

Not necessarily to decide but to consider.  
 

As for funding that will hinge on the SL clubs 

[dkw]

22 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Not necessarily to decide but to consider.  
 

As for funding that will hinge on the SL clubs 

I wonder if big nige will be there to "encourage" them to choose an option.. 

"That's a nice 2 lower leagues you've got, would be a shame if something was to happen to it....."

[Griff]

There are quite a lot of fixtures to be omitted.  The number of clubs is probably 21, which would be 40 games in a full programme.  I reckon that they'd probably settle on 26 games; if so, you'd be looking at omitting 14, or 35%.

If I were to be asked to come up with a fixture formula, I would write the names of the competing teams on a sheet of paper (a spreadsheet would do just as well) and write against each team's name, the names of the teams that they would not play.  Seven home fixtures and seven away.

It's a very flexible system. 

►Works for any number of teams, any number of games - just so long as you want to play the same number of games at home as you do away. 

►Can incorporate multiple criteria.   

►Tried and tested (it's the system we used in the NFP days when we had 19 teams playing 28 games).

►Could incorporate conferences (though I'd be against that).

What's not to like?

[Tommygilf]

59 minutes ago, Griff said:

There are quite a lot of fixtures to be omitted.  The number of clubs is probably 21, which would be 40 games in a full programme.  I reckon that they'd probably settle on 26 games; if so, you'd be looking at omitting 14, or 35%.

If I were to be asked to come up with a fixture formula, I would write the names of the competing teams on a sheet of paper (a spreadsheet would do just as well) and write against each team's name, the names of the teams that they would not play.  Seven home fixtures and seven away.

It's a very flexible system. 

►Works for any number of teams, any number of games - just so long as you want to play the same number of games at home as you do away. 

►Can incorporate multiple criteria.   

►Tried and tested (it's the system we used in the NFP days when we had 19 teams playing 28 games).

►Could incorporate conferences (though I'd be against that).

What's not to like?

Clubs will, in a system where they don't play everyone at home, want to guarantee the most lucrative and local home games for themselves. Dewsbury for example would be a tad miffed if their fixtures included home games vs London, Barrow and Midlands but not Fev, Halifax and Keighley.

I think it will be some form of "localised" conferences, h/a vs your own, with a variable number of matches against the other conference(s) teams. 

[chromedome]

4 hours ago, Roughyed Rats said:

Are you disowning your Lancashire Cup win in 1978? 

Yeah deffo disowning that one.........but mightily proud of beating Wigan in the 1977 Lancashire Cup Final.

[LeeF]

37 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Clubs will, in a system where they don't play everyone at home, want to guarantee the most lucrative and local home games for themselves. Dewsbury for example would be a tad miffed if their fixtures included home games vs London, Barrow and Midlands but not Fev, Halifax and Keighley.

I think it will be some form of "localised" conferences, h/a vs your own, with a variable number of matches against the other conference(s) teams. 

You ask each club to state which 2 teams they would prefer to play twice and that’s relatively easy to include. The other 4 would be random

[Tommygilf]

Whatever happens, looks like according to RFL (interim but not) Chair, CEO of RL Commercial, Senior Executive Director of the RFL, and Chair of the Strategic Review Committee, whatever happens next the game will not:

"provide strong central revenues any longer for tier two"

[LeeF]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Whatever happens, looks like according to RFL (interim but not) Chair, CEO of RL Commercial, Senior Executive Director of the RFL, and Chair of the Strategic Review Committee, whatever happens next the game will not:

"provide strong central revenues any longer for tier two"

You can hear the drawbridge being drawn up 

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

22 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Whatever happens, looks like according to RFL (interim but not) Chair, CEO of RL Commercial, Senior Executive Director of the RFL, and Chair of the Strategic Review Committee, whatever happens next the game will not:

"provide strong central revenues any longer for tier two"

Odds on Bradford being one of the 14 plummet........

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Clubs will, in a system where they don't play everyone at home, want to guarantee the most lucrative and local home games for themselves. Dewsbury for example would be a tad miffed if their fixtures included home games vs London, Barrow and Midlands but not Fev, Halifax and Keighley.

I think it will be some form of "localised" conferences, h/a vs your own, with a variable number of matches against the other conference(s) teams. 

Not quite seeing your point, Tommy. Of course Dewsbury's omitted home games in this hypothetical league would be largely, if not entirely, against teams from outside Yorkshire.  As they were 25 years ago.

[Tommygilf]

15 minutes ago, Griff said:

Not quite seeing your point, Tommy. Of course Dewsbury's omitted home games in this hypothetical league would be largely, if not entirely, against teams from outside Yorkshire.  As they were 25 years ago.

I don't see where the confusion is. Just saying that they will want the majority of their home games to be against sides closer to them.

[Griff]

21 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I don't see where the confusion is. Just saying that they will want the majority of their home games to be against sides closer to them.

The cpnfusion is why you raised the point at all.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

If Toulouse don't get promoted to SL, I can't see them sticking around in the English system any longer. What would be the point?

[headtackle]

6 hours ago, Just Browny said:

Ok fair, I misunderstood the suggestion to 'link up with the French clubs'.

I don't like conferences because at some points the geography won't balance out and you'll end up with weird anomalies. This happens even in football where youve got teams like Oxford and previously Bishop's Stortford in the National League North. We'd end up having to do something daft like put Sheffield in the southern conference.

I know what you mean. I watch a National League club and follow the leagues. Have always been amazed at the location of some clubs. It does seem to just about work though in football.

In RL we have a different scenario in that the stronger clubs are all in the North and while we would like to see growth down South those clubs find it very difficult to compete, losing week in week out fails to steadily attract and increase the support base who quickly lose interest and the clubs then fall away.

Conferences do not necessarily all need to be the same size,  and with the Southern one should a club like Cornwall decide to apply they would be playing at their level and be more competitive from the start.

 

[dkw]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

Whatever happens, looks like according to RFL (interim but not) Chair, CEO of RL Commercial, Senior Executive Director of the RFL, and Chair of the Strategic Review Committee, whatever happens next the game will not:

"provide strong central revenues any longer for tier two"

Well what a huge surprise that is, no one saw that coming......

Funding withdrawn from all but the 14 chosen ones, damn the rest of the clubs.

 

[Fevrover]

3 hours ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

Odds on Bradford being one of the 14 plummet........

We all know it's going to be  Bradford- pretty much nailed on,game stinks if so.

Edited August 4 by Fevrover