Quote: fevfan76 "Do you actually think if you kill off all the other teams outside SL the amateur game will stay big enough to feed the SL. Would fev lions attract the young kids of Featherstone if there was no fev rovers. Most kids in fev will not go to rival towns to play rugby especially Castleford and theres no junior teams in Sharlston, Pontefract or knottingley anymore. its hard enough to get parents to take them to a team on their doorstep never mind travel further than the places mentioned. Briscoe may not have been a product of Fev rovers, but he was a Product of fev lions. If there was no lions he would now be playing amateur football on a Sunday morning. when at 13 and he had to choose between Rugby and football would he have chose to play in a different town or stay and play footy in fev with his mates'"
Nobody is killing any sides. Lets brush that myth away first of all.
Do I believe that the Featherstone area would continue to have a thriving amateur game if Fev Rovers stay as a lower league side? Yes. Many places, many which are bigger than Fev, have a thriving amateur scene but no SL side. If Fev need an SL side to continue having a thriving amateur scene do we need a new SL side based in Rothwell for instance? Why should we expect the people of Rothwell to travel to Cas, Leeds, Wakefield or Fev? Sharlston do have a team as do a multitude of towns and villages in West Yorks which aren’t also represented by a pro RL club.
Quote: fevfan76 "If you think fev, fax or Leigh's support would stay at the same level with promotion to the SL then your talking daft, I have no doubt the ground would max out many times in SL. Your 5k average I think is far too low. Our highest attendance of the season was actually just short of 3900 against Sheffield, one of the worst supported teams in the championship. They brought about 100 fans that day. Would the mighty Leeds only bring 20 fans to POR like Hunslet do. Fax support has dwindled due to the disillusionment of not being in SL for so long, they had a great following and im sure it would come back.'"
Your stadium only currently holds 6750 max it out as many times as you like you are still aren’t getting an average much over 5k. There are 15k people in the village, Fev aren’t going to get 2/3rds of them attending every week. It may sound harsh to you but its simply true, getting 3.9k once is a hell of a lot different to getting 8/9k every week. Thinking that large swathes of supporters are going to travel to a fairly old stadium, in a small west Yorkshire village is nonsense.
Quote: fevfan76 "You also seem to ignore the importance of owning your own ground and having a big clubhouse. Besides no rent to pay and match days tickets food etc, fev earn cash throughout the week. Just the weekend mal maninga night sold out at £33, Billy pierce @ £22 sold out. I doubts everyone who turned up sat there without a drink. Regular fev forums pack out the club house which is open for every would cup game. Upcoming bon fire night will be a huge money spinner as thousands from all aroud the area usually turn up. many SL clubs don't have such revenue streams and as of your daft comparison with us, leeds and wigan, very few get massive crowds either. Maybe fev wouldn't compete financially with Wigan and Leeds but last time I checked there wasn't only 2 teams in SL'"
You are trying to compete with clubs turning over 8 figure sums. Taking £3k in the bar when t’club put a turn on isn’t making a dent in that. It wouldn’t pay for the GPS systems used to aid player training, never mind the stats guy to collate and interpret the data, or the strength and conditioning coach to work with the nutritionist and physio putting it in to practice.
And no, there aren’t only two sides in SL, besides Leeds (who own a huge facility in an expensive area of Leeds, and another facility on the outskirts of the city centre, and a hotel, and have a 16-18k average, turnover about £13m) and Wigan (similar attendances, big merchandise operation, large modern facility) there is St Helens (own a brand spanking new facility, attendances about 6 times that of Fev) Hull (bigger attendances, Large modern facility) Warrington (same), Les Catalans (9k average, municipal support, apparently the best corporate and sponsorship take in SL) Hudds (own share of large modern stadium, big money backer, bigger attendances than Fev are ever likely to get) Salford (big money backer, huge market, great new facility).
Being better than London and a possibility of some stage in the future, with a fair wind and a bit of luck being on the level of Cas or Wakefield doesn’t make you an SL club. Cas, Wakefield and London are proving that for us.
Quote: fevfan76 "Spending 300k on a training facility may not be a record breaking figure but its more than many SL clubs have bothered to do. Fev know they cant go into SL and spend vast amounts of money that why they are looking to develop youth. Then instead of fev lads being scattered about SL they may be playing at fev.'"
If they want to develop youth then they need to be spending more than £300k a year on youth development, not a one off outlay.
Quote: fevfan76 "Im not say Fev would enter SL and build up a big pot of cash but they are going in the right direction. Tell me after many years in SL how many teams are better of than when they first entered. Im not talking about playing in a new stadium while being riddled with debt.
Fev and fax have sorted themselves out in recent years financially and surviving on a shoe string, while some SL clubs continue to be mismanaged and waste sky handouts.'"
3 things,
1 many clubs are better off now, in fact most are very much better off now than in 1995
2 It isn’t a Sky hand out, it is a payment for a product sold.
3 You said that clubs were wasting money and should be in a position now, with their years of being in SL to have built up a ‘big pot of cash’. Im telling you that is nonsense, Fev will lose money hand over fist, large amounts of it, if they ever were to be promoted to SL>
