Yes,but how many clubs would survive without benefators.It is certainly true the Leeds Tykes would not exist without one and it applies to quite a few clubs in the Union premiership.

Maybe they'd budgeted for Millennium magic to be only a few miles up the road, so no overnight stay. Then the RFL got involved.

Agreed Matt!

That is the point though and why Celtic - and other clubs who are over reliant on one investor - need support in order to try to ensure that the clubs finances don't mean they have to rely overly on one person investing money - they can only do this for so long.

London broncos went tits up a few years back, the RFL just let them off £3,000,000 & re-merge,
No way will the RFL let their welsh baby go under.

Fu*k Em!

Not that old myth again...

He didn't even say FACT at the end!

It's true though. FACT.

See?

The problem with the simplistic way some people are looking at crusaders is they are forgetting the massive elasticity in demand for the product Celtic are selling, if they pay less for poorer players and invest less in marketing then fewer will come through the gate and you will get less sponsorship, fewer corporates etc, a certain amount needs to be 'risked' if it is ever to succeed,

It's a very fortunate business which doesn't need to speculate to accumulate,

What this looks like to me is Celtic looking at next year and the year after, and not seeing the growth they expected, so they have approached the rfl for help and experience if gaining the fans and corporates and sponsors they need, something the rfl have lots of experience in.

I said months ago on this forum that a SL club was in financial difficulty, I can also now confirm that the Crusaders are in a far more serious position than is currently being reported.

They wont see out the 3 years without serious investment.

Myth? was widely reported in the media.

There was no "letting off" about it and it was nothing to do with the RFL, any company is perfectly entitled to call in the administrator and he is perfectly entitled to sell that business to the highest bidder, its all done with the permission of the courts, its all perfectly legal and the RFL had no hand in it.

But don't let that stop you spitting bile.

Oh so sorry for stateing what i thought was true. I stand corrected o' great one, please forgive me.

Thats ok.

I can spit bile, but i can also stand corrected, cheers. thought thats what forums were about. although i do have opinions of teams from outside the heartlands who are not a viable proposition, not spitting bile, just want to see the most spectators available attending every week, a strong widnes or halifax will generate more than Crusaders & London (have no probs with the french) Maybe bile to some though.

Generate more what?

New players - I suspect that juniors from these areas are already being picked up. If not then the scouts at clubs in the imemdiate vicinity want shooting. There may be some marginal benefit, but the non-heartkand clubs are developing players who simply would not be in the game without them.

Money - definitely not. Remove Quins, Cats and now Celtic from SL and watch the Sky money and corporate sponsorship plummet. Replacing this with a POSSIBLE couple of thousand per home game will not go anywhere near meeting the gap.

Mainstream media interest - nope.

So what, esactly would a 'strong' Fax or Widnes bring to SL that it doesn't already have (I have no problem with either being in SL on merit BTW)?

So it was bile after all.

Thanks for confirmation.

Have a look here for Halifax attendances during SuperLeague

[urlhttp://www.slstats.org/t3/Halifax%20R.L.F.C./2003/Summary.html[/url

It's called 'the bigger picture'.

Have a look at it sometime.

2003 is hardly the full story of Halifax's attendances during SL though.

1996 - 5,080 (11) - Finished 6th
1997 - 5,408 (11) - Finished 7th
1998 - 5,670 (11) - Finished 3rd
1999 - 4,483 (15) - Finished 9th
2000 - 5,714 (14) - Finished 8th
2001 - 4,824 (14) - Finished 9th
2002 - 4,080 (14) - Finished 9th
2003 - 2,977 (14) - Finished 12th Relegated

I know, The website had 2000 to 2003. My link was just to the last year.
The argument was that Halifax offered a great deal more than the Crusaders, my suggestion was that when they were in SL the didn't offer a great deal more.

Your link highlighted Halifax's attendances at their SL low point.

In terms of attendances (home and away) I'd imagine a reasonably successful Halifax would offer SL more than Celtic however looking at the bigger picture I hope Celtic are successful in the Welsh RU heartlands.

I'm sure that Halifax would offer something, so would Widnes, Whitehaven, Featherstone etc. Whether it's more or less than Crusaders we will have to see. At least 3 of theose clubs have been in administration in the past few years.

The Crusaders experiment may succeed or may fail. They were hindereed, moreso than Catalans, (just like teams promoted in previous years) in that they couldn't recruit until the franchise was awarded and by this stage most of the other SL clubs had signed up their 2009 squads (even though some didn't turn up). Like it or not this is where we're at and support and help for the fledgling club should IMO be condoned. Lets have a look where they are at the time of the awarding of the next franchises and judge them then.

ive seen fulham & london broncos playing from borough to borough looking for a fan base. bridgend, kent, mansfield, to many to mention, would love to see crusaders or harlequins playing in front of 9 or 10,000 every other week (won't happen) Halifax, widnes, leigh or cumbria not picking out any i don't watch their attendances i have other things to do, i'm just a traditionalist i suppose.

sorry mate, probably need to, just remember the epic games v. widnes, and going to watch halifax at wembley, even used to watch them inbetween leeds games in the days of graham eadie etc.