No I don't have much sympathy when other clubs like York can get crowds of over 4,000, Newcastle can get four-figure crowds and run juniors in a non-RL area and then 'heartlands' Whitehaven can barely get 500 for their biggest match of the season and run out of money halfway through the year because they couldn't budget properly. Its a shame and I hope they survive but really it is their own fault, and RL gammons from Leigh ranting and raving about expansion is just embarrassing for everyone.

To be fair, most championship fans are on totalrl.com, and who can blame them...the VT only likes BIG clubs, and french/canadian/NRL ones.
You call it expansion, but why should it be from anywhere on earth ? Expansion is a small word, but the RFL's idea is MASSIVE.
NO other sport is as desperate as ours...and it's pathetic. What will become of Coventry, West Wales, Hemel, North Wales & London Skolars ?
Should they be replaced by the best BARLA sides, as they do actually produce young talent. BUT they are all near the M62, so I guess not.
As for 'RL gammons from Leigh' whatever that means I do not know.

What does any of this have to do with Whitehaven RLFC being unable to attract fans or run themselves properly?

It was a response to the 'Gammons from Leigh' comment, and being one of many expansion lover's on here. Why can't Welsh fans attract teams, even when Crusaders was GIFTED a place in the 'holy grail' I mean, Super League.... it failed BIG TIME ! I miss Cardiff City Dragons, do you ? They lasted 4 years before going bust....bless !

West Wales are a joke and should be kicked out of the league, North Wales are doing fine and at least have enough money to last the season and live within their means unlike Whitehaven. And also have nothing to do with the Crusaders team that was in Super League but I'm sure you knew that already. Apart from the fact that you're so out of touch that you think BARLA is still relevant, again why are you ranting and raving about all manner of unrelated things on a thread you created about Whitehaven? Do you have something wrong with you?

headhunter wrote:
West Wales are a joke and should be kicked out of the league, North Wales are doing fine and at least have enough money to last the season and live within their means unlike Whitehaven. And also have nothing to do with the Crusaders team that was in Super League but I'm sure you knew that already. Apart from the fact that you're so out of touch that you think BARLA is still relevant, again why are you ranting and raving about all manner of unrelated things on a thread you created about Whitehaven? Do you have something wrong with you?

Nice one, so you felt the need 'to get personal' Apart from having Epilepsy and usually having a least one seizure every couple of weeks, generally I'm fine. Thanks for your concern. Lowlife....

I'm not concerned about you, I'm trying to find some explanation for your bizarre posts which you still haven't provided. Again, why did you start a thread on a specific topic only to start ranting and raving about something completely unrelated without any provocation at all? Why did you start rambling about how no one cares about small clubs and then use that to try and have a go at a bunch of other small clubs that have nothing to do with anything you were talking about and have done nothing wrong?

Even if we absolve Whitehaven of blame entirely for their situation (and we shouldn't), what is happening here is precisely the result of not expanding, of not reaching new audiences and of not making this sport more attractive to broadcasters and commercial partners.

A poster on here a while ago claimed that a chairman of one Cumbrian club is on record as saying "he knows how many season tickets his club would sell just by looking in the obituaries section of the local paper". If true then that, right there, is why too many heartland clubs have very bleak futures.

5K from each SL club should do it, maybe not even that if the RFL dipped in two. Not much of an RL family we've got though is it? That concept is truly dead and buried.

But for how long do we keep throwing good money after bad? If Super League bails-out one badly managed club, how long before the rest come knocking with the begging bowl? Bunging Haven £60k now is all well and good, but where do we find the funding to bail them out next year, and the year after, and the year after that, because - by Haven's own admission - they aren't growing their own revenue?

It's up to the people of Whitehaven to show that they still want RL in the town. Their last home game attracted 500 people. 500. Is that really the extent of the interest that Whitehaven has in RL?

Personally, when I think of the RL family, I think about the way in which the people of this sport rallied around the Jones family or Steve Prescott, rather than whether they bail out poorly run clubs.

And let's not ignore the double standard here. If this were a club in any other part of the country, getting 500 people to watch them, the tone from certain posters on here would be very different.