I understand what you don't like Smokey but I fail to see what you do think is good.
You say Wakefield attendances are still poor but what exactly do you see as ok?

You seem to write intelligently but at the same time just seem to be going out of your way to criticise and wind everybody up.

Say clearly what you see as good with no backhanded complements or digs and let us understand why you have such an interest in these 'poor' clubs.

I think you'll find that there is a direct correlation between the changes to how people are perceiving your argument, and the frequency with which your argument changes.



Does context not figure in your world? The generally accepted view seems to be that relative to where they were and in the context of where they started from (20 new players?) Wakefield had a good season, in relative terms; from being widely predicted to win the wooden spoon, they ended the season with a 7 game winning streak, against decent opposition, and finished in the 8, losing out to the world and SL champions.



Again, context; what's being praised as an achievement is the [iincrease[/i in attendances, and rightly so; the upward trend needs to continue, but change is a process, not an event.



Again, a fallacious argument; BV is seen by most WTW supporters now as a temporary facility - Mr Glover has prudently made some improvements to satisfy the RFL, at significant cost to himself. I don't see anyone portraying that as anything other than what it was - indeed, many supporters have said that the money was wasted and that he should have told the RFL to go whistle.



I would agree that a race for mediocrity isn't helpful; I am however able to acknowledge when a club makes incremental progress towards longer term improvements; that's generally how things are done in the real world and you may be surprised to learn that not everyone can win SL every year or build a brand new stadium in the off-season.



This we agree on, with the supercilious bilge that you post being an excellent example of the attitude of some 'supporters' of RL that hold the game back. If every club abandoned the realism that you find so offensive, the game would collapse in on itself in no time.

As I said, I think challenging the championship should be our aim so 17k+ would be ‘good’

10k+ should be the minimum acceptable. It is the minimum level at which the game thinks it can operate.
Because there are some clubs who aren’t too far away from where the league needs to be, there are other who aren’t anywhere near. It’s the ones who aren’t near who are the problem for the league, they need to improve. It affects the whole game.

No, in relative terms Wakefield had a poor season, relative to half the league Wakefield had a poor year. What you are doing now is what I am talking about, it is small time thinking and its what makes small time clubs.

Wakefield lost more games than they won, they finished in the bottom half of the league and were comfortably knocked out of the play-offs, if Wakefield arent better than seeing that as a good season they shouldnt be in SL. (for the record i think they are better than that)

But the increase is nigh on irrelevant when its barely a third of the minimum of what you need. London could go up by 30%, it would take them to between 3-4k averages and would total about 700 people, Yeah its good they are improving but that isn’t something to celebrate, Whilst 30%, in real terms it’s a fairly small number and they are still miles away from where they need to be, and the figures are still bad.

You cant on one hand argue that Wakefield shouldn’t bother with these improvements, and blame the RFL for ‘wasting’ all that money on improving them, then expect praise for a 30% improvement in what is a pretty poor attendance figure. One of the major reasons Wakefields attendance is so poor is the stadium and it’s again, small time thinking to think Wakefield don’t have to improve their attendances, don’t have to improve their facility because possibly, in 3 years a Stadium which hasn’t yet had a brick laid, may be built.

They don’t have to do it in one year, we are 16 years in to fully pro Rugby League, to pretend that I am demanding all clubs win SL every year and build a new stadium in the off-season is blatant nonsense, We have had 16 years to win something, get to a final, improve their stadiums, and still some fans are acting as if it is too much to ask, in too short a time for them to have made the necessary adjustment to fully pro RL, and they want to pretend that is realism and not small-time thinking.
How about some actual realism, some facts.

More people watch our game now than ever before, more people attend games in this era than ever before, there is more money in the game than ever before, the last 10 years have seen a resurge in the international game which was nigh on dead 20 years ago. We have more youngsters playing the game, we have more games televised to a higher production level, than ever before, we are a nationally televised sport, we are the 5th biggest sporting league in Great Britain (by attendance) we are an outstanding sport, the greatest game, we have so much to be proud of bar a fan base that would rather criticise the game, look for the negatives, would rather spin good news to bad and that argues in favour of accepting mediocrity than banging the drum for how good the sport is and how high its potential is.

Smokey, whilst you make many valid points regarding Wakefield’s “Tinpot” existence, your berating of the club appears biased to me.

Whilst you have, on many occasions, explained the reasons as to why you have “issues” with the club, I have never seen a similar stance regarding the Bradford debacle.

Wakefield had to claw their way back into SL and faced year after year of relegation battles, whereas Bradford had it all, the large crowds & seemingly endless success, but not once have I seen you refer to their recent leadership as “Tinpot”

This thread isnt about Bradford, its about Wakefield and Cas. If it were i would have been critical of them, If you look back you would see I was very critical of them. Chris Caisley did some very good things, but when the time came to stand up and sort the issues, he wasn’t there, Peter Hood was almost the very embodiment of what I am talking about, a man who looked for excuses and not for solutions, blamed big bad meanies for their problems and whose only idea in terms of marketing was to devalue the tickets then get the begging bucket out. As I said, this applies throughout the game.

Well Smokey to give tou credit you do acknowledge the potential of Wakefield and do not regard us as small club which many on the VT wrongly do.
Also I do agree that negativity is the mantra of many RL fans.
That I cannot understand ,we should be shouting from the rooftops the positive aspects of our great game.
I have for over 50 years and indeed still do over here in France.

Not sure what the top attendances were this year but who has an average above 17k?
I'm less bothered about being tin pot if the whole league is tin pot. I agree we all need to improve but I think you are trying jump things along a little to quickly.

If 10k is minimum it'll be a small league.
Minimum in terms of target? Absolutely.

No-one, but Leeds and Wigan have broken that figure before, and arent miles away now. Its not a figure which is impossible, we have proven that.
Why? Wakefield could easily be a flagship club, why be happy being tinpot because a few others are?

would it? Leeds, Saints, Wigan, Wire, Hull, Bradford are all above that figure, Les Catalans are only a little under that , thats half the league already there.

No I'm not - I'm just being realistic; in your obtuse world, every team in SL had a poor season relative to the teams that finished above them. In the real world, Wakefield had a decent season relative to their previous season, which is a more satisfactory benchmark. I don't think we're at the point yet of using Wigan or Warrington as our statistical neighbour; that will come later.



Given that you've already accepted that these things can't be fixed overnight, that's a nonsense argument; attendances have improved quite significantly and they look set to continue to do so. Would you advocate that unless we're able to get 17k next season, we should just give up?



I'm not arguing that; regardless of what some supporters said at the time, Mr Glover invested the money the RFL told him to, to satisfy the requirements of his temporary licence and buy some time so that NM could be moved on.



Again, here we can agree; all clubs have had long enough to sort themselves out and in an ideal world, would have done; in WTW's case though, in the absence of a time machine, Mr Glover can't do anything about the preceeding 16 years - he appears to be doing his best to change things for the future though, not least the poor crowds and unsuitable facility. I don't advocate ignoring the past, but I don't see much value in banging on about who should have done what and when.



Another point of agreement and all good stuff - with respect to the negative fan base though, I'd suggest that your insistence on pointing to the failures of the previous regime at WTW as a counterpoint to the (relative, modest) successes of the current one, put you firmly in that camp, at least where our club is concerned.

No you aren’t being ‘realistic’ you are accepting mediocrity. Wakefield could have won the play-offs, they could have won the challenge cup, they could have finished higher in the table, they could have got to a final it wasn’t impossible for them to do so, it was difficult I accept, but it wasn’t close to impossible.
The only reason it is looked on as being ‘unrealistic’ for a club like Wakefield to do this is because you look at them as a small club and dont expect things from small clubs. So mediocrity is celebrated until it mediocrity becomes de facto success.
To give another example, you, along with other Wakefield fans have bemoaned a perceived difference in treatment between Wakefield and Bradford in their hours of need. You, along with other Wakefield fans have complained that Wakefield’s survival wasn’t perceived as important as Bradfords, if you want to be treated as having the same importance as Bradford then you should expect to be judged on the same standards as Bradford. Nobody pretends Bradford would class Wakefields season last year, as a ‘good season’.

I haven’t advocated them giving up. Just that they accept it is only the first small step, and not ‘an achievement’ or ‘Success’
And you have stated it was a waste of money.

I haven’t blamed Mr Glover, as I said I think he has done a ‘good job’ so far. I just don’t think we should be resetting the clock every time there is a takeover of a club. Of course there is a bedding in period but the clock is always ticking. And im not banging on about who should have done what and when. Im saying something which is largely the opposite. That what has gone before isn’t really an excuse for us to have lower expectations of clubs, we should expect and demand more from them.

Im not being negative about Wakefield, i am being positive about them. I think a 30% increase is 'good' i think 7-8k averages arent. I accept, and hope that this is the start of the growth Wakefield can have, i accept it may not be and they may not reach that level. We should praise them for their improvements, we shouldnt ignore the fact that there are still failings.

The only person not doing that is you.



I haven't seen any evidence of anyone doing that; can you provide examples?