Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Thu Mar 07, 2013 11:11 pm  

gutterfax wrote: Really? What DIRECT work was done by the RFL prior to 2005 in London and the SE region to develop the game? http://www.londonrl.com/london_rl/contacts All but 1 position attributed to the RFL on that list at Southbank didn't exist before 2005......London were the flag bearers....ask LMS/Clubb what they aspired to be when they started playing RL. Your argument is that anything not done by the RFL is down to Broncos is an odd one. The people who did the spade work are almost all volunteers with no affiliation to either the Broncos or the RFL. At best Broncos have had a loose affiliation with RLC and London League clubs, they certainly don't fund them. To dismiss London as being responsible for the growth of the game in London & the SE is a very strange standpoint.....what were the participation figures pre SL in London schools? It wasn't possible to achieve anything pre-1995 because rugby union would ban any rugby pitch used by rugby league. No school was going to get their pitch banned by the RFU for the sake of a couple of game of RL. No facilities meant that there was schools development. Not to mention that it was difficult to find players who were interested in playing RL but had no interest in RU as they would have been banned from RU for life if they played RL. That might not have been a big deterrent in the north where there are a lot of RL sides but in London it meant that if your side folded (as often happened) you would never play "rugby" (of either kind) again. There has been schools development across the UK since the end of rugby union sanctions, were Broncos responsible for schools in the North East or Midlands taking up the game?

gutterfax wrote: Really? What DIRECT work was done by the RFL prior to 2005 in London and the SE region to develop the game? http://www.londonrl.com/london_rl/contacts All but 1 position attributed to the RFL on that list at Southbank didn't exist before 2005......London were the flag bearers....ask LMS/Clubb what they aspired to be when they started playing RL. Your argument is that anything not done by the RFL is down to Broncos is an odd one. The people who did the spade work are almost all volunteers with no affiliation to either the Broncos or the RFL. At best Broncos have had a loose affiliation with RLC and London League clubs, they certainly don't fund them. To dismiss London as being responsible for the growth of the game in London & the SE is a very strange standpoint.....what were the participation figures pre SL in London schools? It wasn't possible to achieve anything pre-1995 because rugby union would ban any rugby pitch used by rugby league. No school was going to get their pitch banned by the RFU for the sake of a couple of game of RL. No facilities meant that there was schools development. Not to mention that it was difficult to find players who were interested in playing RL but had no interest in RU as they would have been banned from RU for life if they played RL. That might not have been a big deterrent in the north where there are a lot of RL sides but in London it meant that if your side folded (as often happened) you would never play "rugby" (of either kind) again. There has been schools development across the UK since the end of rugby union sanctions, were Broncos responsible for schools in the North East or Midlands taking up the game?

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Thu Mar 07, 2013 11:26 pm  

Hedgehog King wrote:

Your argument is that anything not done by the RFL is down to Broncos is an odd one. The people who did the spade work are almost all volunteers with no affiliation to either the Broncos or the RFL. At best Broncos have had a loose affiliation with RLC and London League clubs, they certainly don't fund them.

So, these volunteers didn't get any assistance from the club......no training sessions, visits, assistance with equipment.

Hedgehog King wrote:

It wasn't possible to achieve anything pre-1995 because rugby union would ban any rugby pitch used by rugby league. No school was going to get their pitch banned by the RFU for the sake of a couple of game of RL. No facilities meant that there was schools development.

Not to mention that it was difficult to find players who were interested in playing RL but had no interest in RU as they would have been banned from RU for life if they played RL. That might not have been a big deterrent in the north where there are a lot of RL sides but in London it meant that if your side folded (as often happened) you would never play "rugby" (of either kind) again.

There has been schools development across the UK since the end of rugby union sanctions, were Broncos responsible for schools in the North East or Midlands taking up the game?

Ah.,.....so you're saying there was a massive underground RL resistance fighting a losing battle against big bad union in London until the lid was lifted in 1995

Council pitches are non denominational......jewish and muslim teams play on hackney marshes. Union clubs have club houses and private pitches, but if this massive RL resistance wanted to play,they could have played.

Londons community team have won numerous awards BTW......

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:42 am  

Nice to see Northern Sol dropping in from Totalrl. I suppose we can look forward to his continual anti-London posts here now he has found another outlet to add to his 13817 posts there on the subject of expansion clubs

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:30 am  

gutterfax wrote:

So, these volunteers didn't get any assistance from the club......no training sessions, visits, assistance with equipment.

They did hence "indirectly responsible".

Ah.,.....so you're saying there was a massive underground RL resistance fighting a losing battle against big bad union in London until the lid was lifted in 1995

Yes, it has been that way since 1895.

Council pitches are non denominational......jewish and muslim teams play on hackney marshes. Union clubs have club houses and private pitches, but if this massive RL resistance wanted to play,they could have played.

No, they couldn't. Read your history. The "one step rule" said that a pitch that had rugby league played on it could never be used for rugby union. Anyone who played on it subsequently was a "professional" and was banned from rugby union for life. As would be anyone who played against him.

It was only after 1995, that this stopped being a problem.

Londons community team have won numerous awards BTW......

I know. The development work is good, it just isn't better than the North East or the Midlands.

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:34 am  

Sarf Essex Taff wrote:

Nice to see Northern Sol dropping in from Totalrl. I suppose we can look forward to his continual anti-London posts here now he has found another outlet to add to his 13817 posts there on the subject of expansion clubs

No, I'm quite happy for Hemel and Oxford to have joined, this is the kind of expansion that the game needs. I'm less keen on the University of Gloucester as I don't think their model will work.

If London Broncos can sort themselves out then so be it, good for them but I'm against RFL money being used to do this (and I'm sure that it won't be). LIke other clubs Broncos need to find their own level.

And I've been a member of RLfans for years, I've always known about this sub-forum.

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 11:32 am  

Hedgehog King wrote:

I'm quite happy for Hemel and Oxford to have joined, this is the kind of expansion that the game needs.

Which is presumably why you rushed to post negative comments about Hemel as soon as they lost a friendly to Gateshead.

Your posts elsewhere give you away. While they are wrapped up in a veneer of reasonable comment, they are actually a drip drip drip of negativity against anything outside the heartlands.

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:16 pm  

Sarf Essex Taff wrote:

Which is presumably why you rushed to post negative comments about Hemel as soon as they lost a friendly to Gateshead.

Remind me how negative I got. I said it could be an unbalanced season with the haves and the have nots in CC1. I stand by that opinion.

Come and talk to me about "negative comments" when I am shown to be wrong.

Your posts elsewhere give you away. While they are wrapped up in a veneer of reasonable comment, they are actually a drip drip drip of negativity against anything outside the heartlands.

Again remind me when I was proven to be wrong. If anything I was overly optimistic about Crusaders. I thought that they would flop but in fact they were far, far worse than anything I had suggested. Reality seems to have a "flatcap bias".

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:44 pm  

Hedgehog King wrote:

Remind me how negative I got. I said it could be an unbalanced season with the haves and the have nots in CC1. I stand by that opinion.

Come and talk to me about "negative comments" when I am shown to be wrong.

Again remind me when I was proven to be wrong. If anything I was overly optimistic about Crusaders. I thought that they would flop but in fact they were far, far worse than anything I had suggested. Reality seems to have a "flatcap bias".

Perhaps you can remind us of any positive posts about rugby league you have made. I suppose somewhere in your 14,678 posts you may have mentioned your own club or discussed something that has actually happened on the pitch.

The truth is you couldn't wait to have a pop at Hemel almost as soon as their first full length friendly against a semi-pro side finished. Other posters commented on your unseemly haste.

It is obvious how euphoric you were in Crusaders' fall. No doubt you will experience the same ecstasy as and when Broncos go.

Personally I don't see anyone who delights in the game's failings just to be able to say I told you so as a supporter of the game.

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 1:56 pm  

I asked you when I had made a post that was negative and it had turned out to be wrong and you couldn't. Despite me having made 14,000 or so posts, not once could you find anything that was unduly negative. And yet I'm negative. That's you summed up. You prefer being optimistic but wrong to being realistic.

Thanks for reading my mind about Crusaders. Do you have any post at all made by me that was "euphoric", surely there must be dozens and you could find at least one? No, thought not.

As to making positive posts I often do but you probably don't read them. I happen to think that the RFL have finally learned from their mistakes with expansion and are more or less pursuing the right path. It won't be easy and there will be setbacks but it will at least have a chance of working.

Re: RFL to `Improve London Strategy` : Fri Mar 08, 2013 2:23 pm  

Hedgehog King wrote:

As to making positive posts I often do but you probably don't read them.

Yadda Yadda Yadda

We can't read what doesn't exist. Go on. Who is your team? That will make it easier for us to find all the positive posts from you saying how much you enjoy watching rugby league.

The truth is you appear every time you have a chance to bash non-heartland teams. You call it realistic. I say it's pathetic that you don't even have the courage of your convictions to actually own up to your real views.