Re: Sad day for Progress and Expansion : Thu Nov 21, 2013 12:47 pm  

daftdad wrote:

Going into administration offers a fresh start should a new backer want to take the London SL project further and get rid of old debts.

DH knows any money he has put in he will not get back or else he will not get an investor so the 'debt free club' can be taken as given IMO. He wants the club to survive and just wants someone to take over who can run it viably which is why we need to be protected from relegation and the loosening of the the overseas quata so we can have a chance of having a competitive team to keep the fanbase.

Re: Sad day for Progress and Expansion : Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:11 pm  

It is a hell of a shame and with the BBC reminding us that the RU world cup final of 10 years ago is on TV tonight, you can be sure we get plenty of exposure over our bad news.
Whoever made the decision to tie you to Harlequins as a name and a venue made a glaring error. Fans without a large wad of cash new this, it was always doomed to failure. Rugby Union authority hate us and always have had contempt for us, they also fear us because our game is superior. I went to an international RL game v Australia at Twickenham and they treated us like crap with limited facilities available. You have to make things work for yourselves. I watched Wakefield play Fulham with 15000 in the stadium.
Location, location, location.
I am an unashamed expansionist but the borax made in the last 10 years makes it hard to argue for any financial support and special dispensations.
I hope you make it through. Best wishes.

Re: Sad day for Progress and Expansion : Thu Nov 21, 2013 7:32 pm  

Manuel wrote:

It is a hell of a shame and with the BBC reminding us that the RU world cup final of 10 years ago is on TV tonight, you can be sure we get plenty of exposure over our bad news.
Whoever made the decision to tie you to Harlequins as a name and a venue made a glaring error. Fans without a large wad of cash new this, it was always doomed to failure. Rugby Union authority hate us and always have had contempt for us, they also fear us because our game is superior. I went to an international RL game v Australia at Twickenham and they treated us like crap with limited facilities available. You have to make things work for yourselves. I watched Wakefield play Fulham with 15000 in the stadium.
Location, location, location.
I am an unashamed expansionist but the borax made in the last 10 years makes it hard to argue for any financial support and special dispensations.
I hope you make it through. Best wishes.

Absolute and utter drivel.
1. London's SL club experienced 4 of their 6 best average crowds for a SL season as Harlequins Rugby League.
2. The RFU couldn't give a flying f**k about RL in the modern professional era. The pinnacle of TV deals is held up as the $200,000,000 a year deal the NRL get for a full season as well as the U20's, reserve grade and state of Origin....the 6 Nations gets $68,000,000 a year for 15 games FFS.....Union is a monster compared to league...the Irish RFU turn over more than the RFL.....Union is the 4th team sport in Ireland
3. Wakefield v Fulham back in the day eh.....good for you. In SL the biggest gate for the visit of Wakefield was as Harlequins RL...as was the 2nd, 3rd and 4th biggest as well.....kind of blows your TW2 stance out of the water
4.Location Location Location you say? Where London play their home games makes no odds.....on the few occasions that the club or the RFL have actually marketed the game they have had a result crowd wise.......it has SFA to do with location and everything to do with the debate about who should pay for expansion......
5. Your bitter hatred of the bigger and more popular code shines through like a beacon......thank Christ the games governing bodies think differently with the ex CEO of Harlequins RFC now in place as CEO of the Melbourne Storm as well as being employed by RLWC 2013 to market the BIG HIT this weekend.......your narrow minded approach is what holds the game back from where it could be.

: Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:30 pm  

When did Union change for the better, when someone like Carling was willing to stand up and say about those at the top of the game being a bunch of old farts! It's time for someone to do the same in Rugby League other than Ian Lenagan before the spirt goes much more backwards!

Re: Re: : Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:43 pm  

jaybs wrote:

I fully accept the problems at our club, and the major errors made, but at the end of the day The RFL and it's CEO have gone above the pail for such as Salford & Bradford and still are doing for the latter, someone at Red Hall has to take the blame. The lack of sponsorship which means money for clubs, the most stupid mistake ever the reduction of Academy Teams to 10? that is the future of our sport and is an open goal for Rugby Union with youth! now last weekend the funding for the Celtic nations is pulled, just as Scotland feel they had a credible world cup in their eyes, this all falls down to the CEO of the RFL, if he was in industry he would have been called to account way before now, his position is clearly untenable, he is holding the sport back.

Aside from the lack of sponsorship, I'd say Woods would be applauded for his decisions if he worked in industry. He has made some unpopular decisions at a time when the sport is going through a difficult period. I'm sure he would like to subsidise Scotland and have 14 academy sides but the cash just isn't there.

Re: Re: : Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:50 pm  

Hedgehog King wrote:

Aside from the lack of sponsorship, I'd say Woods would be applauded for his decisions if he worked in industry. He has made some unpopular decisions at a time when the sport is going through a difficult period. I'm sure he would like to subsidise Scotland and have 14 academy sides but the cash just isn't there.

What has Wood done that needs to be applauded?
Difficult period? The Welsh farce was purely down to bad decisions being made at the RFL, as was the Stobart deal. The troubles at Bradford (3 owners inside 2 years), Wakefield, London and Salford (nearly) are not his issue, yet he involves himself heavily in 2 of them but ignores the other 2. The NRail cup is no more, he has tried to placate the Championship Clubs by buying them with SL TV money and binning licencing, something a majority of SL clubs now seem to have an issue with and the premier comp in Europe is still without a naming sponsor 3 years after Engage announced they were offski!
I for one a thrilled that IL and the dissenters have chosen to have a go during the RLWC.....Wood will quite happily take all the credit for what has been a great comp and try to use this as a position of strength.....I suspect he will have to back down on a number of issues or face being in charge of a sport that is missing it's top 13 English draw-cards....he can then fight BARLA for control of what's left of the game below Super League.

Re: Re: : Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:41 am  

Hedgehog King wrote:

I'd say Woods would be applauded for his decisions if he worked in industry.

Which perhaps only shows the standards of those running industry then. Let's be clear: making people redundant while retaining your own sizeable pay packet is easy. Fiddling around with organisational change rather than bringing in much needed funds is easy. Blaming a system put in place by your predecessor rather than trying to make it work is easy. Appeasing factional interests rather than looking at the bigger picture is easy. I don't personally feel any of these should be applauded myself.

50% of one department of the Coop in your present neck of the woods have been made redundant today. I am sure they are applauding the decisions now being made in that organisation. I can only wonder what hard working servants of the game such as the Senters think when they wander to the dole office about the tough decisions made about their lives by people still in place retaining a six figure salary, while overseeing commercial failure, a disastrous drop in funding and infighting which may haunt the game for years to come.

Re: Re: : Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:47 am  

gutterfax wrote:

What has Wood done that needs to be applauded?
Difficult period? The Welsh farce was purely down to bad decisions being made at the RFL, as was the Stobart deal. The troubles at Bradford (3 owners inside 2 years), Wakefield, London and Salford (nearly) are not his issue, yet he involves himself heavily in 2 of them but ignores the other 2. The NRail cup is no more, he has tried to placate the Championship Clubs by buying them with SL TV money and binning licencing, something a majority of SL clubs now seem to have an issue with and the premier comp in Europe is still without a naming sponsor 3 years after Engage announced they were offski!
I for one a thrilled that IL and the dissenters have chosen to have a go during the RLWC.....Wood will quite happily take all the credit for what has been a great comp and try to use this as a position of strength.....I suspect he will have to back down on a number of issues or face being in charge of a sport that is missing it's top 13 English draw-cards....he can then fight BARLA for control of what's left of the game below Super League.

I'm no fan of Woods particularly over the Crusaders farce and I think the NRC should be kept.

But that said most people seem to think "making cuts" is a sign of a poor manager. In fact it is a sign of a difficult economic circumstance. A weak manager would simply dodge making the decision and leave it for the next guy to clean up the mess.

Re: Re: : Fri Nov 22, 2013 12:52 am  

Sarf Essex Taff wrote:

Which perhaps only shows the standards of those running industry then. Let's be clear: making people redundant while retaining your own sizeable pay packet is easy. Fiddling around with organisational change rather than bringing in much needed funds is easy. Blaming a system put in place by your predecessor rather than trying to make it work is easy. Appeasing factional interests rather than looking at the bigger picture is easy. I don't personally feel any of these should be applauded myself.

50% of one department of the Coop in your present neck of the woods have been made redundant today. I am sure they are applauding the decisions now being made in that organisation. I can only wonder what hard working servants of the game such as the Senters think when they wander to the dole office about the tough decisions made about their lives by people still in place retaining a six figure salary, while overseeing commercial failure, a disastrous drop in funding and infighting which may haunt the game for years to come.

I'm not saying that he is an organisational genius but it is hardly his fault that there is a major recession on. Doubtless somebody else might have done better but nobody would have done well. Companies aren't sponsoring events like they used to.

Now anyone laid off isn't going to enjoy it, however, if nobody is ever laid off then the whole organisation becomes unviable.

The problem with league fans is that they have an obsession with "thinking big", which generally translates into "throwing money at white elephants". Now Woods has his faults but he ain't one of those.

edit: though he might be likened to an elephant

Re: Sad day for Progress and Expansion : Fri Nov 22, 2013 1:04 am  

Is there a case for adopting a region in the same way that Catalan opted for Catalan rather than calling themselves Perpignan? I've seen cars with Catalan Dragons stickers on as far away as Carcassonne. You know, play out of Barnet and call yourself "Southern Broncos" or something like that, or Southern Saxons? So that it represents the whole of the south of England against the north, and might act as a rallying cry.

It is a shame it's going belly up. London in its current form wasn't working and had no sign of it ever working. It is still a sad day though because it means that something intended to spread the game hasn't worked.