Of course there are good points in the game, perhaps 30 years back may have been the wrong time, but when the Sky money came in for the first time where did that money go? the majority in players high wages, yes they deserved to go higher, but I know many average players who were being paid wages well above their availability. When Sky came on board it was money like the game had never seen before, but did they spend the money on grounds that were many derelict, No!

More Youth playing than ever before, Yes mainly in the South and expansion areas that is not the case in all of the heartlands of the game, yes it is great and I am so pleased about such as Oxford but that is not the opinion of a majority in the North, they are more concerned about their Hunslet's etc

The disaster or serious errors made by those who run the game are such as the Stobart sponsorship, add to that the lack of major sponsorship for such as the Challenge Cup how much do you think a Leeds University pay? crowds growing, but we can't even fill Wembley for a Challenge Cup Final, and look at the crowds for the end of season Mickey Mouse Premiership, did you see the attendance figures last weekend? or the empty terraces all around the stadium in Wigan? Look at the money Union get for their Premiership sponsorship and what BT are talking about for TV coverage £150 million for 4 years!

So yes there are some good points but I don't see the report over the past year being A * plus! and that is the responsibility of those who run the game, the top man being the one to shape the future, sorry but No! that is not the way forward for me.

interesting to see what Bryn Hargreaves says today to the Bradford Argus as he announces his retirement to take a better paid job out of the game.

"We could talk all day about what’s wrong with rugby league and that affected my decision too. It’s a short career and we don’t make vast amounts of money but the segregation of wages in the game is pretty bad and it’s getting worse."

He also spoke out about the licensing system and the infamous Stobart Super League sponsorship deal, for which the clubs did not receive a penny, but instead saw their brands advertised on the side of Eddie Stobart lorries.

He added: "The sport is on tenterhooks at the moment and the people in charge of the game need to do something about it. I thought this whole licensing process was supposed to stop things like this happening. But it’s happened to three clubs now – Wakefield, Crusaders and Bradford – in such a short space of time and there are other clubs that are on the verge.

It’s a downward spiral and there is no way of raising the cap to sign players because the clubs don’t have any money.

The Stobart deal has to be the worst sponsorship deal in history. How can it actually be a sponsor if there’s no actual money for it? It’s obviously not worked and things need to change."

Supporting a team is about much more than simply paying a few quid to watch a game of rugby or whatever. There's an emotional and psychological commitment too. There comes a point where you have to consider if it's worth it, especially if the club is doing everything it can to push you away and ultimately destroy itself. London Broncos have been on a downward spiral for a long time, and the signals coming out from the club are that they've learned nothing.

If it was just about watching SL then I could do that from home or the pub. Which, it seems, a lot of ex-fans have decided to do.

I guess what I'm saying is, either do it properly or don't bother at all and give another club a shot at it.

People forget that 30 years ago the RL was a very different organisation to what it is today. It was basically a variant on the London gentlemen's clubs (women, with the exception of waitresses, were banned from the Wigan boardroom until the mid-eighties when they were forced to admit Kath Hetherington and Barbara Close as they were Chairpersons of their respective clubs), with all the clubs voting on how their cosy little world was run and David Oxley was the League secretary who theoretically did their bidding. A strong secretary like Fallowfield could sometimes bully them into doing what they weren't keen on, but even he wasn't always able to shift the vested interests that were the club chairmen. It was only when it finally sank into their pinheads as to how far behind the Australians we were, plus growing serious financial issues that forced them to agree to the modernisation that should have happened 25 years earlier! Even now the big clubs still do their best to stop anything that might threaten their position.

Pretty much since the day we left Griffin Park

Griffin Park was an aberration, we have been on the slide since 1999!

Hargreaves is just throwing a few ill thought out hand grenades on his way out of the door. He has taken another job with another organisation. We all do that.

What does he know about the Stobart deal? Do you know what goes on in the boardroom of your company? (Its even higher than that in this instance-the RFL boardroom which is one above the Bulls). He is an end user, no different to a gas fitter working for British Gas. He hasn’t got a clue what is going on other than what he reads in the paper.

Wembley never used to fill to the numbers watching now even in the halcyon days you seem to refer. Not forgetting we have a recession and alternative options now for fans such as the GF, France, London away, Magic weekend. Wembley used to be the one day out a year for us northerners, hence the reputation of it being for all fans. I’ve stood on the terraces at Wilderspool in the rain, with a 3-4000 crowds, in a run down stadium watching semi pros play the game. The game has moved on so much since them days it’s incomparable.

Do some research on Wigan crowds over the years, including Central Park? Look up CC crowds and see if they always got 20K or is this just your fertile imagination strengthening, in your own mind, your argument.

The game can improve but is in great shape than that compared to 30 years ago.

Nothing wrong with my memory, I can assure you "east stander", as a kid I stood on Central Park with 39,000, Station Road with 40,000 plus and even Knowsley Road with 20,000, so please a "fertile imagination"

Of course not everything was perfect with the game back them, players working and then training at night, having to take a day off work for a weekday match at Workington! but I feel currently too many people have got carried away with the title "The Greatest Game"

They may have said back before the introduction of the five tackle rule, that teams stuck the ball up their shirts! but is that really any worse than now kicking the ball dead on the fifth tackle constantly? we mocked union for the kicking in the game, how boring it was!

The deal with Stobart was never a secret document! it was pure desperation to get a sponsor, that made the RFL were look a bunch of idiots in the end!

OK, thanks for the recap. But I still don't see Gus ... in all of that.

Yes, I saw it too and it was much much worse.

I believe that Hull hold the record by retaining possession for 78 minutes in a Challenge Cup game, and I remember plenty of attempts to do the same, rendered ineffective only by handling errors. The game was transformed by the introduction of the four tackle rule initially, later modified to six tackles. Never was five.

I'm not sure you can call it much worse! teams could defend then unlike now some of our basketball scores, with the belief we can score more than you. I can't remember any games teams holding the ball for the time period you quote! as it was a winter game, not that I would like to go back to that, the ball got spilled and then we had Scrums and hookers yes hooked for the ball, remember when Saints signed the real old Wigan boy Bill Sayer for Wembley and he hooked the ball every time! whichever team was putting the ball in.

But the game has moved on and is still not perfect will it ever be, but we can get it right off the pitch, but this is going way off Staying the the stoop, all we can do now is wait see what next season brings and what we are saying in September 2013!

I think that the greatest influence I ever had on any game was on the occasion when my cousin and I barracked so successfully from right on the perimeter fence at an "A" team game, watched by maybe 100 people, that we managed to persuade the ref to send Sayer off for punching in the scrum. He was a right dirty s*d. Was only in the A team because he was coming back from injury. Hope his suspension, if he got one, set him back a bit further.

Regardles of what some may think, I don't make things up to paint someone in a bad light.....


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