I'm watching the Fev Rovers game on premier Sports, and it's made me realise how blinkered we sometimes get in the Super league.

How we all laughed when they said they wanted to be in the Super League if London drop out. Yet I'm seeing a decent team, but more importantly, check out that ground! Last time I went there, I almost froze to death at the scoreboard end, yet I'm seeing an extension to the main stand going up, and a new stand at the end, clearly built far enough away from the pitch to make it a full length 100 metre one.

It's even a reasonable crowd. Will all due respect to Cas and Wakefield, the little fellas down the road are catching you guys up...

And would this have happened if we stuck to promotion and relegation?

Probably not. Teams spending money on development rather than players.

Incidentally, it's a blinding game...

The plans for Leigh Sports Village were well underway by the time Leigh won **promotion** in 2004.

So that's 1-1 on anecdotal evidence.

Cracking game !

You mean the council owned and funded Leigh Sports Village?

Possibly not. Although KR managed it during P&R.

At the same time, would the Broncos have got into the state they are now if we had P&R. IMHO, no, as the Broncos wouldn't have allowed the playing standards to get do bad with the threat of P&R.

They didn't act on performances as it didn't effect whether they stayed in the league. Unforunately by the time they did act, the damage was done, London couldn't get themselves out of the mes, and the crowds have dwindled. They are now on the brink.

Really? I can't remember any ground developments taking place in 2007, but I might be wrong.

So they would have overspent and gone bust sooner, while performing none of the youth development work. Great.

No way on earth was there anywhere near 3890 in that ground tonight!! 4165 v cas with four sold out stands, plenty of room tonight and only 300 less? How many does the railway end hold - minus 500?

The 4,165 did not have four sold out stands.

Sorry, didn't realise there were stipulations on how to achieve these goals. Is it only Supermarket funded facilities that count?

How ironic....why dont you concentrate on thinking of ways of boosting your own attendence figures before having a go elsewhere? The PR team at Fev should be applauded for the job theyve done promoting this game for the past few days

I see the chain was oiled on your tandem as it appears you made it to the game and back - 100 sheff fans there if lucky tonight

Wow of a game though, both teams had it won and lost it - a privilege to have been there to witness it, a credit to championship rugby, a few SL supporters from neighbouring clubs came tonight taking adavantage of the cheap ticket offer, lets hope they were impressed

IIRC We did the pitch and floodlights the year before and bought the golf stand on gaining promotion.
The East stand extension followed a year later.

No, but what you posted is totally inconsequential to anything since Leigh Centurions don't own the stadium and AFAIK aren't involved in its construction or maintenance.

Right. You fail to explain why that matters.

We've got great facilities and a secure tenancy. A different model was used to achieve the goal, as where could a club like Leigh possibly acquire the money to construct such a facility? It would have taken 20+ years of the clubs turnover to fund.

A club needn't heavily burden itself to get better facilities, and it was all conceived, planned and construction was begun during the P&R era.

Yeah, so it's completely inconsequential to the thread. It's about as relevant as claiming that the DW Stadium and KC Stadium are also victories for P&R. Good for Leigh, the council built them a stadium, that's great but it has nothing to do with a club like Featherstone investing in infrastructure and development rather than short-term on-field success.

Not to mention that Featherstone will own and run their improved stadium and therefore stand to benefit financially in the long run.

Who knows, but they did build a 2000+ seat stand back in the days of P&R.

It didn't look anything like that big a crowd on tv.

Not the only thing they developed at the stadium when P & R was in existence.

They improved the disabled facilities, built a study centre amongst other countless things.

I agree, but it has boosted their average for the season to 2,536 (just over the box-ticking number although I don't think this will apply from next year when some measure of sanity returns to RL).

This brings back vivid memories of Fax v Batley a few years ago.

FM, I would guess there was as many as the fixture against you guys, if not more. The main stand was full (commentary area), sponsors section, full again.

Wouldn't it be great if all the teams could start attracting crowds of this nature.

I agree, Chris, but I didn't believe the attendance figure for the Fax game either.

You are William Eve and I claim my £5. Seriously - what is the point of these sort of posts?

Why did they publish a faked attendance, then? Is 3,890 a magical number that will secure great advantages for Fev? Is 3,890 a number that when I looked at it, should instantly impress everyone who will then all say, "Wow, look, if Fev can get 3,890 in a league decider they must immediately be promoted to SL"? Or maybe they just want to pay more VAT?

I'd say no. If we had automatic P&R, then Fev would have been up a couple of years ago, wouldn't they?
That could have meant that they could have used the extra income generated by being in SL to continue to develop, but its equally likely that increased players wages would have stifled any such development.