Friday Night Lights

Quote: BroncOnIon "Neither, the move to MK was predicted on the 5live commentary on our game at Salford a couple of weeks ago.'"

A few weeks ago a friend who is involved in coaching at RLC junior level told me that, at a meeting of the London Junior Leagues Management Committee at The Stoop, someone asked about staging a presentation for junior grand final winners on the pitch at the Warrington game. The response from a Quins representative (I don’t know exactly who) was that this game would not be staged at The Stoop, it would be staged at Milton Keynes. I was told about this at roughly the same time the union double header was announced for the same day as our Warrington fixture.

Whilst I had no reason to doubt that what I’d been told had been said, I checked the fixtures for MK Dons and saw they were at home on this day. I wasn’t certain how long ago the meeting at which this comment slipped out had taken place or by whom it was made. I figured there must have been a fair few people present at the meeting in question and thought it strange that this possibility hadn’t already come to light more publicly. After discussing it further with another Quins fan we concluded this was probably no more than an idea that would not come to fruition, so I didn’t say anything about it on here as I didn’t wish to cause confusion for everyone else. Surely the logical outcome would be to play the Warrington game at The Stoop on the Sunday? Then a little while ago it came to light that The Stoop would be unavailable to us on that date due to the Women’s RU World Cup Final. It would now appear that the Quins v Warrington game will be “at The Stoop on the Friday evening or somewhere else on the Saturday or Sunday”. Possibly Milton Keynes on the Sunday?

I’m not sure how viable a Milton Keynes based SL team would be, and personally I can’t see myself travelling to watch games there more than once or twice a season. I mean, they’ve only just established a Football League franchise in the town, they get reasonable crowds for a 3rd Division club and have a big new ground that could stage Premiership football if they get that far. A few years back I went past the ground on a rail replacement bus service to Northampton while it was under construction and it looks similar in size and style to Hull’s ground. Would rugby league in Milton Keynes really be anything more than the curious minority sport for northerner that it’s perceived as by so many elsewhere in the Home Counties and Greater London?