I can understand Headhunter's lack of understanding. He doesn't attend matches. He doesn't support a club. Can't really get the proper feel for the issues at stake. Conversely maybe this makes him the best person to judge? Someone on the "outside" looking in?

Im not going to read the 8 pages already posted on here, my take as a Widnes fan is Franchising is killing the game.

I have been a home and away supporter for 20 years watching Widnes, ups and downs and good and bad days. My family have always been the same, tomorrow we are at home to Catalan Dragons and of the 5 of us that usually attend, only 2 of us are going. At the end of the day our season is over, it was over before it began, this following hot on the heels of 2 previous seasons in the Championship where we had nothing to play for, Where ticking boxes was more important than playing well. Now we keep getting told not to worry we have three years, i dont want three years of this junk. When Widnes were Relegated last time i lived and breathed Widnes, every game meant something, even when it looked like mission impossible we travelled in our numbers because it meant something.

Now it means nothing, if the Dragons put a hundred on Widnes tomorrow then i will probably laugh it off and forget about the game, seriously it wont mean a thing.

If i dont watch Widnes i dont watch Rugby league, and if i dont watch Rugby League my kids dont, and then you lose 2 Generations of supporters because we lost sight of the most important thing in sport, Winning.

In my eyes the Sports Dying a death, and i have played, Coached and Watched Rugby league for more than 25 years. I would rather we were relegated this season due to our poor managment than sit in this league with the mighty few while better teams are locked out, and we never earned the right to be here in the first place.

This is what every "sports" fan should be thinking.

Headhunter and smokeyta will be along shortly to tell you, you know absolutely nothing about sport and to tell you, you are sooo so wrong in having these strange feelings about your club

Yes, of course they would

That doesn't mean they should be given the majority of focus. What you have posted makes no sense and is of no consequence to anything. I'm talking about the fact that I don't want to watch a bunch of the worst teams in the league competing to decide who is not the worst. It makes absolutely no sense, it's a completely negative and backwards concept.
No, I'm a fan of RL. I do not enjoy watching the sport played by a bunch of substandard journeyman players who are too nervous to attempt any sort of creative play because of the ridiculous threat of being demoted to a part-time league and thus almost certainly losing their jobs. That doesn't really sound appealing to me, but if you enjoy that and think it's 'exciting' then whatever. I'm sure you can still go to a match between the bottom two and pretend that the loser will be relegated if you really want to.

This is becoming an annoying habit, this forgetting there has been 2 ' Crusaders ' , one prefixed ' Celtic ' , played in the NL s and SL with a load of ileagal immigrants in the SL standard Brewery Field in Bridgend , and then the ' Crusaders ' when the RFL touted them around to avoid massive embarassment

Both owners were either incompetant or crooked as a witchs nose, take your pick

Wow. Don't think I've ever read anything so off the wall - even on here where the place is full of loony tunes. (Including myself I might add).

Which club do you support, just out of interest. Or rather, which club do you watch home and away?

He's more machine than man now, his mind is twisted and evil,





Just realised that this is in fact more relevant to Smokey actually, but fear not rich the ' Empire ' crumbles in the end, well it usually does in movies

Just doing a straw poll from this thread I would suggest the support for a licensing/franchise system is waning. A large thread usually attracts many different posters. Almost a third of our recent elite clubs have gone bust, with, if you believe the reports/rumours another half of them very close. Game is really healthy......not

Someone needs to explain the definition of a closed shop to Andy Burnham, if he thinks SL is one.

It made perfect sense when replying to a brainless post like the one bellow.

Someone has to finish bottom. It doesn't mean that you will see a poor spectacle. But, having absolutely nothing to play for probably will. It will probably also ensure that clubs are happy to recruit even more journey men, as there is little at stake.



You are confusing your own petty little views with reality. Just because you don't like watching the bottom end teams, doesn't mean everyone else does. The problem with licencing though, is that it compounds the situation of journey men and substandard games, because there's nothing at stake for half of the season at the bottom end of the league. A battle between 3 or 4 clubs to avoid relegation would change this dramatically. You are far more likely so see full-throttle competitive games as such.

Great post, Tony. My sentiments exactly.