Why has RL never taken off in Manchester and Liverpool?

Quote: wiganermike "A general lack of success (they tended to be near the foot of the league) for the clubs within those cities and other nearby towns and the existence of more illustrious neighbours probably combined to kill off most. Go back to the period following 1895 and we had clubs during the next fifteen years in towns like Stockport, Runcorn, two in Salford, around half a dozen at one stage in Leeds and its vicinity, one in Birkenhead as well as places like Morecambe and Lancaster plus the original Liverpool City. There were also more clubs in towns within what we know as the heartlands in places like Tyldesley and Brighouse. Include junior clubs (what we would call community clubs now) and there were teams in places like Radcliffe and Walkden. With a need to attract and keep paying audiences to fund costs of paying players in order to keep going such support would gravitate to those with success. Hence successful Leeds and Hunslet outcompeted the other Leeds clubs (though Bramley somehow soldiered on), Wigan and Leigh saw off Tyldesley and so on.

The clubs close to Manchester had Salford and Broughton Rangers (the other club in Salford) to contend with on their doorstep and these were two of the more successful clubs in the early 1900s. There were also Oldham and Swinton to contend with, with both being strong too. In soccer which was a growing threat as a counter-attraction there was Bury who twice won the FA Cup as well as growing clubs like Newton Heath. The clubs that persisted tended to be those which had fairly regular success to sustain interest. Later attempts in Manchester such as Belle Vue Rangers (the relocated Broughton Rangers who had been outcompeted in Salford) and much later Trafford Borough had to try to make a dent ,with uncompetitive teams, to compete with the two soccer giants. By that stage even a successful RL club (trophy-wise) would probably have failed to make much impact against those two. Soccer due to its successful clubs was and is now too engrained in the cultural psyche for other sports to garner much interest.

Those close to Liverpool had Everton who were already famous and successful to compete with as well as Liverpool. Given that the soccer teams won things and the RL teams were cellar dwellers they never really had a chance to catch the populace's interest. By the time Liverpool Stanley had their brief success in the mid thirties the soccer clubs had had a fifty year head start. I think this also coincided with Dixie Dean's era which would have made them even more invisible in that city.'"

This about sums it up.

I'd also like to point out that around Manchester there are many rugby union clubs: TraffordMV, Ashton-upon-Mersey, Manchester Sale, Bowden, Kersall, Didsbury, Heaton Moor, Sedgely Park, Eccles, Broughton Park, Auldwinians, Manchester, North Manchester... that's just off the top of my head, there are probably numerous more. Around the same areas for rugby league you have NOWHERE NEAR as many clubs as RU.

You could argue that Manchester is a rugby union city when it comes to the two codes of rugby.