The Shay never has been and never will be a Calderdale Community Stadium in the eyes of The Shaymen, some of my best memories down the Shay will not be RL or Association Football, they are of Bruce Penhall, Kenny Carter, Michael Lee etc putting it all on the line, looking for dirt on an outside line and occasionally snaffling one of their tear offs, only for my mother to throw it in the bin.
If, and it's a big if, the RL Club could finance through a new owner a stadium of their own, I'm quite sure the Council would sell derelict land, it'd be one less rent to chase, a large cash injection to the bank account, and would force a lot of people in the FC ranks to see they have been getting a pretty good deal themselves based on two tenants sharing the burden, albeit paying different rates at different intervals and with different grievances.
3 sides of the ground are already dated, with little hope of them not becoming even more run down in the near future.
I have no problem with the Shay being a football stadium if the RL club could go it alone, RL could even invite a RU club onboard and keep it going all year round with a thriving social club attached. That would make more sense to me if Finances were no problem.
It is what it is, Football and Rugby don't play nicely together, and it ain't just in Halifax.
