I am a 54 year old bloke who has been a total rugby league fan since my dad used to take me to games when i was a nipper . i have seen some desperate times at my club Dewsbury but i have also witnessed some highs as well , i will never forget winning the championship with dewsbury beating leeds at odsal when i was 17 .
This morning i have been reading your forum and one post got me really thinking , it was this one .
" Coming off the ground last night, listening to the moans of the crowd who had been subjected to yet another poor performance. I realised that I wasn't really bothered. When we had promotion and winning the GF was paramount, I would have been devastated last night, it would have taken me days to get over it. But today, I'm just not really bothered. Nothing has changed. We weren't going into SL anyway. All it means is we don't have to suffer another match next Friday. That is the most worrying thing I think. If I feel like that, someone who has watched Leigh home and away for over 40 years, how do the casual fans feel?"
I think this fan has hit the nail on the head ,from the last ten years or so or really since the inception of super league my anticipation and of games has diminished markedly and one thing that has certainly happened is that clubs have been politicaly set against other clubs in order to try to improve their own lot .It used to be the case that when a big or important game was coming up that i was on edge for days beforehand almost desperate for the thrill of the match . That feeling has largely gone , i was putting it down to getting older but that aint the case . The reality is that since the poisoned dwarf instigated the news corporation deal and formed super league the authorities running the RFL have beaten the crap out of non super league clubs to the extent that the clubs and the supporters on the outside are on an ever accelerating spiral towards oblivion with currently little hope of the situation being reversed .
The game of rugby league is somewhat of a laughing stock amongst supporters of other sports who cannot believe that there is a proffessional sport with no promotion or relegation into or from the top tier , some of my work collegues who live in nottingham and are soccer supporters cannot believe that the clubs stand for it and do not rebel .
It is a fact that espescially in these recessionary times running a RL club is totally unviable financially and eachand every club is on its backside and in some cases relying on benefactor handouts to conduct its business , without those handouts those clubs would be indeed in a parlous state .
I fear that the situation will get worse in the near future and we are at risk of seeing the demise of some long established clubs both in super league and ouside as well and i do not have a clue as to how the situation can be reversed .
I firmly believe that the only way that the RFL can stop the rot is to form a radical plan involving ALL the member clubs of the RFL reinstating promotion and relegation but reorganising the distribution of sky monies for the benefit of ALL the clubs and making the salary cap more constraining all the way down the rugby league ladder so that the richer clubs cannot cause over inflation of player wages throughout the game , much as what the poisoned dwarf did at wigan during the eighties turning 20 grand players into 80 grand players . Clubs should also be made to invest more in producing young players and cutting down on the overseas imports thereby giving a better chance to produce quality homegrown talent rarther than squandering good money on holidaying antipodeans .
I would like to read other fans thoughts on the subject and i look forward to revisiting this thread later .

I have to agree with you on most of those points , the recession also has had its effect on crowds this year, however now we have reached the cut off for the 2012 franchises and its Widnes, we all know the RFL will make it a closed shop after this and if theres any more teams allowed in itll be Toulouse or a new team in an area they want.

I can't believe you've managed to evade the meaning of paragraphs for 54 years!!

I reckon 90% of RL supporters would agree with the first post on this thread.

Knocked out in a home play off and although I would have prefered a win I am not too concerned.

Before franchising when I contrast being knocked out of the playoffs at home to Batley under T Benson the depression lasted for a couple of weeks.

Most folk near me are footie fans and know I follow Leigh RLFC. The always ask me how is my team doing and invariably ask me if we can get into Superleague. When I tell them about franchising they are incredulous and truthfully I have heard many times "so why do you bother?"

Well I do because I can't help it as I have been watching Leigh for too long to stop now.

All this doom and gloom which is because we rarely have played well at the LSV and how many tries have we scored out of our 20 metre area ? This in the main is down to poor recruitment and I hope we are able to inject some pace next season as exciting RL from our team is the way forward.

I like watching Fax because of their flair in that they can score tries from anywhere on the field.Despite the introduction of franchising their crowds have gone up. I cannot see them getting a franchise either no matter how many boxes they tick.

I have been hostile about franchising consistently and although I know some think it is the way forward whilst I respect their opinions I honestly do think they are wrong and I expect they will have the opposite view.

With P & R I honestly think gates at Widnes Barrow Fax Leigh et al would go up but that goes hand in hand with entertaining play.

I completely agree with the first post. Before the creation of the Superleague we had the fastest growing sport in this country! Now we are battling to be taken seriously! This is a great sport that is being ruined by a bunch of idiots that don't understand it and are just interested in lining their pockets! Wish we and the other clubs outside the superleague had the guts to break away!!! Remember our roots and why the Northern Rugby Football Union formed in the first place!!!

Agree with this general feeling. The game is dying slowly, though, not quickly.

I think Leigh will struggle to maintain four figure crowds by 2014, such is the lack of interest in a game and league with nowhere to go.

Last night, looking about me in the West Stand, I was one of the youngest members of the crowd I could see. There were very few people below the age of 30. The fan base at this level is literally dying off.

I've always maintained that monies should be distributed on a sliding scale according to where you finish in the league - whatever division.

It was never P&R that was the problem, just the utter financial cliff edge that was created between the leagues. If that cliff edge was smoothed out to just a financial steep hill then P&R would be the natural safety net that it always was and both leagues would benefit from the reinstatement of on-field interest (and therefore excitement) rather than us debating the results of the tri-annual powerpoint presentation competition.

That's because you go in the West Stand - you should go in the North Stand to be surrounded by the young and young at heart

My disappointment in the loss last night lasted all of 5 minutes. It doesn't even compare to how I felt when we lost play off games under Paul Terzis and Tony Benson.
One of my greatest Leigh memories is winning on the last day of the season at Warrington, under Billy Benyon, to secure our top flight status.
Under the current system feelings like that can't be reproduced, and when fans lose the ability to feel passionate about their team, its just another nail in the coffin of lower tier RL

Not denying it at all, but I think we're certainly in a better position than other clubs in the league, which I suppose says a lot really

Fact is, it's hard for kids to grow up in this day and age of instant success, Premier League football etc and going down to Leyth in the hope of getting promoted every three years. I and the lads I stand with are all of a generation starting to go to rugby in the early 90's when Wigan were winning everything - it wasn't much fun supporting Leyth then, and I suppose the situation is even worse these days.

I agree, came off disappointed, discussed the flaws of the team in the car and sulked for 5 or 10 mins when I got home and been fine since.

The fact of the matter is if the RFL don't drop this ludicrous obsession with the franchise system there will be no lower league clubs to develop and nurture talent in the years to come because clubs outside SL will have nothing to play for.

Why can't they see what they are doing to the game outside SL, or is it simply that they don't really care? Surely what has happened at London/Harlequins over the years should have proved how much time, energy and money they are wasting on developing the game much further a field. Wise up you chumps (RFL)!

excellent post. Must admit, by the time I got home (10 min) I was OK, didn't enjoy 'talking' about the game today though. The excitement 'prior' to a game has lessened. The emotions when the game is actually on (apart from calling the ref !!) have also weakened, the 'nervousness' of a close game, or the joy/disappointment of the result are nowhere near what they used to be. I will NEVER stop buying a season ticket, but it's NOT the same for me now, and I doubt it's my 46 years of age.
My mate quipped on the way home "least that's £14 saved from the next game", and I replied "aye, and if we had won, we would have got stuffed by Fev or Fax"

Positive thinking eh ???

If you don't feed the roots, the plant dies, and the same goes for RL. The rot set in when Lindsey sold us down the river, and where is the little b*****d now? Not even involved in the game he's poisoned. The game's dying on it's feet, and if the SL clubs think that they'll be immune to the fate of such clubs like Bramley, Doncaster, Oldham etc., then they need to think again, pulling up the ladder won't save them.
This great game of ours will only survive if the grass roots of the game are looked after, from the amateur and schoolboys level upwards, otherwise all the kids will be lost to ru. Things need to change. I'd like to think that the fans from ALL the clubs could get together, vote with their feet, and demand changes, this problem transcends any club rivalries. Ever since the NU was formed the rfu have been trying to kill the game off, they don't need to bother now, we're doing the job for them. All they'll need to do soon is pick over the bones of the game.

He's currently poisoning Preston FC now