Never been so disinterested

Quote: Budgiezilla "Bringing back Promotion & Relegation, hardly gonna make club's average attendances lower than what they are now right now, are they Leiiggh Leeiiggh ?
Impressive long posts by the way.....maybe it's not the answer, and my name is Boris and I live on the planet 'tharg', oh and have you got change for a 'plip plop' ????

As noted elsewhere, we had crowds that were smaller ones than the ones we had now when we did have P&R, Licencing is just a convenient peg to hang the blame on, but it goes a lot further than that.
The regularly posted comment that 'without P&R it's just a long series of friendlies' is without much substance either - what does the SL champion win, other than the SL title? Do they get a chance to go and play in Australia or something? Of course not.

The fact of the matter is that we're a semi-professional sport trying to draw professional sport level crowds. Take a step back, stop trying to compare us to SL sides, stop trying to compare us to top level football attendances, and take a look at other sports in a similar position. We draw similar (if not better) crowds to RU clubs at our level, lower division soccer's semi-pro teams don't do much better, and professional cricket often sees attendances lower than ours.
All these comparisons are pointless though - if we want to increase our attendance, then we need to change the attitudes of the fans we have.

No one likes to be criticised, but the general air on this forum is 'It's everyones fault but our own'.
No it bloody well isn't, it is ENTIRELY our own fault. We've always overspent, leaving ourselves in the poo, we've always overestimated our income - why haven't we learned to live within 1/2 of what we're claiming and bank any extra? - and we've always cried that the RFL hate us.
Here's the bad news. The RFL couldn't give a flying one about us, one way or the other. The lower divisions are there to bridge the gap between the amateur game and SL, a way of bringing players through and up to SL standard.
This is how it should be - does anyone on here actually believe that if we get a great player we should hang on to him and deny him his chance at SL? Of course no one does, but to hear the flat cap mumblings about being a 'feeder club' you would think so. So what if we are a feeder club of some sort? I don't see any formal arrangement, do you?
What if we use our great RL player base as a breeding ground for prospective SL players - what will those players have to do to get noticed in the first place? Play to lose or play to win? I know which I think it is, and in the process they'll help us achieve better league position than we would if an SL scout had snapped them up and taken them away from us before we'd even given them a run out.
Similarly with DC players. If they're not quite up to SL standard, great - we'll take them and keep them fit. The big mistake is relying on these players, no one should do that as the consequneces of relying on them is too obvious.
Sadly, we've not learned that last lesson yet.

The bottom line is that clubs have to look out for themselves. No relying on SL to bail them out, no bitching if it seems the RL has done so to other clubs - if our club overspends then I'd not expect anyone other than Leigh fans and our few friends to give a damn about it. Similarly, I'll not throw money into someone elses pot if they've over reached themselves.

It truly isn't rocket science.