Northern Rail Cup Final. I can't believe you didn't realise it was on.

and just as with CC finals how many of those where supporters of other teams? you wont get a load of widnes, batley and barrow supporters (to name a few) turning up for a league game between fax and leigh. unlike the NRC final.

I must agree that the name doesn't sound right even to me as a Fax fan.

The problem with the game wide response to this Halifax-Wakefield argument is that every other teams fan is seeing this as a temporary setback for Halifax.
It is not, this is the beginning of the end for Halifax. This rejection has confirmed many Fax fans beliefs that no matter what we do we will not get into SL. At the end of the day nobody in Halifax wants to watch seasons of friendlies and the attendances will decline year on year. Unless something drastic is done we will, within a decade, become the next founder club playing amateur rugby ala Bramley. With this action the Supporters trust appear to be trying to avoid that the only way they can.

If they brought back P&R then they'd see the annual merrygo round of clubs going into administration. It used to be a standing joke that you knew the season was on because Fax had gone into administration again.

All that P&R will do is succeed at killing clubs entirely. Within 3 years the top clubs of C1 and the bottom clubs of SL will be on their backsides, flooded with mediocre journeymen to avoid relegation and uttery devoid of a youth setup.

At the top of SL the big clubs will have a strangle hold on the best talent, cherry picking the best youngsters and imports and allowing the rest to fight over scraps.

How can I be sure of this? Because that's EXACTLY how RL used to be like until they ditched this utterly idiotic notion of P&R

But super league would have an impact on fans. And I am pretty sure Leigh had 3000 fans at Bloomfield road.

As for attendances, in 2005 in Super League our lowest home attendance was 3201 against London. Our average gate in SL 2005 was 4735 (which incidently is 600 above the current average for salford this current season 2011), the growth of the game in SL at ALL clubs has improved attendances, even Widnes have seen sharp increases this year already. Many fans at clubs such as Leigh and Halifax are old timers and do not believe in this franchise malarky so have simply abandoned going to spend £xxx a year on a pointless exercise because even if we win everything, we have to do it all again the following year.

My post stated we should work towards meeting criteria in 3 years.

If your so opposed to growth in the game maybe we should stop all youth in the lower leagues, put the metal shutters up and just fold 110 years of rugby league because there is nowhere to go?

The difference in leagues has a major impact on attendance.

Castleford average attendance 2006 SL - 7096
Castleford average attendance 2005 NL - 5500
Castleford average attendance 2004 SL - 7034

1500 fans difference per game on average

i think the point is teams like widnes,leigh & halifax busted a gut to meet the criteria and spent millions in the process........where as the likes of wakefield & castleford have done bugger all but got in


does'nt look good does it? why would anyone want to invest in a championship club?


on the subject of P&R........how would a play off game between the championship champions and the team that finishes bottom of superleague sit with you lot?

Leigh didn't try and get in this year the vision is 2014 so that we can build as a business

Which is Exactly how it should be done.

I understand why Fax are aggrieved, but it's too soon for them really. They'll have zero preparation time to put a squad together, ramp up infrastructure and find sponsors. But if they methodically plan and prepare for 3 years they will be a shoe in.

If it gets to the stage where the top 4 of the championship and bottom 4 of Superleague are interchangeable then P&R might return. We are no where near that yet.

I understand the fans with this, however there are many many teams up and down Rugby League and other sports including Soccer who cannot go up a division due to issues outside of how well they play on the pitch. Whether it be turnover, ground size, playing seasons, franchise systems etc.....

I like Halifax, i've been there many times to watch RL and wish them well, this campaign is ill thought out though and needs to be more positive if they want it to succeed. I think all RL Fans want fairness and if Halifax really deserved their place this time round then lets find out why and if they act properly upon that who knows why they can't get it next time based on the information they get. Rugby League is as old as the hills, it's not going to stop tomorrow no matter what franchise brings.

What would happen now if a C grade club went bust next year and Halifax were next in line, then the RFL bring up the "HATE RFL" line, promoting hatred will only bring negative impact with other clubs supporters and the RFL upon Halifax, and I know you are not up for that personally but thats what the press release states. I fear that a lot of time & money will be wasted here with this.

perhaps the club could just submit a better bid next time? From all the accounts that I have seen or heard, the Fax business plan and overall bid submission was terrible. Nigel Wood said the clubs would be getting detailed feedback this week - it will be interesting to see if Fax make this feedback public.

I bet the don't.

That wouldn't be coming from Wakey supporters would it.

Either way its surely better to wait for the feedback than start tantruming

I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it but I don't think you can have free movement between two divisions when one is full time and the other is part time. Too much to do in too little time.