That is the unanimous and only criticism heard of them at Fax. I always wear a hoodie underneath to fill in the gap but that might become impractical when (if?) the weather gets warmer.

O'Neills? Do the clubs have any choice in this matter?

But was this SL or Championship clubs

All the Championship clubs combined support only adds up to about the same as a Leeds or a w1g4n

What I am suggesting is that the clubs actually purchase a smallish british based manufacturer

I doubt it would need a lot of actuall cash to get a 50 % share in one at the moment especially with a potential 1/2 million quid a year order on the table as well

Stick with a few basic designs to start with and get all printing done abroad , have the initial start of season supplies manufactured abroad with top ups and specials put together locally

Every item sold makes money both for the club buying/selling it and for all the other clubs as well who are part of the consortium

You end up with a brand name and 20 outlets for that brand name spread out over the country

Possibly easier then to try to get bigger more lucrative sponsorship on every clubs shirts , ie you could approach say the Co-oP to have the main sponsor on every shirt for every televised game , ie 20 odd matches a year

The clubs then have an incentive to sell their branded goods to other local sports clubs be they footy,netball,RU,RL ,anything , making extra evenue outside of their main business of RL

You keep saying it, it keeps making sence, no idea why it doesn't happen...

i'm with you on this one. the more things we can do centrally, the better placed we'll be to excel in other areas.

the case above did concern championship clubs.

Simple it needs the clubs to all sit down together to agree to all start to work together , this unfortunatley is the problem , when we are down to 14/15 clubs they might see sense , hope it's not too late by then

building on the idea of operating things centrally, how about we do the same with websites?

99% of football league clubs' (if not all of them) websites are run by 'premium tv'. This arrangement means top quality website with premium content, a collective market, encompassing millions of visitors, to attract advertisers whilst still granting some autonomy to the individual clubs.

On my other post I mentioned that the clubs need to start to work together , I do know that Keighley have approached your board to suggest that as you both play each other on Sky televised matches that you both possibly provide free transport for away fans to the games at your home venues

The idea being that you both try to outdo each others away support and bring say at least 500 away fans to each match

This would make for a much better atmosphere at both games

Co operation between the clubs outside SL is the only way they will survive

Yes the websites would have been the first thing they should have done , before they even came up with the shared programe

yeah i heard about this, i think there are a few ideas in the pipeline.

RL clubs need to realise that (on field aside) they are not in competition with other RL clubs, but are in fact competing against Soccer, RU, cricket and any number of alternatives.

Collaborations such as you propose will be essential to the long term viability and strength of RL as a whole.

I agree totally.

For example, I doubt many if any Super League clubs could afford an advert in a national newspaper but if the 14 came together to put the 7 games and numbers for tickets. They might need a little help from the rfl to get it in there but I think it would benefit all parties.

Also could do something similar with the Championship.

There's the problem

As regards the suggestion in a national paper , once again possibly for SL yes , but that is the only sort of marketing the RFL seem to be either interested in or able to do

The Championship clubs need localised marketing not national marketing

By the same can be done with the Championship I meant on a smaller level and I hope the rfl realise more that there is rugby league outside of Super League as it is very important not to cut clubs adrift and get the game healthy at all levels.

Too late for that Matey

They havent a clue how to help the Championships , their imagination goes as far as wasting 100's of 1,000's of pounds putting our French colleagues in with us