Leigh @ Leigh Sports Village

Quote: SRW1996 "I appreciate your the SL champions and CC holders but just so you know a bit more about Leigh Centurions:

Six months ago we got a new set of investors and a board together at Leigh with long term investment and planing to build a SL club in our own right. The finance and investment is long term and works have started on building the club in a way it has never done in the past not just to try and fast track it's self to the top and fail. As part of this we have maintained a strong professional relationship with Wigan but dissolved the formal partnership as we hope to playing in completion in time against your great club and bringing back the good old days of friendly rivalry, good games and big crowds.

It's very early days but regards the playing side of the business we've added full time assistant coaches, conditioners and back room staff and we've invested in some quality full and part time players and big first team squad of 29/30 for the coming season. We've also invested heavily in our U20s squad and building some serious briges and connections with the community RL clubs.

Having raided Super League for the likes of Tom Spencer from yourselves, Oliver Wilkes & Liam Kay from Wakefield, Jake Emmett from Salford, Alex Brown from Hull KR just to name a few we feel we've assembled a pretty handy side for 2014.

Barring selling Sam Hopkins to yourselves we also retained the squad which won the NRC cup last year and have taken the some of the best players from our Championship rivals the likes of Tom Armstrong from Sheffield, Jamie Acton from Workington and Sam Barlow from Halifax again just to name a few.

It would be really appreciated if as many of you RL people from Wigan came over and made an atmosphere to match our lot and with you bringing your first team this year you may even stand a chance of breaking your duck and actually beating the noisy neighbours
Didn't mean any disrespect to Leigh, I hear what you're saying but there is a gulf in class within SL let alone between a top SL side like Wigan and Leigh. I'm not sure what benefit either club would get if we put out a strong 17 with only a couple of "kids" in it. Thumping you by 50-60 points wouldn't really help you or us?

Best of luck with the development plans. Having lived in Atherton as a lad in the 80s I was always amazed at the lack of development work in the local schools etc, Leigh has never really done enough work in the local communities. (No one from Leigh ever came to my primary school, which was 10-15 mins drive from Leigh's ground and the only sport we played was football). Atherton didn't even have an amateur club until a few years ago. If you are going to get anywhere near sustainability in SL terms then you are going to have to do a lot more to build interest in places like Atherton and Tyldesley. Apologies if I'm telling you what you already know!

I'm hoping to come on the 19th and hopefully it will be a decent turn out from both sets of fans.