Does anyone know whether the crowds have gone down in the lower leagues? Or even in the Super League?

The way to assess it, I suppose, would be to see how crowds have been affected at the bottom, rather than the top. How do the average crowds for the final ten games for the bottom five clubs compare to the average crowds for the bottom five clubs for the pre-franchise years?

I was going to put a similar post to this...the fact is i maybe misguided but i feel and so do many other fans that if Newmarket is not in place whether in principle or actually groundwork is commencing the RFL/SL will have great pleasure in kicking this once great club out. That to me will be the death of this club, reality is now hitting home of how Championships side fans must feel. If we get kicked out i believe, new ground or not we will ever get back into SL as the system stands. The club will have about 1500 hardcore supporters with a team made up of journeymen aussies, local youngsters who if any good will be snapped up by a SL team an extremely average other players.

I know the RFL/SL have a point scoring system for the franchise system but are you telling me Leigh, Widnes, Halifax are in any better position than us ? I personally do not think so and i believe they would take a few seasons to be at SL level. What the RFL like is a nice shiny new ground irrelevant if it is three quaters empty.

We as a club do not help ourselves, it has been said on numerous other threads, the ground, marketing,promotion busines and other off field activities are a joke.

What the RFL/SL need to understand is yes BV is a joke, yes this year we have been terrible, but we have a SL team and with the right chairmen and backing off the field and the right coach on the field we could easily be top 6 year in year out.

The RFL/SL will not kick the likes of Salford out due to their shiny new ground, Crusaders (who i hope will continue to grow) because of their location and the fact they are backing them financially and Hull KR despite their ground being terrible and they are in massive financial debt.

Maybe I am being negative but I just feel this club is on its knees and gives the RFL/SL every opportunity to kill the once best and most famous club in Rugby League.

Fantastic post your 100% right.

You are all saying this now that it might be u for the chop i do feel for u,But at the end of the day your club said it would have a stadia ready and done nothing while us widnes have been shafted and shafted time and time again,Well if thats the way the rugby league want to play it i say share the shafting and it might just be ur turn but only because u have given the the go ahead to do so.Half every 1 on here is crying now for promotion and relegation but most wernt when u got in was u why now lol?.It also makes me chuckle the way u keep saying on other threads like we have hope for the stadia lets rewind 18months ago exactly the same story what are u gona promise to do it yet again and try and stay in over widnes rlfc vikings.Not this time fingers crossed our time is now i just hope they dont throw u out and maybe add 2 teams making 16 give all the clubs 2 years and those that still havent got it done throw them out for good.Ps i dont mean to sound bad on you cause i aint.But widnes in the championship have been working so hard under 21s and 18s/16s as good as any super league reserve in the country and steve occoner who has delivered on all his promises deserve reward and i for 1 think we just might get it

I hope you havent posted this on the Cas board as well, with them being geneticly deprived few if any will be able to understand what your saying

No point posting it on cas board they are safe im sorry to say i know its unfair buts seems to be the order of the day

What makes you think they're safe?

If we get our PP approved next month then they're in same boat as us. They don't have full PP yet, we will probably both be putting in our detailed PP at same time.

Stadium issues aside, how is Cas's bid stronger than ours?

Fair enough u got me thinking there i thought they where a bit more advanced in the stadia plans.But you have both promised and yet nothing i suppos its a toss up just like its a toss up who gets in either us widnes or toulouse.I say go to 16 Give another 2 years for stadia.Do u think its widnes ot toulouse thats coming up ?

I can tell you categorically that crowds have gone down. We have lost 800 fans from our average figures of last year. Why?? Because the games down in the championship are nothing to what they were previously. Most of the emotion has gone from games. Try a few matches were the away support bring nothing more than a handful see how much atmosphere can be generated.
This competition is a lame duck I'm afraid.
However Fax have played a blinder... they have announced a huge crowd for their final game by handing out tickets free at a county show and then counted these as attending whether the recipient turned up or not.
The figures have been skewed and Fax have now given the RFL ammunition to claim that the game is thriving in the lower leagues.

Without wanting to appear nasty here, because that is not my intention, do you not think that they are right to remove you. The basis of your SL berth last time around was on the proviso that you moved into a new ground. You have until April to prove that you will have a ground ready for action by February 2012.


It won't be the death of the club but it may become as you have mentioned it above. This is now what life outside SL is like.



Unfortunately for you, you will not find out if your licence application is any better than ours or Fax's because the two applications are no longer in direct competition against each other. The Championship club going up have different criteria aimed at proving the 'potential' of the club. They may not have the speccies now but given a solid base, a decent financial standing etc etc there is nothing to suggest that this won't come. It will take a couple of seasons to become competetive but it is no longer about what happens on the pitch. It is about what the club can offer to SL.


but by the same token all you need then is one or two bad performing years and you are back to where you started. That is why the RFL want clubs with good structures in place and are less interested in you reaching the playoffs etc.



It's a little fatalist to feel like that. The future of the club is still firmly in it's own hands. If your board have been truthful then you will not be removed. If you have been less than truthful about the real position at your club then one waiting in the wings deserves it's chance surely. Just for the record I am a P&R fan and I firmly believe that Barrow should now be in SL and Salford should be slumming it down here with us.

Without wanting to state the obvious it will all come down to both clubs proving in April 2011 that they have enough work happening and quickly enough so that the Wildcats and / or the Tigers are running out at their new grounds in 2012. I don't think it matters too much where you both are now.

Also without myself trying to be nasty, on what basis should we have to make way for you in SL. The only thing going for you that we cannot compete with at the moment is your council owned stadium, hopefully that problem will be resolved in the near future, not if but when it does happen which of the criteria demanded by the RFL will your club take a lead over ours, if it was not for the likes of Saints and Wire you probably could not field a team let alone win anything.

At the moment there is nothing to say that you will make way or that we will be the ones to replace you! If you get your ground then I don't see there being a problem and your board seem confident that you will so it's all gravy.
My question was that if you don't get your ground by 2012 then surely you can't have any complaints.
Not sure what you mean about Saints or Wire either???
For your record.. in the last round of franchising we were given a B score by both Sky and League Express in their evaluations. In the end our administration was the factor that kept us out. That won't be a problem this time around with SOC backing us.

Widnes Will make it in even through they haven't played as good this season because of the stadium, you will end up buying some of the players from the team going down

They only have a right to remove us if our franchise bid is the worst of the lot, speaking of which with this new criteria which has been formulated by the rfl how do they know that a championship side will have a better application some 4 month before the SL clubs submit theirs' by saying that a championship side will replace a SL side in 2012. And yes if we dont have posh toilets by then I suppose we will deserve to miss out. Just as a matter of interest who from Sky gave you a b score your Turry and auntie Angela, tbh I would take more notice of the new musical express than the league express as it goes, best of luck anyway I am sure you wont need it.

The problem with some of the above, that a club coming up should only replace the worst team in SL if we directly beat them, is it is absolutely impossible for a team in the championship to drum up the support and the squad needed to beat any super league team. Thats why it needs to be based on potential. There is a tiny salary cap in this division, meaning the biggest clubs cannot financially dominate, so league position under licensing is an unfair way of doing things. There are virtually no away fans for most of the games and we're in a competition with largely no greater meaning. Stagnation is becoming a way of life in this sport.

Upon what basis should Wakefield, or Castleford, or Huddersfield, be allowed to stay in super league indefinitely and with no threat to their position? Why should any club be given that right and why should other teams have to stay in the second tier which becomes weaker by the season? NFL style promotion would only protect people who don't necessarily deserve it and make others suffer whose only mistake was not being in the top league at this point in history.

It is absolutely vital that there is a path to the top for teams in the championship. I think given them a chance there are a number of teams who could give it a go as good or better than a number of super leaguers and why on earth deny them? I would take P & R back tomorrow even though my club is primed for a franchise but not primed for winning the league. The longer this system is in place, the weaker teams down here become and the more likely they will never be ready for super league. We are heading towards a system of feeder teams and I suspect people know that all very well but then they wont be bothered about the health of clubs outside their little sphere.

More money, higher attendances, more youth players going through into first team (for the club), higher average finish

In division 1

Yes it just shows what pathetic crowds we get, when a small town who played in a league lower still managed to get a higher attendance than us.

Sorry i must have missed the attendance bit that i quoted

=#FF0000Then use some of it and get on with your building work

=#0000FFWe'll see, we signed a lot up last year that haven't broken through this year but may do next (especially as we can't afford to sign anyone else, allegedly)

=#008000Bearing in mind that last decision was based on 3 previous seasons, we have 8th(200icon_cool.gif + 5th(2009) + 10th(2010) (or maybe 11th). That gives us an average of 8th (or slightly better if we finish 10th this year).
You have 12th(200icon_cool.gif + 8th(2009) + 8th(2010) (or maybe 9th if Crusaders can beat Hull KR). That gives you an average of just worse than 9th. How is that better???

Plus you have a disrepute charge and a fine for your homophobic fans that we don't have. You probably think that gives you an extra point too but I would think it probably works against you.

Absolute classic

There are some problems with your argument, and principally the view that "we got in". We didn't "get in". We were already in, on playing merit. You were already out, on playing merit. No shafting involved for Widnes.

The issue is being looked at again now because we are three years further in and so we are able to make an assessment of it. It is making the game dull for the last third of the season from 10th spot down, and as I understand it, the Championship is going less well, because the big prize has gone.

In terms of the future, one of two things will happen: the top flight will become a sealed closed shop, with no one ever going out, or it won't, and there will be a one-club rotation every three years. In the first scenario, the Championship dies. The second scenario is just as bad, because that it means we have promotion and relegation, but by committee, and the Widnes argument appears to be that the committee-decisions reached so far have shafted one particular club, so why is that to be applauded.

Yes, franchising puts us at risk, but relegation doesn't exactly leave us safe either, because we could be gone by the end of 2011 if it was brought back for next year.

Because it's not based over past three years but 09/10. We finished SEVENTH last year, not eighth and are on course to finish 8th this year. 7+8 = 7.5. You're currently 10th but could finish 11th. A 10th place finish puts us equal. An eleventh place finish puts us better. However, if we finish in the play-offs twice that should look better than one play-off finish

7th or 8th

if you can't do better than that why bother