We seem to visit some grounds with better facilities than SL
Widnes
Leigh
Sheff
Gateshead
Donny
Soon us
I may visit Cas, Wakey, Saints and Salford and hurt my ankle on the terrace sometime

I might even strain my eyes at the Bull hole...
I reckon Franchising has failed and it should be survival of the fittest.
All it has done is let them buy overseas players for a few years...

Super League standards are no better than they were 10 years back, maybe worse...
2 up 2 down, bring it back now..

Will we get in under current rules? 50/50 at best, but we will play top flight Rugby again.

I want to see the French teams play in a competitive French League and so should they, dont mind helping them, seems as they play/love/support rugby.

One day sanity will return.

Red Hall Idiots should resign..

Now you've done it........First time poster here. Long long suffering fax fan living over the water in Ireland.

Thoughts on this.......Simply we must. Even if its just planning to do so in 2012. Anything else is simply accepting defeat & the inevitable.

Why?

We have in the recent past & can exceed the minimum 2500 attendance base. We certainly can draw on the local area to produce a worthwhile youth/academy set up.

We are well on the way to having a stadia to be proud of.

On field performaces are improving & so our capability to survive in SL.
Good prospects for a Grand final berth this year (barring any run in with a referee from South Yorkshire)

Off field management is getting slicker & more professional each year

If one of the 3 clubs targeted by the RFL need replacing why cant it be fax?
Yer telling me that after 2 or 3 years in SL we couldnt improve on let say Wakeys average crowd?.

Im old enuff to remember 'House Full' at Thrum Hall on a few occasions

Ironically One of the reasons I left Halifax was I felt sometimes there was defeatist/C'est la vie attitude taken regards most things in life.


DONT prove me right..............

The RFL will not use a what people post on here to judge things by. The reason I do not think the RFL will choose us is some of the reasons. If it was an open fair way then we would have a chance. But I simply do not feel the RFL have or will be fair. How did Celtic ever get in? The RFL want expansion at any cost. If its us v Toulouse I think they will pick Toulouse because they are French instead of looking properly. Widnes are in front in many ways at the moment. Will the RFL have the balls to kick 2 or 3 teams out?

I am totally against the BS Franchise scheme and its clear the RFL do not really care about the rest of us. What was wrong with P & R? All that needed to be changed was the timing of the then NL Grand Final-Maybe to early September to give teams a chance to build properly for SL rather than 3 months!

Having said that we should be pushing for SL and give it everything because it will improve us on and off the field if nothing else. I see little difference between Us, Salford, Wakey and Cas in most areas but doubt the RFL would get rid of a SL side over us. If people think I am being negative fair enough. But I do not expect anything from the RFL or the SL lot.

No and .................yes.

Yes:
... if we win two GF's in a row and the NRC next year and have good runs/shock wins against SL teams in the challenge cup. That is what it will take to force the RFL's hand. Anything less will be a no.

No:
.....because Widnes are primed to take the spot, barring any financial disaster. Toulouse will be elevated as a derby "partner" for Catalans and for general expansion purposes.

Currently, our attendances aren't up to scratch - both to pursuade the RFL that we can add value to SL and for general financial security. We also need a big money backer or a team of smaller backers with an expanded board. We need this in order to be competitive in SL and that suits me fine. I'd rather stay as a top team in the championship than one of the whipping boys in SL. I would like to see more emphasis and investment placed on the Championship. There's too much talk of doing everything for a SL spot and ticking boxes. It does nothing for the esteem of a league which has plenty of potential in it's own right.

of course you are my mate....those plastic fans we had went to Odslum when we went down in 90ish so they didnt need to use the speakers....looks like they might have to dust them down again

would love to see it but we wont get into super league.

widnes and toulouse will be the teams picked

If your team win a grand final/NR final and the finance is in place + ground improvements why shouldn't you have a chance to go up. As for the crowds i dont know what your average is but i disagree with this one it is a fact that they would inprove if you were in S/L.
It seems to me that some clubs in the lower league are trying to improve facilities while others in S/L just talk about it thr R/L need to stand by there word and if they do at least 1 N/L side will be promoted whether that is a the expence of a current tean in S/L i am not sure

There was a comment sometime back (pre franchise) that SL could be expanded by even more teams similar to the Australia.. i think it needed agreement from other members though. This would help.

Im not sure RFL can be trusted, it would seem its expansion at any cost, and the bill they are running up is huge now..

Every teams attendances would go up if went into superleague.

I dont care what anyone says we have every chance of making super league cos of the hard work and effort by everyone involved at the club. Lets beleve

Why waste letters ?

if we dont get in - it will give all the miserable old sods on here even more to winge about! least they wil be happy! jeeeeez

FFS

We fans need to do our bit, Martin-Matt and the boys are doing theirs at the moment - u canot do better than top of the leauge u are playing in!

ooooooooooooo-ali ali - - - ali ali ali ali E Fax

lets get behind our team AND sport - not bring it down FFS - our job is t get ourselves on to the terrace

2012 is 2.5 years away - lets let the on the field results do the talking and the club to get the plan in place for our application

ah come on fella were not that bad and have good reason to be suspicious and cynical while NW is involved in RFL... Do we think we should get in YES
Do we think well meet the criteria YES Will we back them all the way and further YES will we support them even if we dont YES
Its YES YES YES, but its not our decision and over the last few years we have had had our hearts ripped out several times by people that dont care like we do. I think we are going to need further expansion of the comp, and a team or two to be told to do what we Leigh, and Widnes have had to do and get our foundations in order and come back.... Its going to be out of our hands...

Unless as Littlerich says you manage to dominate the playing side of things with 3 consequtive GF wins then no

Widnes are the Championship club the RFL want and the one they will get

agree.
would love to see fax back there but dont think will due to what RFL want.
the letter about grounds was just the warning RFL put out to ensure some get work done so they dont have to promote more than one team.

true..

their clearly paving a way for widnes for the next round in super league....u telling me that if wed have won the northern rail cup this year wed have got the long feature on the super league show on the bbc this wkend?!! biggin them up.......no chance!lol

toulouse will be next...followed by gateshead, unless we really shake things up by winning loadser trophies over next 2.5 years, and keep progressing off field.

theres no way our crowds are gonna skyrocket unless we get back in super league. give us a chance and i belive we would suceed. with three years to get better and better.

all we can do is keep supporting and hope!!!!

starting with fev on friday! =blue[size=200COME ON FAX!!!![/size

If the progress off the field as well as on it continues at the current steady rate as it's currently at, we'll get in without many worries I.M.O.

We NEED to win the trophies available, simple, that equals the general public's/business sponsorship's interest in the club, raise it's profile and provide income.

The stadium as I see it is out of the club's hands, but finger's crossed.

Retain the current management & board, C.E.O. things are moving nicely.

Some SL club's should be looking over their shoulder's in this current finanacial climate, combined with their delapidated stadia.

I would say yes we have a chance, we will be in a better postion that a few current super league clubs by mid season 2011. We are progressing very well both off and on the field, despite attendances not being as high as we would like we are up on last year, and we dont give away tickets like other clubs to boost their attendences (maybe we should play their game?).
With regard to the financial backer, would we want someone who has overall control like widnes, barrow, celtic? i certainly wouldnt what would happen when the owners love for the club goes or it begins to cost them more than they want to put in? Celtic is a prime example. Having a few people putting abit of money in, coupled with increased attendances aswell as commercial/sponsorship is the best way to go.

Yes Widnes seems at the PRESENT time the club that most people expect to go up, however 2 years is a long time, we have a lot of rugby to play between now and then. If our own supporters dont believe that we can, how do we expect new/old supporters to believe that we can get into super league.

Yes we have a chance provided we get to the Grand Final at least once hopefully more, keep increasing the crowds and really push that new stand as well as making sure the stadium is well kept (not with the current regime it won't but lets hope CMBC get a proper stadium manager in).

I get annoyed that people are saying it has to be Widnes - yer they are in front of us with their ground and winning the NRC but we will catch them up on those two, yer their crowds are bigger but they have not had the depths of desapir to suffer like we have since 1999 really. The main difference is they have a money man, that should not come into it as rich chairman can be short term it should be looked at in the long term = sustainable. Plus Widnes are like us near existing SL clubs.
I think we and Widnes should be both be looked at for admission against existing SL clubs that fail to meet the SL criteria.

As for Toulouse, why?
So it further justifies having Catalans in and give them a derby?
They don't have the ground, they don't have the support (inflated figures are given deffo) and they will be yet another expensive trip for fans to make, they are unlikeley to go to both French clubs have the RFL thought of that?

Should the potential for AWAY support not be taken into account, ask Leeds, Bradford, Cas and Huddersfield who they would rather play Fax or Toulouse??
No brainer, 1K minimum would go from Halifax.

Maybe Fax should start doing like other clubs and add 500 on the gates???

I agree mate fax and widnes should replace salford and wakey.

Maybe we should offer the RFL false promises, its worked for some clubs in the past. We will increase our attendances

Well that Dome going on top of our roof to keep the rain out should help. Oh and apparently Gordon "fkn" Ramsey is taking over the Catering Contract and Laura Ashley are doing out the Exec Boxes. What with Dubai Holdings coming in as our main backers next season, how could they possibly turn us down?

That is the general consensus.

Wakey have had a decent enough run in SL (since 1999) without bringing much to SL, other than defeating the odds (with Kear at the helm). I like wakey as a club, they are a lot like us, but fair is fair, they are no better a club than ours, and our stadium, even in its current incomplete state - is better than Belle Vue (by a country mile) so we should be in SL at their expense.

It is a similar story for widnes and Salford. Salford are seen as a development team, being in Greater Manchester - on that basis - that area has been a RL development area for over 100 years. Its not like the GM area hasnt had spells of success in the past, especially Swinton. The GM area has had ample opportunity to develop RL, with little success. Salford are in SL purely as they are a GM club, and this is just garbage. In addition, they are no closer to the completion (or starting) of their new stadium than two years ago.

So I feel that Widnes and ourselves could be the ones to replace Salford and Wakefield, with Toulouse being the potential spanner in the works. I would only like to see Toulouse admitted as a replacement for Celtic...which will not happen.