No it wasn't , both Leigh and Oldham failed to qualify for the Championship season , it was however an on field decision by the RFL that ultimatley put Leigh back in there , the request from Gateshead to drop down due to their inability to put out anywhere near a competitive Championship team for 2012 meant the RFL had a decision to make , but it was never between Leigh or Oldham , in fact the club that has suffered in all this was Whitehaven , as they might have stood a better chance of staying up if either Gateshead or Oldham had got the place

Like lots of things , blame the RFL

Blimey they looked into the future?

Blame the RFL for what? I don't care about any of this. I'm merely proving that people from leigh arguing about and moaning about widnes being promoted because of off the field issues are very hypocritical because when Leigh benefitted they supported the decision.

If Gateshead were not financially able to field a competitive team for the Championship, then that is definitely an off the field problem. Were Oldham even asked? Why give one Ch1 club the chance and not another?

Blame the RFL indeed. It’s pity some of the leigh fans now criticizing Widnes after this decision didn’t do the same when Leigh benefited, isn’t it?

I guess that on the field performance wasn’t an issue then, eh?

being completely impartial and as white as stevos teeth, i can safely say pepe and dalto are manifestly correct
i could outline my reasons for this, but the less said the less chance of my awesome reasoning being shot down with mere symantic nit picking

So you were sorry to see us go down , that would suggest we ' went down ' , Hopefully we'll bounce back , that would suggest we were ' down '

And as I've already said a million times, they reversed the decision hence you playing in the championship the next season instead of ever playing a single game in Championship 1.

So it is all about , at what point are you ' relegated ' ?

When people say you are relegated , and they put a R against you in the league table ? , or when you play your first game in the lower tier ?

No this is just a red herring by you, this is what people do instead of debating on a reasonable level.

What you do is you use your common sense, if you've got any. You were destined for relegation, but retrospectively, we can say that you did not get relegated because you didn't play in the lower divisions and were not affected by the sting of relegation.

So when the discussion is about the fact that your club was saved from relegation, as your team has never played in the division you were to be relegated to then if you use your common sense you have to accept that this is the case. If you're not playing stupid semantic games designed to bore people to death that's what you do.

You were not relegated, you were saved by things which occured off the pitch. That's a fact.

So not promoting a team that finished 4th and didn't win the play offs was a disgraceful decision?

I don't think these Leythers are quite getting the point

I wouldn't care, at no point have i ever said that Widnes didn't deserve their license. In fact, if they've got someone willing to put money into the club and invest in things such as the academy, then that can only be good for the sport.

I just think the process needs reviewing, for example, how important was the Northern Rail win in the grand scheme of things? Would the RFL really have wanted to give a license to one of Halifax, Barrow, Fev or Batley, while Widnes are sat in the Championship with all the off field setup but no NR trophy from 2 years ago?

Also the 3 year cycle does Championship clubs no good, look at Halifax, won the league, no chance of Super League for another couple of years at least, and lose a couple of their better players.

The only reason I've piped up is when people have started comparing franchising with a decision made two years ago to replace a team that went bust. The two are totally different scenarios.

It is slightly ironic though eh

If you read what I’ve written, you’ll actually see that I am agreeing with you on that. You went down, a little pedantic to say so, but I’ll accept that. Plus, that was written before you were handed a Championship place back by the RFL on off-the-field issues only.




Nope, whilst I would prefer it if promotion was based entirely on on-the-field performance, I understand this can’t always be the case. Leigh’s reprieve was a far clearer case of a club being promoted entirely due to off-the-field issues, than Widnes getting a licence now. At least we did actually have to fulfill an on-the-field criteria, in order to make a bid. Therefore, it wasn’t quite as clear cut and dismissive of on-the-field performance as it was for Leigh. Please tell me why Leigh weren’t allowed to make a bid, despite all the excellent infrastructure and off-the-field quality it has going for it?

In my opinion, the decision to hand Leigh a Championship place before Oldham, despite on-the-field performance being ignored totally, was probably the right decision. I accepted it at the time too, despite some misgivings.

Widnes being awarded a licence this time, under the current rules, definitely is the right decision also.

My arguments against Leigh’s promotion from Ch1 was being based on the same rationale that some Leythers are now using against Widnes. It was also a way of showing up the awful hypocrisy about the issue of on-the-field performance, shown by said Leythers, for what it truly is. At the time I never saw a single comment arguing about Leigh being favoured for promotion due entirely to off-the-field strength – not one!

But now look.

I’m not saying that all Leythers are hypocrites, most have been very sensible about the situation, but a few are making themselves look incredibly foolish. Some of them should know better.