In about 25 months time I suspect Londons SL team will step down from the top table voluntarily due to the backeR, David Hughes not being prepared to lose 1.5 million + for another 3 years and the RFL having no money to help out, due to it all being spent propping the Bradford Bulls up.
If no Championship club is deemed "ready", then the remaining chairmen in "super whingy league" might see an opportunity to shed a few more pounds and get the league down to 12.........the decisions on Stadiums due in a few weeks could be vital to some teams futures.

Of all the teams that have played in SL at some stage but aren't there now, which DESERVE to still be there and why?

PSG -Gateshead -Crusaders - Halifax - Workington -Oldham - Sheffield - Leigh

Don't be, but I am for you.

So, how many teams yo-yo'd in and out of SL? One. Leigh. The ex-board members of which acknowledge they weren't ready, knew they weren't ready and so no surprises they were relegated. Amazing, how that is used as evidence of P&R being bad for the game and especially so for the Championship clubs. Looks like distorting the facts to me.




Just to dispel another distorted and widely reported 'fact' Leigh didn't nearly go out of business nor even get in financial difficulties because they got promoted.

No. That happened because they based their subsequent budgets on crowds similar to those they got before the end of P&R. Well, actually, they were conservative and shaved off about 500 (20%) to account for the possible reduction in public interest.

Unfortunately, crowds reduced far more than that. The reduction was more like 35%.

I think you'd possibly refer to that as 'wildly unrealistic financial planning in the lower leagues'. (Unless it was in a SL franchise application in which case - and only if it suited your needs - you'd call it an 'unambitious plan')

I'm afraid to say that I agree with Maurice in that many of the posters on here, and you in particular, write their own versions of events. There's no arguing with you, I know, because like most propagandists, you believe the guff you spout.

Maurice is on dangerous grounds, though, by drawing comparisons with historians of more 'grave' subjects even though he only referred to the style. No doubt the flags are up on him.

Just like when people were banned for dubbing your ilk as "Franchise-Nazis" for the unthinking intolerance you demonstrate of the views of the "flatcap brigade" (as it's quite OK to demean them).

I've read the first 3 pages and got fed up of reading it but wanted to contribute and put my tuppence worth in.

Firstly the franchise system should stay. Using Widnes as an example, as they are more than likely finish bottom of the table. If P&R was in place Widnes will be back in the the NL1. At least this year they can lay foundations and build on them for the next year and year adter that. Where they COULD POTENTIALLY be in the play offs, before I get laughed at for such comments what year did the Crusaders reach the play offs. This is something which could not be done if they were yo-yoing between SL and NL.

Fresh blood every year in P&R, that is the best joke I have heard for a while. The relegated team would have to release most of their players and the club coming up would take the worse ones as no one else wanted them and they needed players with experience.

The franchise system could and should work. The first thing that went wrong with it is that IMO there was too many teams, there should have been 10 or 12 teams. Then it could grow at sensible rate.

Secondly the RFL are spineless, Wakey shouldn't be in SL as one of the reasons given to why Widnes were not in the SL after the very first franchise teams were announced was that they didn't want clubs to go bust and some one else to come in. Just like Wakey have done and more than likely the Bulls this year.

Same for stadiums, Wakey and Cas should not have been in and Saints and Salford were border line as when the franchises were announced although the stadiums were nearly completed they were not completed and anything could have happened, however unlikely.

No doubt 'Fax would probably get in next time or may be a Cumbrian side or an expansion team. But would the RFL have the balls to withdraw licences from any team that have failed before? I doubt it unless it is a small team like the Crusaders.

If P and R was in place, Widnes would never have got promoted with a poor team that finished halfway down CC in the first place.

"Fresh blood every year". Yes, Huddersfield, Castleford Hull KR, Wakefield and Salford got promoted and are still there. Oldham, Halifax, Leigh and Workington were relegated and are still in the lower leagues. Fresh blood has been transfused into SL by p and r and there would have been more if it had not been abandoned, Barrow, Featherstone for example.

SL will not grow at any sensible rate. It may well, as you suggest, contract. The SL organisation controls the Sky money, not the RFL. There is absolutely no will or desire to share it amongst more teams as they would have to do if they increased the size of SL. Given then increased viewing figures from Sky, the Monday night football success,the imminent arrival of Al Jazheera in France, the increased attendances, even in the CC. now is the time to form a committee and approach Sky and other competing broadcasters to try and pry some more cash from them. An increased size SL or some financing assitance for CC clubs to enable them to be ready for promotion if we went that route cannot be really tried without more cash.

As for withdrawing licences from existing SL teams and adding expansion or CC teams
to SL. This will be very very interesting if and when it happens. I think there is going to be an almighty brouhaha and lawyers might enter into the mix. There will be no 100,000 pound bribe to keep the CC clubs quiet this time. Fur will fly and who knows what will happen in the end but the ring fenced SL is and will be under intense pressure to reform its procedures for membership if you ask me.

Did Mr Schofield neglect to mention that the top teams were playing in front of 6/7k whereas now they are playing in front of 16/17k? The game has moved on, i have no doubt that given the chance Keighley and Workington could again get 2k crowds, probably a little bit more, but that wont allow them to compete with clubs getting 16/17k and stop them being absolutely pummelled week in week out forcing us to bring in things like the salary cap and make them even more drastic than we have had to just to keep things remotely competitive with clubs getting 7/8k and/or being massively and admittedly unsustainably subsidised never mind the 2/3/4k Workington or Keighley could get in their current guises.
The harsh fact is, if we need to lose 2k fans in Keighley to gain 10k in Bradford then it is the right thing for the game to do.

Wow, what wit! first a nonsensical link to holocaust purely used for shock value and to remind us all how you 'tell it like it is'(or as normal people saw it, just because you are complete tit) now this cutting jibe from the 'I know you are, you said you are, but what am I' book of comebacks 1932 edition. Do you do any writing for Stephen Fry perchance?

And Cas, And Salford, And Huddersfield. Which is 4 out of 8


No but Widnes went bust trying to achieve promotion, as did Wakefield trying to avoid it. And Workington.

If wellsy would like to see a good example of a straw man, this is a pretty obvious one. Arguing against something you think i might say is a pretty poor.

I have no problem with you insulting me, if you want to go ahead. I just think that if you need to refer to the holocaust or nazism to do it, your clearly not a very well rounded and intelligent person, you would need to be quite nasty and mean spirited to do so. It is fairly pathetic to link anything said about promotion and relegation to the holocaust or nazism, especially when the anonymity this board affords you means you dont know who you are talking to, Jew or Gentile, keyboard warrior or War hero. If you cant conduct a conversation, even bickering or an argument without need to refer to an horrific genocide or racist ideology which resulted int he death and torture of millions within living memory then your views probably arent worth the pixels on my screen and if it means you get banned from using this board, i struggle to find sympathy.

That is complete bollox.

RL needs to gain 2k in Keighley [iand [/i10K in Bradford

You talk crap so much that you've lost sight of what RL really needs.

I think you fundementally misunderstood what i said. I posed a hypothetical scenario whereby we could only have one or the other
Of course it would be preferable to have both. Nobody has said any different. I just simply stated that if we had to choose one at the expense of another then the right choice is obvious. Its sort of the reason I started the sentence with IF.

As Denis Betts said on North West news........P & R does exist in RL, it's just done over 3 years and not 1. If you aren't good enough then you go down. If you're good enough then you come up.

You have fundamentally missed the point, you didn't need to start the sentence with IF.

That's bollox too. Who came down when Widnes came up?

Crusaders?

Had they not gone bust (not good enough) then I presume Wakey would have done.

I'll say it again - Who came down when Widnes went up?