Quote: Hugh Mann "I remember the 91 - 92 season when we had an 8 team Second Division and how the 8 teams were to sick to death of seeing each other as they met twice at home and twice away!!!!! I believe I'm right in saying that in that season Workington met Carlisle 6 times after being drawn together in the cup matches. It drove many fans away as the season wore on.'"
Bit spooky that !
Ironically was recently looking through a Leigh v Workington Town programme from the 8 team division 2 league from 08th March 1992 and it had showed the average crowds at that point (Bearing in mind this is with 2 months still to play at the 'business end' of the season)...
The crowd is first with the bit in brackets the league position (out of eight teams) at that time.
Oldham 3,198 (3rd place)
Leigh 3,108 (1st Place)
Workington 2,210 (7th place)
Sheffield 2,136 (2nd place)
Rochdale 1,438 (5th place)
Ryedale York 1,248 (8th place)
Carlisle 875 (6th Place)
London Crusaders 683 (4th place).
Looking at Leigh's home scores thus far that season shows the games to be fairly competitive (Remember its two homes games so some teams we had completed 2 fixtures against at this point)............
V Carlisle 32-22 & 19-18
V London C 13-6
V Oldham 20-4 & 23-12
V Rochdale 24-22
V Ryedale York 26-10 & 70-0
V Sheffield 13-14 & 26-24
v Workington 10-5
I know the game has changed and we will always get one sided games / scores
in all leagues but I don't remember blowout scores as regularly as it is now , the clubs in this league played from a similar level.
Also if you look at where the clubs came from you could hardly say the attendances got boosted by derby games - I remember Sheffield Eagles being the game most Leigh fans looked forward too as it had slowly built up into a real intense set of fixtures with real rivalry ! !
