We should have bit the bullet when the original SuperLeague idea was mooted and formed regions.
I was at Doncaster at the time and well remember the "never merge with Sheffield" kerfuffle. What's there now?...a Sheffield club that will never get a franchise and a Donny team on its knees. We could have had "South Yorkshire Stormers" alternating between the 2 towns with a view to a new RL stadium being built somewhere off the M18.

Some big city clubs and some regionals was always where we was heading in the end but now we've let Union take over as the next best supported code after Association Football. For League to truly evolve into something better regarded, better supported and better financed we need to make some tough decisions.

We should have had 16 franchises fully backed financially with a NFL style draft, with the clubs having to support semi-pro teams, amatuers and juniors. It could have immense....., 4 in West Yorks, 1 Mersey, 2 Lancashire, 1 Cheshire, 1 Cumbria, 1 Wales, 2 (or 1) France, 1 London, 1 East Yorkshire, 1 South Yorkshire, 1 Tyneside, (1 other if only 1 in France)

Its certainly not looking too good for one of us thats for sure. And my money is zipped up in the wife's purse where its stopping.

i think my money will be staying in my pocket too when this season is over, i have had enough of wrightys empty promises and too many second rate players over the last few years now, after being a season ticket holder for the last 24 years i think its time to say enough is enough.

I would never supporter a merged team, i'm a cas fan if the clubs identity goes, my support goes with it.

Would just have to go watch lock lane instead.

if fev come on board we can call the club , The Good,The Bad and The Ugly (wakefield being good cos it was my idea)

Or Tom Dick and Harry you can be Dick of course for obvious reasons

I think the merged clubs would lose too many hard-core fans to make merger viable. It certainly wouldn't be the case that all Cas and Wakefield fans would support the merged team, I'd suggest that sales of season tickets would be less for the merged team than both Cas and Wakefield's stand-alone numbers (ie IF Cas and Wakey both have 5000 season-ticket holders each, the merged club may well achieve less than this figure owing to a lack of supporter identification with the new club).
Sorry to be boring, but research often makes use of the term "supporter identification", a measure of how closely supporters identify with their team and therefore committ to supporting it, particularly financially. This is often developed over many years (generations usually) and you can't just create a team and expect strong supporter identification. This, in gereral research opinion, is why it is difficult for new clubs and organisations to succeed in the short-term and usually fail.

why thank you

Go ask Fev for a merger, in just over 18 months we will be at Newmarket. Then again so will you.

Ground share not merger. Is that not a better option?

It's been interesting reading this thread with some strong opinions on both sides. The thing that has struck me is, even though there are still the vociferous anti-merger opinions that were evident 15 years ago, they are more than matched by others who see a combined club as the way forward. As I said earlier, I do feel this issue will raise it's head sooner rather than later. If you'll excuse me straying a little from hard facts, the last couple of days have seen many suggestions that the loan players are being pulled from Cas because of the bad situation at the club currently, including suggestions of a drinking culture (players turning up to training drunk, a 7 day bender for Chase and Westerman, players being spotted drinking the night before the cup game and even a big party at Sherwin's the day after the cup defeat!) Now I stress this is just what is doing the rounds, but I've seen similar here on the Cas board, so I'm assuming there's a fair chance there's something in it. That being the case it's difficult to see how the club can pull it around this season and, if relegation does happen, what chance is there of a return to SL any time soon? Franchises are only given out every 3 years and a relegated club may well be in no position to make an application 2 years after taking the drop, which is when the application would have to be made. This could meant 6 years or even longer in the lower leagues, a far cry from the prospect of instant promotion which applied the last time the club went down. How many of the supporters who now say "I'd only support Castleford" would still actually be watching the club at the end of this period, particularly in light of a season ticket holder of some 24 years already saying that 'enough is enough' on this very thread. I know some would still be there but how many more wouldn't? I can't remember what the attendances were like last time the club was relegated but that was with the promise/expectation of an instant return to the top flight. Facing 6 years, or even a decade or more of NL1, would crowds hold up or would the support dwindle to the point of a merger not even being a viable option as far as the RFL is concerned? I notice that a couple of people have mentioned a shared stadim as being the solution. Would it be a solution if one (or even both!) are playing in NL1? Maybe it still would. I can't claim to know one way or the other but, again looking as a neutral, I'm sure it wouldn't neccessarily be the priority for the RFL who seem far more concerned with expansion clubs like Crusaders and Catalans.

Anyway guys, thanks for the well thought out posts. It's good to know there are still fans capable of talking about emotive subjects like this without decending into trolling and name calling. Good luck for the rest of the season. Hope things pan out for you.