Gone **** up with immediate effect!
Last Sunday's game with 'Haven was their last.
There's a post on Facebook, but I'm not tech enough to transfer it on to here.
Can anybody assist with this please?
Spelly.
What an absolute shame. I actually thought they were handling the situation well and would grow the game down there. Real shame 😡
Another expansion/new team attempt down the C*****r. File NFA along with: Scarborough Pirates, Prescott Panthers, Nottingham City, Kent Invicta, London Skolars, Gloucester All Golds, Chorley Lynx, Carlisle Border Raiders and a load more. It's a shame it didn't work but not really a surprise. The owners couldn't attract new investment which is a sad thing to hear. RL for the most part in this country seems more constrained in the M62 corridor than ever. Where exactly is this sport going ?
Time to reset
back to 2 divisions with p and r
even if it is 16 in each
how many teams are viable?
This shows how vulnerable clubs are. Recently both Halifax & Whitehaven have had financial problems. I fear Newcastle will be next as getting heavily stuffed each week cannot go on indefinitely & did go the other year temporarily. Even in SL Salford are in real trouble & losing all their best players. Even Mc Manus at Saints has said he cannot/ will not continue to splash out £1.5 million a year indefinitely.
So much for a Championship & League 1 of 12 teams each. Back to the drawing board. The RFL really do need to wake up before the game expires over the next 10 years.
To survive it looks like a move back to a semi professional part time may be the only answer? If the Aussies get involved with the SL I cannot see them helping the lower clubs.
Another expansion/new team attempt down the C*****r. File NFA along with: Scarborough Pirates, Prescott Panthers, Nottingham City, Kent Invicta, London Skolars, Gloucester All Golds, Chorley Lynx, Carlisle Border Raiders and a load more. It's a shame it didn't work but not really a surprise. The owners couldn't attract new investment which is a sad thing to hear. RL for the most part in this country seems more constrained in the M62 corridor than ever. Where exactly is this sport going ?
Prescot Panthers were not an expansion team I don't think. We just moved around after being Huyton,Runcorn Highfield & Highfield.
Around for a good few decades and just checked were Liverpool Stanley & City before that. Merged in 68 and carried on until the early 90's. Good times with our standout win being something like Keighley 16 Runcorn Highfield 54.
Sure 1 year they won 8 out of the first 9 to head Div 2 before falling away.
Reading that cats and Toulouse might be binned ?
possibly with salfraud - that leaves a small pool of clubs, not many solvent
so are we back to 2 divisions ?
Problem is that to get anything out of Sky these days will demand more cash handouts to maintain the SL club's staffing and contracts etc. The RFL/SL have to decide just what the game as a whole can finance.
The cream of affordable SL is getting thinner and thinner and if nothing is done to widen the sport, supporting the non-SL clubs etc, it will simply die.
We need a real visionary to grab them by the scruff of the neck and re-organise properly. Maybe the Aussie leader could be hired to give an unbiased view?
Problem is that we can't copy the Aussies because our TV deal will never match the Aussie one and probably a lot of redundancies among backroom staff will be the result.
Sadly, looking at the game and its organisation with an unbiased eye, the upper echelon's personnel aren't that stupid.
When Big Nigel moved on iirc he went with £400k in his back pocket, his successor was probably similarly recompensed, and there may well be a salary attached to the 'problem solving' job.
In the meantime considerable funds have been spent trying the get IMG to solve the game's predicament!
The trouble with SL clubs is the amount of staff, they have a head of whatever then an assistant an assistants assistant a assistants assistants assistant and so on. Then we watch the game on Sky and they have two commentators and four or five muppets spouting utter shite and getting paid for it. Money wasted whichever way you turn, didn't take Jim Ratcliffe long to see where money is wasted.
I find it hard to judge just how popular RL is at the moment. The Hull derby was on the telly Saturday and looked to have a great crowd. Then Warrington and Saints played Sunday and the crowd looked really disappointing, as was the game to be fair.
We are always reading that attendances are on the up. If they are, and clubs are still losing £1M+ a year, you don't need to be Warren Buffet to work that one out; they're operating well beyond their means.
The expansion clubs never quite work do they, even London who've been there in 1 form or another for 40-odd years. They either fold quickly or enjoy/suffer yo-yo status. Catalans look to have problems on and off the field now after a period of relative success. Toulouse will probably go. London are in one of their trough periods.
I always thought of RL as a part-time M62-based sport and, for donkey's years, that worked well. Games were good and the best players were fantastic. Then SL started and it seemed to go OK. I can't quite put my finger on where the slide began but I think SL has been flat since about 2008/10. I watch it every week but there are as many boring games as good ones.
In the past, I've advocated a return to part-time status, I think it's inevitable to be honest. My one worry would be, in the past when RL was part-time, it was underpinned by a really strong youth and amateur game, I don't think it is now. I think RL is in the 'too-hard' basket for young people these days, high effort/low reward. That would be a big risk but losing £1M+ a year can't go on.