I think you are talking Balkans

It's interesting that this has been brought up again. A couple of years back I interviewed Gary Hetherington for a piece that was due to go in a book about the history of English schools rugby league (remember Sheffield Schools U11 played at Wembley in 1993). The conversation naturally wandered onto Eagles matters and Hetherington reiterated his opinion that the only way a Super League club would work in our neck of the woods would be a merged South Yorkshire "franchise".

Of course he would say this as he thought it was a good idea in 1995, but his argument is pretty much that Sheffield alone is just not interested enough in Rugby League. He did admit that neither club's fans would buy into it, and therefore it's a non-starter.

It may have worked if neither the Eagles or Donny existed, or if Donny hadn't existed when the Eagles started. Now… unlikely.

Eagles do have a problem in terms of generating and sustaining crowds, but in the old division one and SL days our crowds hovered around 4,000 - not amazing, but comparable to people like Salford. At the time of the merger Huddersfield were getting no better crowds than the Eagles. They've only improved in recent years 'cos they've worked stupidly hard marketing themselves.

To be honest I'd rather see the Eagles play games "on the road" in the Midlands than play any in Doncaster. No offence to Donny fans, of course

GH was right then wasn't he?
I wouldn't be bothered where it was played as long as it was done properly.

I cant believe this thread is still going.

I suspect it'll still be going when I get back from France. Or as Griff refers to it, the German Empire.

I prefer to call it "Ancient Gaul"

I hope the game goes ahead, I hear the Vichy Regime aren't too keen on rugby league

I think you'll find it's Prussian.

Can we please get back on topic

Has anyone noticed that EB is always updating on here during working hours? His gaffer must let him get away with murder........

Well, I don't know what young Gary's thinking of. One minute he's saying it's the only course of action and then it's a non-starter. Said it earlier in the thread - the reason it won't work is that neither side will see it as "their team".

8 pages of this, thought someone might of locked this before now!

Anyway since it's still going...

Sounds un-loyal (if that is a word) but I wouldn't travel to Donny every other weekend for a home game and I'm sure Donny fans wouldn't travel to Sheffield neither.

It's a non-starter for me, I know we have so much to compete with in this city, not just in terms of sports teams but other stuff to do but if we surely should be able to get an average of 2,500 in if we push for it in the next 2 years.

Everything this club has achieved since it's reform has been the 'Sheffield Eagles', not South Yorkshire Eagles. Let's keep it that way.