Not the fairest comparison though is it.

Wrexham to Warrington 31 miles
Wakefield to Warrington 59 miles
Castleford to Warrington 64 miles

Its almost twice as near for them to travel.

Given it's practically a local derby, there's no surprise that Crusaders fans turned up. It's like me saying I've seen more Leeds fans come to Cas than Wire or Saints.

Because he knew that the club was being run by idiots and that if he had stayed he would have had to work with a reduced playing budget and numerous off-field deficiencies. Noble isn't someone to be associated with a shambolic operation like that.

And even that's not the whole story, the M62 is a nightmare at times with what on paper is an hours journey sometimes taking twice that or even more.

Sometimes getting past Manchester can double the journey time and then getting back is often complicated by late night or weekend roadworks.

A whisper going round at the St. Helens game was that Crusaders will be around next season, but it could be that neither they nor the soccer side would be playing at the Racecourse. Nor sure how much notice to take of this, but I thought I'd just mention it.

The RFL should be keeping an eye on them, they owe them £900K don't they.

Wales needs this to work, really. I hope Crusaders do well, there fans at Huddersfield last year were outstanding, and I hate to see a Rugby League club fail.

Agreed, I just think it's a shame that the whole project never started in Wrexham in the first place. Far more likely to succeed then IMO.

Absolutely,2 dodgy owners instead of just one.Just a shame Aberystwyth didn't have a decent stadium !
Still,nice to see Rod Findlay involved with another successful club.
Wasn't there a rumour that Noble and Sharp were paid by the RFL while they were at Wrexham ? Not paying anymore and obtaining a shiny stadium seems good business.

i went to university in aberystwyth and lived there several years after. if you want to kill crusaders, then move them to aber
more students than locals, and students are all at home for a big chunk of the season. and the static local population is about 6000 at most. not to mention rugby league is pretty much nonexistent. when i was there most pubs wouldnt even show games, even if nothing else was on.
not to mention its a two hour drive from widnes alone.

its all well and good saying that the game needs to be a success in wales/london etc, but the fact of the matter, is that to operate in SL costs a hell of a lot of money.

no one is making money out of RL regardless of what widnes would have you believe.

the rfl have no money to fund these clubs, so the clubs need to be able to support themselves with.

a wealthy benefactor
good gate receipts
good sponsorship
etc.

if a club has none of the above i am afraid the future looks very dark

This will never happen and I'm not being naive by suggesting it but if the owners of Crusaders can see the writing on the wall, and I suspect they know now that they are not viable, they should say so now and not allow a more stable club and the employees of that club to suffer while they chase a lost cause.

But does how far you have to travel actually effect your fans volume?

I'm sorry but that really is pis[is[/i funny

Wait, I thought that the reason the Crusaders weren't successful last season was because of the debts from the first season? I though once those debts were wrote off by going into administration everything would be hunky-dory this season?