everytime I read through these threads I despair...


the Rugby League Family is being ripped apart...

divisions and fractures are being created now which will take generations to repair... if ever.

I have loved RL since the moment I first played (age 11 at Manygates school 1971) I have been a regular spectator since age 14... played until 40, coached 2 development teams in the midlands, sponsored and mentored where I was able...

but finally... I've had it!

Stop and think what you are all doing, from top (who are managerially inept) to the clubs who are lost in self interest, to the jouros who can barely string two coherent sentences together, to the agents who see the new world in dollar value and sod the consequences, to the players who have massively over inflated self value and ego, to the fans who see the opportunity for unconsequential mischief and yobbish attitude and behaviour.

The whole bucket of crap stinks...

so to those who are granted franchises.. work bloody hard and remember; a town/ city lost their SL club and people lost their jobs, so you could have one, remember the kids who will grow up not knowing what it is like to follow your local heros to Wembley.

and whoever gets the chop on Tuesday, you have my sympathy for their is no way back... to those who lose their jobs, to the parents and schools in the catchment area who will no longer have support... to the generations of potential RL fans and players who will be drawn to nearest soccer club.. to the Grandparents who will not be able to take their grandson/ daughter to watch the game that they grew up loving.... why?



because we have totally lost sight of why we first loved the game... and we are creating a monster

They also have Huddersfield & Bradford on the doorstep too.

The Calderdale catchment area is more than big enough to support a SL side.

I was here then!

I don't know if you are referring to Wakefield or Halifax, either way both are part of the bedrock of RL along with Leigh, Barrow, Wigan, Swinton, York and the rest.

Wakefield have produced a huge number of players who ply their trade at all levels of the game, the better ones are:
Ellis, Westwood, Ferguson, Pitts, Brough, Mason, Griffin, Murphy, Blaymire, Wood, Snitch, Morton, George, Davey, Wildie, Atkins, J Griffin all still playing at SL Level or better. There are twice or even three times as many playing at Championship or Championship one level.

rhetoric is a wonderful thing! Grandparents will still have a club within 20miles to take their grand kids to, there are hundreds of towns without a SL team that still have great school and jnr clubs, many clubs have come back from relegation stronger over the last century, Widnes just the latest in a long line, players and staff have always lost jobs when clubs got relegated, just as players and staff get employed when a club is promoted. Sorry but are you advocating that there should never be P&R of any kind?, clubs and players have always been self interested since we started earning money from the game over 100 hundred years ago and fans have always misbehaved ( I have heard the stories from the 60's!).

If your going to quit following a game then at least think of an original reason why!

Why are they the 'bedrock', because they have been there for a long time? The fact is that if Wakefield hadn't signed those players, they would have been signed up by other local clubs and still made it to Super League. In fact many of the players on that list did play for clubs other than Wakefield as juniors before establishing themselves at Super League level. Either way, if Wakefield didn't exist these players would not have been lost to the game in some way, they would have just come through at other clubs, with the possible exception of the Griffin boys who I believe were signed from Oxford Cavaliers and therefore may have been overlooked.

I couldn't disagree more!

Let em carry on clan. The argument that super league quality players will find their way to super league whether they are near a super league club or not kinda negates all the rhetoric we have to put up with to justify the shenanigans at crusaders and quins somewhat eh?

So by that standard are you saying we don't need Quins or the Crusaders as players will come through anyway?

While I understand the point of the last two posts , I do disagree , the better geographical spread of the game we have , the more chance we have of producing more RL players of a higher standard

But that does not say that the best 20 RL players of the next generation might not all be born within 20 miles of each other , and they could quite concievably all be from Wakefield and be first drawn to the game as Wakefield fans , and also they could be lost to the game as a result of Wakefields loss of SL status

There is no quantifyable way of being sure either way