League Express editor MARTYN SADLER urges Cumbrian Rugby League supporters to stick with their existing clubs rather than have false hopes for a merged Cumbrian club.
Whitehaven won the Ike Southward Trophy last week with an exciting 18-12 victory over Workington Town in front of 1,745 spectators, which was the largest West Cumbrian derby crowd for quite a while.
And it was a “raucous crowd” as Jordan Weir wrote in his match report in League Express.
I was delighted to see such a strong turnout at the Ortus REC and it illustrated how important derby matches are in Rugby League.
I suspect it also illustrated that a club will be rewarded for signing local players, which Haven, after their relegation from the Championship last season, made a strong point of doing.
This season both West Cumbrian clubs will play in League One, and so we will see two more derby clashes in that competition.
There are some people who claim that the two West Cumbrian clubs should merge in an effort to secure a place in Super League for a combined Cumbrian team.
I’ve always thought that is a crazy idea.
Whitehaven and Workington don’t have a massive number of supporters, but both sets of fans would almost certainly be alienated if they were to be forcibly merged.
The best thing for both of them is to be highly competitive at the level they play at, particularly when they play each other.
The debate about a hypothetical merger reminds me of the proposal, quickly abandoned, to merge the two Hull clubs when Super League was launched in the mid-nineties.
This article is taken from Martyn Sadler’s ‘Talking Rugby League’ column in this week’s League Express.
