I fail to see where cas placate the old fans, there schools policy is a good one encouraging young ones to come down, But to just ignore the 40+ fans is a retrograde step, i for one was brought down in my youth by my grandfather who was at that time in his 40's and alot nore people i know now are taken down by their grandparents, what are you saying these people should be ignored, All fans young and old should be encouraged, After all we profess to be a family club, or are you only part of the rugby league family untill you reach 40 ?

I'm well pasted it then.

For one year each time. If your club was consigned to the lower divisions indefinitely then it's reasonable to assume that your support levels would be similar to that of clubs already in that situation. So although you might keep watching, there's plenty who wouldn't. Having said that, I doubt that a merged club would be successful.

Lots of people seem to want to rubbish the idea, and I am not saying it IS a good idea - but to ignore it is to ignore an option.
It is easy to criticise, but not easy to suggest anything constructuve and it is easy to say things 'wont work' but what will?

For instance 5 years ago I would not have considered a viable business model for a shop that sells garbage quality sub-standard goods and everything for a quid - but it is a strong and successful business.
7 years ago a specialist fast food chain in every high street franchised selling sandwiches for more money than your local butty shop?
7 years ago Woollies going from every high street?

What I am trying to say is, if you capture a market and work that market well - then you can afford to strain relations with some of the demographic - becuase you invest in the future of the brand....... Sport supporters are like smokers in many marketing ways - that you are always losing them from the top end and that is sustainable and profitable if you can keep recruiting them in to the bottom end. Don't like that example, but it kinda fits.

Stop thinking about the badge and your emotions for a moment or two and think about it as a business - becuase ultimately the business of sport is what funds the on-field activities, not the other way round anymore. And if the stadia and merger happened tomorrow in a puff of fairy dust - if the new club still maintained the values of Cas and Wakey or Cas and Fev for that matter and still felt like part of the community and there was a CC final appearance and a GF appearance by 2015 and 4 or 5 rep players in the team - I think peoples objections would soon seem less important, mine would.

There is of course the middle ground of a shared stadia, which I really like the idea of but that in a lot of ways is more complex from a funding and business perspective to get off the ground.

Like I said before, I am not endorsing it, just throwing an option out. We could take the favourite tried and trusted route - blame Richard for lackign ambition, Jack for not throwing money at it and Terry for being a crap coach - that'll do it!

I must admit i've thought about it and chatted with other fans on the issue recently. I'm a Cas fan and always will be but as you say mdean, the option as a business has to be at least looked into. Not because RFL says we have to, or Eddie and Stevo or any other numpty journalist. Looking at the FA premier league, which teams in the last 20 years has managed to compete with the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United? Leeds United made it for a season and then died on their . Arsenal have made a good push, but they were a pretty decent sized club anyway. Chelsea have come into it more so recently thanks to a super billionaire throwing money at them. Multimillionaires are the only chance for any smaller club. Even Manchester City are thought of as a big team now simply because they have a money man behind them.

Where is our big money man? I don't know of any billionaire Cas fans and i would very much doubt any other billionaire would see Cas as a way of making more money. So that avenue is pretty much dead. Our option recently is to build a shiny new stadium and hope/expect that with this comes success, "because Warrington have done it". For me, as a business plan, that statement is absolutely shocking. Warrington didn't just build a new stadium.

A merged Cas, Wakey and even Fev team could become successful. I think that success would come much easier though than convincing many fans like myself. The problem with our game is it's history and tradition. We look at the NRL and dream our competition could be as strong. Then when someone mentions throwing in a merger or a franchise club like Castleford Trinity Rovers or whatever, we all moan and outright refuse to support it. I do believe it could work but haven't the faintest idea how anyone would bring us all together. not that this is my dream or anything of course. I'd much prefer Cas and Wakey, and even Fev to do it the hard way and succeed.

The thing is the fans dont spend there hard earned cash to support a business, they do it to support a club, take away there club and replacing it with another is, for me, no differant to saying 'right the clubs folding go support huddersfield or bradford.' Why should cas fans be forced to have any loyalty to another club? a club that would no doubt be called wakefield since some marketing pen pusher who has never seen a game of rugby in his life will go 'ah thats the name of the district, it represents them all' when nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe not at first but there is no doubt in my mind thats what would happen.

A merger would mean the death of Castleford RLFC, that is enough of an argument against a merger for me.

I didn't spend a night at post office road with a red and White no merger sticker on my programme and shouting my lungs out at half time just to give up on 'MY' clubs singular identity now.
Supporting Cas is the same for me as my beloved Everton, I made my choice.

A club is for life.

It's like listening to the con dems all this Sh!te. if you say it long enough people will get used to it, tell you what, if you want to support any team other than catleford tigers rlfc, then do us all a favour and foxtrot oscar, but dont you dare tell me or any other harden cas fans that has supported the club for as many years as i care to remember to support a load of fabricated bollox as what your suggesting. Remember gateshull - or shudds giants,(and they got a million quid to do it) good examples of mergers arent they !!!!

A merged team will in time end up with the name of the district/city it represents- which in our case will be Wakefield. So i can live with it.
You can be our Gateshead....

You'll still see attendances of 4,500-5,000 then. There's simply no way that Castleford fans would consider supporting a club under the banner of Wakefield regardless of merger or not.

It would have to be a complete name change and voted for by the fans, not the clubs, SL or RL themselves.

THE CLUBS DON'T BELONG US!!!!!

Even if you own shares, unless you own 51% it aint YOURS.

A merged club would have a new board, who like the current boards could do as they pleased. And would naturally choose a name that caught the biggest share of the market.... That being the city.. The city your from.... Wakefield.

Anyway this is all pie in the sky talk. We'll get our new ground, you'll get yours.... And the war between our clubs can carry on!