Re: League One : Thu Nov 04, 2021 7:33 am  

snowie wrote:

add that to the comments from McDermott when he was at Toronto saying how the game needs to think bigger than little pit villages, looks like eating humble pie every day now that he's at Featherstone, I hope he chokes on it

The last paying attendances published for the clubs in question included

Pit village second tier Leigh 3,055
Pit Village second tier Featherstone 2,282
Massive international city of over 9 Million people, playing Superleague, London 2,014

Massive International city of over 6 Million people leading and winning the championship Toronto erm...er......6,988

However I have no information how many just attended the Beer festival, how many were given free tickets and how many used the free gate.

I can only guess the $30 Million loss Toronto made points to nobody actually paying so can we make that a Zero?

Re: League One : Fri Nov 12, 2021 8:02 am  

The Midlands Hurricanes are moving from Coventry. Their home for next season is Birmingham & Solihull RFC’s ground but they’re apparently in discussions with the Alexander Stadium regarding making the stadium in Birmingham their permanent home from 2023.

[Pumpetypump]

Re: League One : Fri Nov 12, 2021 10:12 am  

Kevs Head wrote:

The Midlands Hurricanes are moving from Coventry. Their home for next season is Birmingham & Solihull RFC’s ground but they’re apparently in discussions with the Alexander Stadium regarding making the stadium in Birmingham their permanent home from 2023.

Argh. I hate watching Rugby at athletics Stadiums. It robs it of atmosphere having 8 lanes of nothing between you and the pitch. I don't think that's a good move.

Re: League One : Fri Nov 12, 2021 10:34 am  

Pumpetypump wrote:

Argh. I hate watching Rugby at athletics Stadiums. It robs it of atmosphere having 8 lanes of nothing between you and the pitch. I don't think that's a good move.

With you on that. Plus - a few hundred fans in a 20,000 seater stadium are going to rattle around a bit. I’m quite excited about a semi pro team local to me but I think both the new name and the proposed venue might be a bit of a blooper. Fingers crossed.

Re: League One : Fri Nov 12, 2021 11:05 am  

Kevs Head wrote:

The Midlands Hurricanes are moving from Coventry. Their home for next season is Birmingham & Solihull RFC’s ground but they’re apparently in discussions with the Alexander Stadium regarding making the stadium in Birmingham their permanent home from 2023.

I feel a bit sorry for the Coventry stalwarts who now find they are to be moved.

Worrying for the followers of League 1 sides when they have the less than salubrious stadia to visit at Solihull,Oldham and Cornwall.

The low attendances gives further ammunition to owners of Super League clubs and the keyboard critics of expansion clubs.

[Pumpetypump]

Re: League One : Fri Nov 12, 2021 12:48 pm  

Ornery Optimist wrote:

I feel a bit sorry for the Coventry stalwarts who now find they are to be moved.

Worrying for the followers of League 1 sides when they have the less than salubrious stadia to visit at Solihull,Oldham and Cornwall.

The low attendances gives further ammunition to owners of Super League clubs and the keyboard critics of expansion clubs.

Its the Rugby League way. Try to destroy the roots before they take hold.

Why stay in Bridgend and become integrated with a working class population, when you can move to Wrexham 5 hours away. Why stay in Maesteg when you can go to Neath, Torfaen, in a slate mine or just anywhere as long as you keep moving.

Why on earth stay in a specific area of London and become embedded in a sense of community when you can move between Fulham, Crystal Palace, Barnet, Brentford, Twickenham, Ealing, the back garden of Buckingham Palace.

Why would you stay put in Blackpool, a sizeable solidly working class town, when you could instead move to become the second team in Wigan, then on to Chorley, then Altrincham, before realising you should have been in Blackpool all along and you fold.

As I say it's imperative that we cleave up these pesky roots before they take hold otherwise we'll be in serious danger of growing the game which would be a total nightmare.

Re: League One : Sat Nov 13, 2021 6:47 pm  

Pumpetypump wrote:

Its the Rugby League way. Try to destroy the roots before they take hold.

Why stay in Bridgend and become integrated with a working class population, when you can move to Wrexham 5 hours away. Why stay in Maesteg when you can go to Neath, Torfaen, in a slate mine or just anywhere as long as you keep moving.

Why on earth stay in a specific area of London and become embedded in a sense of community when you can move between Fulham, Crystal Palace, Barnet, Brentford, Twickenham, Ealing, the back garden of Buckingham Palace.

Why would you stay put in Blackpool, a sizeable solidly working class town, when you could instead move to become the second team in Wigan, then on to Chorley, then Altrincham, before realising you should have been in Blackpool all along and you fold.

As I say it's imperative that we cleave up these pesky roots before they take hold otherwise we'll be in serious danger of growing the game which would be a total nightmare.

North Wales have just announced they will stay in Colwyn Bay not Wrexham. When the music stops the RL team finds a new stadium!

Re: League One : Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:51 am  

BJ Leulia signing for Featherstone is crazy.
On his day he is the hardest running player in the game.
Just a few months ago I saw him play a reserve grade game and thought he might kill some NRL reserve graders.
If anyone makes him angry he could send some part time players to hospital.

[Pumpetypump]

Re: League One : Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:04 am  

roopy wrote:

BJ Leulia signing for Featherstone is crazy.
On his day he is the hardest running player in the game.
Just a few months ago I saw him play a reserve grade game and thought he might kill some NRL reserve graders.
If anyone makes him angry he could send some part time players to hospital.

I just hope that Featherstone's aren't doing a "Super league or bust" thing. They seem really well run at the moment so you'd hope not.

Re: League One : Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:15 am  

Pumpetypump wrote:

Its the Rugby League way. Try to destroy the roots before they take hold.

Why stay in Bridgend and become integrated with a working class population, when you can move to Wrexham 5 hours away. Why stay in Maesteg when you can go to Neath, Torfaen, in a slate mine or just anywhere as long as you keep moving.

Why on earth stay in a specific area of London and become embedded in a sense of community when you can move between Fulham, Crystal Palace, Barnet, Brentford, Twickenham, Ealing, the back garden of Buckingham Palace.

Why would you stay put in Blackpool, a sizeable solidly working class town, when you could instead move to become the second team in Wigan,

Because these so called expansion clubs do not become embedded in a sense of community

Blackpool spent 33 years trying to become "embedded" but attracted very little support (the seaside trip offered away fans a great day out but when Huyton who had no away fans landed in Boroughs last year the attendance was 240 Borough fans

Everywhere we go we are up against Soccer, and Union provides the "Rugby Alternative" Coventry City and Coventry RU are big clubs historically embedded in the city, so there is little enthusiasm to support Rugby league whether going through the turnstyles or actually playing it.

Can we claim a success in London after 40 years? It doesn't look like it, and is it a success when what we do manage to achieve is on the back of someone pumping in massive amounts of private money? The "success" is clearly very very expensive indeed.

So should Rugby Union be heavily castigated for their failure to get a foothold in Yorkshire and Lancashire? Where are Leeds RUFC after all these years??

If we want Rugby League to survive this won't happen via "Expansion" it can only happen through investing in the game in it's heartlands, so we need private money going into Bradford where they even dwarfed Bradford City, and Widnes a strong RL town by tradition. Prospective owners may still lose a bundle but this happens in all codes.....