No, an East Hull lad who's rugby league mad.

If you try to find the equivalant in London (a London born or based RL fan) you're gonna have a long search Gutterfax.

REALLY? I know of certain London RL fans who put their own property (s) up as collateral to save the team a good few years ago........I would suggest that trumps your keyboard warrior

I thought it was the RFL who did that?

I must say, you've owned him there!



And some of hullkrforever's posts must have him up there, surely?

Not really, life-long fan Neil Hudgell has achieved more at Hull KR then any Fulcrubronquins director, chairman, owner etc has over their 30 year experiment.

Here is a squad you could have of players that have exemptions from BOTH lists...

1. Clint Greenshields
2. Francis Meli
3. Chris Nero
4. George Carmont
5. Pat Richards
6. Motu Tony
7. Thomas Leuluai
8. Kylie Leuluai
9. Ben Fisher
10. Michael Vella
11. Willie Manu
12. Louis Anderson
13. Vinnie Anderson

14. Ali Lauitiiti
15. Iafeta Paleaaesina
16. Clint Newton
17. Ben Fisher

18. Rhys Lovegrove
19. Harrison Hansen
20. Michael Korkidas
21. Damien Blanch
22. Karl Temata

On top of that, you could have five non-fed exempt quota players, such as Jake Webster, Ryan McGoldrick, Tony Martin, Luke Dorn, Phil Bailey, Chris Flannery, Ben Jefferies, Sam Obst, Glenn Morrison, Matt King, Michael Monaghan; as well as another 5 on top of that with an EU/Pacific passport!

*Just don't forget to squeeze in 8 "club trained players" to make it look like you're actually adding to English rugby league!

Has he? Has he guided Hull KR to second in the league? Or to a Challenge Cup final?

He took a club in the doldrums and turned us into a strong SL club. Taking crowds from 2000 to 7000 in a year. from 4th in NL1 in 2004 to 4th in SL in 2009. If they're not great accomplishments as a fan-turned-chairman I don't know what is.

Im pretty sure he has just told you two better achievements

You never said "great accomplishments".

You said, and I quote...



This is simply not true. You can believe if you like that promotion to the SL is more of an achievement than being runner-up in the two biggest competitions this side of the world within 3 years, but you know which one you'd rather do!

Either of them realistic for a club that was playing in NL1 just 5 years ago though?

Hull FC have done some fantastic things over the last 6 years (e.g. CC 2005 + GF appearance in 2006), but it took them until their 8th SL season to reach a major final or finish in the top two. Likewise Huddersfield first played in SL in 1998 but didn't reach a major final till 2006. Then there's Wakey, who have been in SL since '99 but no major final yet. Therefore, I don't feel we're doing bad is all I'm saying.

But still not achieved as much as the London club, who finished runners-up in SL in their second year (may have reached a GF if they did the play-offs in 1997) and a Challenge Cup final in their fourth year in 1999.

So, if you're using the amount of time in SL as an excuse now, then the London club still wins. They achieved all that in the amount of time you've been in SL.

Fair enough, but (and this is a serious question, not a dig) why did things fall apart then? I.e. they were therefore much stronger all-round 12-14 years ago compared to now, they'd broke into that elite group of clubs like Saints and Wigan, and had a glorious chance to become a big name in SL. How did it all get to now where they're out-supported by every club in SL despite having a city of 8 million people to draw from?

Yes...we did it in 3






shame on them...only took us 3 years






What kept them,.....we did it in 3




Pah...pathetic.



Not bad at all for a team full of aussies

Yes but London had a squad of 17 Aussies compared to our 8 or 9.



Tbf that whole era was a joke - London should never have been fast-tracked to start with. Sure they did well for a few years, but IMO a club like Keighley could have done more in the long-term, e.g. they were getting 3000-5000 for some games in (what is now known as NL1).

Yes, with a team of 17 Aussies, not 8 or 9

You didn't earn it though - you was handed a lot of it e.g. a place in SL, rather then achieving it through promotion like we and our neighbours across the city did.



So what happened then? Why did it come to nothing in the long-term? + why did you only sell 9000 tickets for a Challenge Cup Final in your own city? If we reached Wembley we'd bring double that.

Couple of points.
London were included in SL because SKY wanted them in. The Club didn't apply...they were invited to join. What would the reaction been if HKA had been invited to join...would they have turned it down on principle? Like fx89k they would


Next up...your preoccupation with our lack of fans. Seriously roofs...I get grief for banging on about it on the quins board...what excuse do you have?
Lastly...you asked earlier about achievements of Directors etc.....I would think that Tony Clubb running in 4 tries for England (one of only 12 players to do so) and LMS being snapped up by St Helens sit pretty well with anyone at director/board level at the club. Just because you can't see 8,000 fans at the stoop for a league game doesn't mean the game isn't popular down in London and the Home Counties....there are plenty more where Clubb and LMS came from...it's all about building for the future

Now I know you're drunk....only 18,000 tickets....surely a mis-type....you meant 1,800,000

You've got 10 Aussies. And unlike London, whose Aussies are going down (and are now at 3), you lot are getting more and more. You can talk about your crowds being an achievement all you like, but you could compare it to the players produced by Harlequins pretty much from scratch (not from a ready-made amateur set-up like we have in Hull). THAT'S an achievement.

Keighley in SL would (IMO) be getting crowds not much different than Cas/Wakey/Salford.
Oh, and it's known as the Championship now, not National League 1. I know you lot are big boys in Super League now, but you should still remember your roots (you bang on about them enough!

)

I think it was to do with Richard Branson pulling out. You can talk up Hudgell all you like, but no-one has had a chairman like Sir Richard Branson in SL!

London might have around 8m people, but you've got to remember it's a lot different to Hull. It's not like you can pop across the city in 15 minutes. It can take longer to get across London at good times than it can to get to Warrington from Hull. Quins is only easily accessible by a fraction of that. And that's not to mention the other much more popular activities in London (such as football, rugby union, the theatres, some of the world's biggest tourist attractions, etc!).

I think we had 12 two years ago so actually ours are going down too.

so you are suggesting Gutterfax that in fact we should have pushed to have 17 Aussies in the squad when we were promoted then we might have been as succesful as Quins RL? Damn if we'd have known that was the formula of success we wouldn;t have waited this long to fill the roster with overseas players!

Is he here yet?

I think the obvious reply to that would be: as a heartlands club, it should not only be easier to produce your own players, but it should also be easier to attract English players (since they're only down the road).

How come heartland clubs are deemed to have an advantage in attracting English players because of location but this whole thread (and others) is about how so many players are happy to travel half way round the world to get work? For people like Stanley Gene he could barely speak the language, that wasn't a short trip down country it was whole different culture!

In that context is 200 miles (35 in the case of Crusaders) really such a barrier?