@torn-sock-1 do you know what the club’s financial situation is? Seen bank statements?
If the council heard of widnes going to another place could make the council think about how much money they could lose and so therefore renegotiate current terms
@torn-sock-1 do you know what the club’s financial situation is? Seen bank statements?
If the council heard of widnes going to another place could make the council think about how much money they could lose and so therefore renegotiate current terms
It's the same as it's been for the last 40 years. Perilous.
The club was saved by the fans a few years ago. People put their life savings into it. Now unless someone has found a few million quid down the couch then yes it's still bleak!
A few points just off the top of my head...
Heard Widnes go where? Would WV get a better deal than HBC are giving them as main tenants? How many fans would travel to said new mystery venue (Which isn't going to be on the doorstep as there are no other stadiums in Halton), thus actually worsening the situation not make it better? How much do you think Widnes are paying in rent? HBC will also know all of the above.
Whilst it obviously helps having them there I'd wager the council make more money from the stadium through the other sources (Pitch hire, functions etc. than they do WV).
It never ceases to amaze that just because people love the club (Fair play) that they think others will fall over themselves to help, when that love (Nor business sense) isn't there?!
@torn-sock-1 I know our recent history financially hasn’t been great but I was under the impression we had cleared our debts and are cutting our cloth accordingly. Last season in the top 4 spending. This season will be different as Bradford, Wakefield, Featherstone, Toulouse and Halifax will probably have bigger budgets. I’d say if we can look to purchase a club like the bowler it would definitely help as a main income other than season tickets and merchandise sales. I’m not suggesting we move stadiums
im just trying to suggest positive ideas rather than the negative ones like we’re destined to be a mid table championship club for the foreseeable
@torn-sock-1 I know our recent history financially hasn’t been great but I was under the impression we had cleared our debts and are cutting our cloth accordingly. Last season in the top 4 spending. This season will be different as Bradford, Wakefield, Featherstone, Toulouse and Halifax will probably have bigger budgets. I’d say if we can look to purchase a club like the bowler it would definitely help as a main income other than season tickets and merchandise sales. I’m not suggesting we move stadiums
im just trying to suggest positive ideas rather than the negative ones like we’re destined to be a mid table championship club for the foreseeable
It would be nice if some people would come up with positive points, so to help us compete with the teams mentioned. Have all these teams got a benefactor as all them can't be promoted? Widnes maybe being canny hoping a few go bust, or struggle in a few seasons time because gone for it? RFL can change the goal posts anytime and I like your positivity.
@ratboy another sector that I’m not entirely aware of is that of work out the community. We should have players visiting schools across widnes and runcorn with maybe some video analysis about gameplay for the kids who don’t play or watch it. They could also say all students at the school who play rugby league to wear their jerseys and speak about their experiences in the game and how others could get involved. The sport from top to bottom needs to get back into the schools and help grassroots clubs get kids interested
when I was young the town had lunts heath , hornets, tigers, Simmies, Marie’s,, West Bank and the wids for union. That’s a lot of youngsters playing the game who will of watched widnes over the years. Young people need to have the opportunity to play the game.
This may have been asked and possibly answered before, but taken the Club have a stated ambition to return to SL, what improvements are the Club planning to take to improve our current grading, to reach an A Grade or at least move us into the 12 highest grades.
We are currently 16th with a score of 10.17, with the 12th team (Leigh) on 12.45 points. Notwithstanding that all other Clubs will be striving to improve their score and chances of a SL spot in 2025, what steps has the Club taken or planned to improve our score in 2024; and can we realistically improve our score to 12.45 plus and a top 12 rating?
The general view on here is that we have built a mediocre squad likely to finish no higher than last year, but hope springs eternal. If we managed to finish say 4th, how many points would that attract? If the team managed to string a few good wins together early on in the season, we may be able to attract more spectators. Last year, with an average crowd of 2945, we were only below Bradford (3871), Featherstone (3114) and Toulouse (3494). Is there really any realistic scope to increase our crowd numbers to make any substantial change to our IMG score? What is the Club planning to attract bigger crowds?
I am not sure about the points structure for other elements of the IMG criteria eg financial security, community involvement etc, but it would be interesting to know what the Club are planning to achieve a higher grading; or do we accept that will be difficult or even impossible to reach the required Grade to achieve SL status. In that case what is the point of holding out that possibility to fans? Indeed what would be the point of the Championship in 2024 and beyond?
I would much rather we finished in the top 6 and won the play-offs and hope we would then be promoted, but I guess we have to live with the fact that in daft world of rugby league today, winning games does not necessarily mean success for a club like Widnes.
On a question raised earlier regarding the aim for all clubs to achieve a Grade A status, my prediction is that in that case, the so called "big clubs" would agree to change the criteria to ensure that the biggest slice of sky money (£1.3m per club) would be distributed to the 12 teams in SL and crumbs distributed to the rest. This exercise will only work if the funding - and maybe there are to attract additional tv money to the game - is distributed fairly between all professional Clubs.
@frankg I am of the opinion that no matter how many hoops the club jumps through it still won't be enough but they have to try I suppose.Even if we improve our points then we are still relying on others not to increase theirs.
All clubs are going to be working to increase their points tally. Problem is there doesn't seem to be massive room for growth in Widnes' score at present, and if anything, it's at risk of declining if crowds fall which wouldn't be a surprise.
Do the play-offs still exist? And, if they do, what's the point of them? You could go through the play-offs, win the Final, and the team you've just beat could get promoted ahead of you due to a higher IMG rating.
Apart from how it affects your IMG rating, which is probably miniscule, these rules mean that competition in the Championship is largely pointless.
Or am I missing something?
@gpo1971 Play offs exist and a point for winning it, otherwise pointless. Remember the RFL motto "Every second counts" well not anymore. Not sure if there is still promotion and relegation between the two lower divisions. Championship crowds will dwindle as there is nothing to play for anymore. The lower leagues need to split from the RFL and form it's own governing body or a lot of clubs will die.
They literally had the same thing for licensing though so why is it a complaint now? The 3/4 years before our promotion to SL we were constant 3-5th place, fev V Fax most finals or Fev V Sheffield the odd occasion.
But now it is not a level playing field eg you get points for the catchment area population and we lose out because halton does not meet the criteria but they don't penalise teams in cities for attracting miniscule numbers from a large catchment areas.They literally had the same thing for licensing though so why is it a complaint now? The 3/4 years before our promotion to SL we were constant 3-5th place, fev V Fax most finals or Fev V Sheffield the odd occasion.
@prisoner What criteria doesn't Halton meet?
If you go on the drop down link saying IMG you see where we get the points etc. The catchment area is 128000 on the point system 130,000 is the next extra gain on points. It is an ridiculous one why can't they count Cheshire going all the way to Crewe, Chester or to Helsby? Basically that is Widnes and Runcorn.
@prisoner What criteria doesn't Halton meet?
If you go on the drop down link saying IMG you see where we get the points etc. The catchment area is 128000 on the point system 130,000 is the next extra gain on points. It is an ridiculous one why can't they count Cheshire going all the way to Crewe, Chester or to Helsby? Basically that is Widnes and Runcorn.
And that figure can't alter until the next Census in 2031
Paulie xx