Quote TOMCAT="TOMCAT"I am genuinely sorry to see Leigh down at the moment. I hope that you find your way and make it back to the top flight at some point. But I think some of your fans are being unfair to your owner Derek Beaumont. His passion for the club has been plain to see. To question his commitment at this stage is unfair. If as I have read on here, he and his company have lent the club £1.7 Million AND if as I have also read on here he has said he will bite the bullet and take that debt with him when he leaves. I don't know what more he could do for the club he obviously loves. Accepting that he cannot put anymore into the club, he has done right by you by leaving you in the best possible position he can to find new backers, Good luck to you for the future.'"
Thanks for your post I share your views also. Being a Chairman/Owner of any sporting club has its ups and downs and, the ups always seem to coincide with the good times! Clearing out my loft the other day I came across a batch of the 'Rugby Leaguer' which was a weekly Rugby Paper which ran for many decades until its demise.
The back page of an edition in April 1975 has the headline; Harding Quits After Threat! Harding of course was the incumbent Leigh Chairman and Leigh at that time were performing badly! Harding had been the GB Tour Manager of the Ashes winning 1970 team and also, Chairman when Leigh beat Leeds to lift the Challenge Cup at Wembley in 1971 so his credentials were first class however, fans have short memories when times get tough!
Whilst Harding's situation is not exactly the same as Beaumont's, they were both Club leaders!
I feel we have been desperately unlucky these past couple of seasons, last season we were a very competitive team particularly for a club that had not been in the SL for twelve seasons! We did recruit a very strong alround squad and, we were the envy of many. Our left wing partnership of Willie Tonga and James Clare had the potential to have been amongst the best in SL however, I don't think they ever played together due to untimely injuries? This season our Marquee signing Kurt Baptiste played all of 20 minutes before asking to be released from his Contract and high tailing back to Australia! It just shows how difficult it is to put a squad together when your major signing, behaves like that
Incidentally, a lot of the Rugby League fraternity consider us to be a failure however, we have won 15 of our last 17 league matches with the only two reversals coming against Toronto! The match at the Summer Bash should never have been lost and had not, we could be lining up in the Middle Eights which, was our intention at the beginning of the season! Just shows the margins that exist in the Championship today!