city boundaries are confusing sometimes. the boundary of leeds (the city of leeds) is based on the metropolitan borough which includes the towns of otley, morley, rothwell, and wetherby among others. so the 750k already includes the outlying areas. if you go any further out from the metropolitan boundary you are into bradford in the west for example.

A general lack of success (they tended to be near the foot of the league) for the clubs within those cities and other nearby towns and the existence of more illustrious neighbours probably combined to kill off most. Go back to the period following 1895 and we had clubs during the next fifteen years in towns like Stockport, Runcorn, two in Salford, around half a dozen at one stage in Leeds and its vicinity, one in Birkenhead as well as places like Morecambe and Lancaster plus the original Liverpool City. There were also more clubs in towns within what we know as the heartlands in places like Tyldesley and Brighouse. Include junior clubs (what we would call community clubs now) and there were teams in places like Radcliffe and Walkden. With a need to attract and keep paying audiences to fund costs of paying players in order to keep going such support would gravitate to those with success. Hence successful Leeds and Hunslet outcompeted the other Leeds clubs (though Bramley somehow soldiered on), Wigan and Leigh saw off Tyldesley and so on.

The clubs close to Manchester had Salford and Broughton Rangers (the other club in Salford) to contend with on their doorstep and these were two of the more successful clubs in the early 1900s. There were also Oldham and Swinton to contend with, with both being strong too. In soccer which was a growing threat as a counter-attraction there was Bury who twice won the FA Cup as well as growing clubs like Newton Heath. The clubs that persisted tended to be those which had fairly regular success to sustain interest. Later attempts in Manchester such as Belle Vue Rangers (the relocated Broughton Rangers who had been outcompeted in Salford) and much later Trafford Borough had to try to make a dent ,with uncompetitive teams, to compete with the two soccer giants. By that stage even a successful RL club (trophy-wise) would probably have failed to make much impact against those two. Soccer due to its successful clubs was and is now too engrained in the cultural psyche for other sports to garner much interest.

Those close to Liverpool had Everton who were already famous and successful to compete with as well as Liverpool. Given that the soccer teams won things and the RL teams were cellar dwellers they never really had a chance to catch the populace's interest. By the time Liverpool Stanley had their brief success in the mid thirties the soccer clubs had had a fifty year head start. I think this also coincided with Dixie Dean's era which would have made them even more invisible in that city.

WRT to Leeds also worth pointing out the dynamic when it comes to supporting the RL team and the football side in that city. Quite a lot of people from the likes of Castleford and Wakefield do support Leeds United because they don't have any major football club, but they obviously don't support Leeds Rhinos in favour of the Tigers & Trinity instead.

Know a few people who'll chant "we all hate Leeds scum" at Friday 8pm yet chant "we all love Leeds" at Saturday 3pm.

Its one of the great quirks and frustrations of Rugby League, its been clear since the 90s that the only Cities in the North growing and getting investment are Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, yet we are only strong in one of those and have instead continued to be based in small towns and cities like Bradford and Hull that have seen massive industrial decline.

To be fair Maurice Lynsey had the right idea when SL started, but mergers were too controversial. Had he instead proposed new 'city' teams to be created (with exisiting ones relegated) we might be in a stronger place by now, as i'm sure the fans of the small town clubs would have still attended. Some of the big football teams may have gone in for sharing a small stadium for their reserve teams too, there was a lot of public money about in the 90s/early 00s.

I still dont think its a lost cause though, starting a team in league1 where investment risks are lower is a good format to use, Manchester Rangers are ground sharing with Man City academy which seems a good move. Stadiums are an issue, but we have to explore ground shares with football reserve teams and RU.

I think we should focus our international games in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, they have big impressive stadiums and fit the brief of being close enough for heartland fans to get to and make the game profitable but also attract new fans. I was in favour of a game in London but the Olympic stadium hasnt worked, and I thought Coventry looked atmosphere less and the crowd very average for the double header last year.

In fairness, I was rounding up from the wider boundary figure.

I'd also suggest that a club like Leeds does (or should) see some of the outlying areas as very much part of their target market. Thousands of Harrogate residents commute into Leeds every day - that's a market Leeds should be tapping into.

agree with you - there's a huge market to the north of leeds - even ripon, thirsk and skipton area are not too far away

Firstly you need to stop trying to link towns like St Helens and Widnes with Liverpool.

It's nothing to do with football clubs, just that those cities don't have professional rugby league clubs. Most of the clubs we've got have been around from pretty much the beginning of RL's history. Forming a brand new professional club, while not impossible, is a tough thing to get right, even in a city and requires a lot of financial input. See Melbourne Storm, New Zealand Warriors and Catalan Dragons as successful examples.

The root of it is connected to the presence of successful soccer clubs. Back in the formative years of the football codes (rugby and soccer) many towns would have clubs in both codes and when rugby split some had clubs playing all three. Rising popularity of one code in particular within a town led to clubs in that code dominating and clubs from other codes shrinking, going out of business or in some cases changing codes. Preston North End, Bradford City and Bradford Park Avenue for example all were rugby clubs that switched to soccer as it became more popular and rugby became less sustainable due to falling interest. This led to towns and cities where rugby had been played at the top level ending up with no clubs as they either switched codes or gave up altogether. Had it not been for the presence of a group of people who still did want to play and watch rugby (due to decades of rugby tradition in the city) we would have had no clubs in Bradford after 1906.

The reason that many of our clubs have been around for most of RL's history is that they were the ones that survived that period due to being the most successful and popular clubs in their area. Those which have football clubs in the same town/city now didn't necessarily have them there then (at least not in the form of the present clubs). Wigan had been going for over 60 years when Wigan Athletic formed and over 100 when Latics entered the football league and had outlasted previous soccer clubs. Leeds and Hunslet had both been established for many years and had been successful before Leeds Utd appeared. Likewise Hull FC and Hull KR were both well established before Hull City came into being. Others like St Helens, Warrington, Wakefield and Widnes never had soccer clubs to compete with and success maintained interest so the clubs persist.

As I mentioned in my earlier post we did have clubs in places like Radcliffe, Walkden and Stockport which fell by the wayside as nearby soccer clubs had success and people took up watching and playing that code instead. Rugby towns became soccer towns and that became the most watched and played form of football. As the years went on attempts to establish new clubs succeeded where soccer did not have major clubs like Castleford and Whitehaven, or where less successful soccer clubs existed and the new RL clubs had near immediate success like Workington. In those places enough profile could be gained and the clubs were able to survive. Attempts made in places with successful and famous soccer clubs already like Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle saw the new clubs fail to make any headway as the towns were dominated by soccer clubs both pro and amateur and the various attempts failed. Soccer by comparison managed to establish and sustain clubs in new territory due to the national profile of that sport making it easier for soccer clubs to make headway and build a fan base.

It is not impossible for new clubs to be formed and to persist in such areas as the likes of Bury Broncos, Manchester Rangers and Mancunians RL show but particularly given the size and profile of the soccer clubs in the cities like Manchester and Liverpool the likelihood is that carving a small niche and existing as community clubs or low level semi pro clubs is probably as much as we can aim for in the medium term at least. Doncaster for example have been doing that since they came along in the 1950s. Whilst a sufficient amount of money is a requirement to start clubs and to keep them going, without garnering enough interest within the town/city to attract and keep a regular fan base the money will not be enough. Attaining enough visibility and profile to allow the club to at least register as a presence in the cultural psyche of its home town/city is key to giving it a chance to keep going at League 1 level at least. From that stage the amount of money (and some luck) will determine how much further it can go.

I blame panini

I can't speak for Manchester, but as an Everton (as well as Saints) season ticket holder, if you mention our game to any Scousers I've known over the years or any of the locals at Everton matches, rugby league is often dismissed as a 'woolyback sport'. (for those from outside the North West, 'woolyback' is a Liverpool expression for anyone coming from close to the city without being Scouse, generally people from Warrington, Wigan, St Helens, Widnes, Runcorn etc).

While I wouldn't say their is zero interest in RL in Liverpool, football will always be king, followed by Boxing and Cricket (always very good crowds when Lancashire play home games in Liverpool).

There is interest in RL in Manchester and Liverpool, There are 9 ostensibly professional clubs within an hours drive of Liverpool. That Liverpool and Manchester arent looked at as RL cities highlights how the yoke of parochialism has kept these clubs from expanding outside their own little fiefdoms.

Something tells me you didn't quite get that marketing diploma?

FC United's newish ground would be a good Sized RL ground.

Surely whether or not it's played in local schools is a big factor?