GOOLE VIKINGS are now a professional entity after being given the green light to enter into the lower echelons of rugby league.
The East Yorkshire club, based out of the Victoria Pleasures Ground Stadium, beat Anglian Vipers and Bedford Tigers for the 2025 franchise for the third tier.
Of course, in the era of IMG, all clubs will be given a grading at the end of October, with 15 points needed to be guaranteed of a Super League place for next season.
For Goole, that dream is a distant one as owner Mark Richardson explains the difficulty of earning points as a very new professional entity.
“We were always told day one by the RFL that, because we are the newest club, we would be ranked the lowest,” Richardson said.
“There are a huge amounts of points available to show three years’ worth of accounting but we are a brand new entity. The amateur team runs itself financially but when we presented the professional club, we had nothing to back it up with.
“The social media aspect and the points around that too, we were working around the socials of the amateur team. We have since launched the socials for the professional side and heavily marketed it. The day there was a leak by the Hull Daily Mail about who may be coaching, we had 300 people sign up instantly on Facebook and that took us up 2,500 followers.
“Twitter, Tiktok and Linked In, as we have been announcing things slowly, it has been building by the hundreds. Now we have got that new market, we would be in a better position for the IMG score.
“If I was to throw a dart at a figure, we would be looking at less than five points because we can’t give three years of accounting, we can’t give attendance figures that are over 500 to get the points needed. The investment side and all of that is brand new too.
“Automatically, for us, we couldn’t score ourselves against six or seven of the criteria before we had even started.
“The stadium is a mixed one too, because we were applying as a professional entity that didn’t exit on the basis of a stadium that is on its way.
“But, the visit of the stadium was done on the current spec which was different in points and percentages.”
The ambition to progress from a Grade C to a Grade B is, however, very strong at the Vikings.
“Our score will increase next year, realistically the IMG score doesn’t really matter for us unless we are attempting to get into Super League.
“For the Championship, you can still get promoted on merit than on the grading. Our ambition will be to move to a Grade B in a three to five year period.”
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