First try was worth the admission alone...nearly

Where can any championship club go? With the SL tail wagging the dog they will look after themselves for sure and systems will be put in place that look to offer promotion but scratch beneath the surface and they don't.

Most of the current problems hark back to licencing and the sham that that was - as our last application showed!

Licencing saw the SL clubs get nigh on ten years of funding at £1.8 Million a year whereas the championship clubs were left to rot with no plan or strategy for their development and £30K a year for ten years. Now these championship clubs are expected to step up and compete with around £18 million of funding on £300K over the ten years. Quite frankly if a SL club does get relegated it will deserve it but God help the championship club being promoted.

It's funny, but you didn't hear any Bulls, or other SL club fans, fighting the corner of the championship clubs when they got their free money during licencing. Now Bulls are with us plebs and Leeds and Huddesfield are having to lower themselves to our level it becomes a problem. The past ten years ensure Leeds and Huddersfield won't have anything to worry about.

We are where we are cos we ended up outside SL at the wrong time. And for mine, the BOD deserve some credit - we have the best part time side in the competition, a fine coach and opportunities for juniors and fringe players that even SL cubs don't offer. The club is growing in my opinion and feels like it is coming alive.

We are miles off super league, as are the rest of the championship, but how would any club fare if promoted? The systems and state of the game over the last ten years have pretty much dictated the future for championship clubs. Halifax are trying their best and making good progress but will they get any recognition and plaudits? Doubt it. Just patronising platitudes and our best young assets stripped

Absolutely spot on, as are the rest of the comments on this thread. I couldn't agree more.

Would be nice to know what's happened to Mr Abbott though......

As an aside. Imagine the commercial department trying to sell sponsorship deals:...

Sponsor "So, does the championship have a tv deal?"

Club "yes, with sky sports, one of europe's premium sports channels"

Sponsor "and how often are you on?"

Club "once guaranteed if the summer bash stays in the calendar"

Sponsor "and if the summer bash is no more?"

Club "we won't be on tv but we will have a tv deal on sky sports"

Sponsor "any other chances to be on to?"

Club "if we make the middle 8s but not if two super league teams are playing at the same time. Or if the bowls is on"

Sponsor "see ya"

Not easy eh? Big Nige continues to do a job on us!

As has been mentioned and as I have talked about with friends, I too think Marshall's signings this season have been average at best. However we are 3rd in the championship with 2 games to go and although we would have liked to be in that position for certain if we had been offered it before the season we would have taken it especially when some fans of other teams were tipping us to be a 1 season wonder and finish 7th or below. He is still pretty young in the head coach role and he is smart enough to learn from this season.

At some point we would have to go full time but as Bradford are finding out and Sheffield most certainly found out, there simply is not enough quality full time players out there to even think about competing for SL. I actually fear for us if we make the top 4 but can see why it is a must we do. For me though there will be some massive scores in the 8's this time as the gulf in class is even bigger than last year.

Top post Freddie.

I can only assume the poster of this topic is perhaps not as old as some of us others, Whilst I do feel some frustration we are not what we could be, nor what we once were, I would like to defend the club 100%
I can now watch a team with exciting players playing an exciting brand of rugby, on the whole. I can also keep up to date with news on FB, I can watch highlights, sometimes even the full game, I can still read the Worrier if all else fails, I can. Listen on audioboom, I can turn up to fans evenings, I can still get involved with the trust if I have the inclination, I can talk crud with the rest of you on here, we have a meaningful comp that we have no divine right to be winning because of what we once were, we have excellent local sides to engage with, and a community that has a history of producing players and support with a fair wind.
I've seen some dark days, false dawns, hope smashed. These are good times, people have access to fax like never before.
We have a great coaching prospect, and a skipper in Muzza who gives the cause everything he has and leads by example. We have a more professional back room than I can remember in a long time, work continues in the community.
For me as a fan I see realists involved at the club, people who care, people who won't gamble with the existence of the club.
I said last year don't write this group of players off, on their day they could turn a SL side over, and crikey, if we get these last two games right, we could have the Rhinos down the Shay, how good would that be, my dream is not to see us in SL, it's to see the Shay full of people watching Fax and enjoying it.
As always, with a fair wind and plenty of effort and optimism, who knows. Sure it's probably going to take a SL club or two to falter for the trap door to be engaged, that's not impossible, I'd be sad to see us having daft money thrown at just getting into SL, a lot of bridges needing rebuilding over the last 10 years or so, Fax's card was well and truly marked by many people who'd had their fingers burnt.
The club is going forward at a pace I support, until we sign or find those rough diamonds who become world stars, or one of us wins the Lottery, we're doing absolutely the right things, take Sheffield, Bradford, Featherstone, I wouldn't swap with any of them, nor would I want to go through our final SL season again. I would say to people, don't accept free tickets, pay in, buy stuff from the club shop, bring a mate, speak well of the club, cheer the lads, enjoy it and if we have done all that, as I said, until we find those starlets, or can snap up the fieldens, burgess's, widdop as kids and keep em, that's as much as we can do, Questioning ambitions of people in the club isn't valid at this point, they're realistic, I applaud them.
As for Tony Abbott, he has a had a pretty busy year, not quite four weddings and a funeral, but I don't think he's had stacks of time and cash that could have been free'd up for Fax. He gave us something though, and if he is more prominent again in the future, time will tell.
Two big home games, it's all to play for, if we can have a good run in, then who knows what year 3 will bring for Richard Marshall and Fax. I'm glad we have what we have. I've seen a dam sight worse

One thing is for sure.
Without our BOD, coaching staff and the rest of the people behind the scenes who keep giving their all tirelessly for the club we would be going nowhere fast except backwards.

Whilst I'm at it, what burns me most was the abuse us championship fans took for questioning licensing. We weren't opposed to expansion, didn't want Rugby League to be semi pro and stuck in the heartlands.

As I remember, we said it could be a club killer of clubs weren't ready, (where are Celtic Crusaders again), would be done shoddily with an agenda and would weaken the championship making normal promotion impossible if it was ever reintroduced.

Apparently being right made us "flatcappers".

And that is all that is wrong with the game. There is no plan, there is no family, there is no strategy. The sport is where it is because it doesn't know it's from its elbow. We must be the only sport in the world that has promotion and relegation but has laws in place that prevent promotion from happening. A sport that hops around from shooting itself in the foot all the time! What a great product we keep managing to mess up!

And Nigel Wood gives himself another 5 unaccountable years on a salary greater than the prime minister. You couldn't make it up.

Frankly I'm grateful to all who have had a hand in Fax recently, they've all been saints battling against all the adversity and indifference

I think the Board should communicate more with the fans I agree it is an area the club have never been good at to be honest but they are doing their best to be fair and we do not have a sugar daddy like Leigh, London and until this year Sheffield.
Lets see where we finish and then I am sure the Board can tell us where the club is going when they know what funding they will get.
We have made improvements with things like the programme, having a screen, Fax Pro TV and a Reserve team its just that nagging thing that the club seem a bit remote from the fans and for me do not try hard enough to get into those that don't support Fax like around town and in pubs with fixture lists and flyers like FCHT do the club rely on the dedicated few.

I think there are a lot of very good comments on here. From a lot of passionate fans (and perhaps around longer than me) with memories of bad times as well.

I don't really want to look back, although I accept it impacts the future as we start from a position based upon our history. What I want to see is the BOD tell The fans what it is they are going to do over the next few years and why.. These guys run the club, and based upon past experiences look like they are doing a good job. We all have our views in what is the right/wrong way ahead but they need to explain what is going on. I am fed up with the focus being purely on the next match, or next player, or next meal offer.

So my key questions are really
What do they mean by better foundations? How much of this has been done and what's next? How long will each stage take?
Are we going to continue the way we are (Part time) and hope things improve or is there a clear plan timeframe to move to a full time club? (I don't know the "right" answer for this as I don't have enough information, but I agree if Sheffield are where we will be then it's a daft step)
What is the financial position of the club now and is there a forecast of the way ahead?
Why do we have so many uninvolved shareholders?

In a sense I am asking the type of questions my boss tells me about the company I work for and can show me.

And I don't just want to know for next year, tell us the plan for a few more years.

For goodness sake if they know it share it, if they don't know it then perhaps they are not as solid as we think.