he made an effort.. you carnt knock anybody for doing their bit to promote our game

Yep, that link is new, and while it's not a contract with the BBC for headline news 4 times a month, it's a positive step for RL.

Thank fook for people like Stuart, well done mate.

Its called sour grapes

I used to think GF was a fan of our game but all he seems to do is put it down and compare it all the time with union.

He's clearly a troll and not even a remotely entertaining one anymore either...

It's these kind of ridiculously negative comments for people actually trying to make a positive difference in the game that make me use this forum less and less these days. Unfortunately, GF isn't the only one that thinks this way that posts on here and quite frankly it puts me off wanting to talk about the sport on here because quite frankly the only thing that I'll achieve is depression reading it.

Lets be honest though, we are a multi-million pound industry, a sport with tens and some weeks hundreds of thousands of people attending pro and semi-pro games, millions watching on TV with the 2nd best viewership on the biggest sport network in the country. Thats the image we need to be portraying to the media and through the media.

Whilst one man's crusade may be very well intentioned, It doesnt really look very good, I doubt the people at the Telegraph now think RL is a bigger sport, or that there is a huge market or huge benefit to investing more in RL, it is possible it sees us in the opposite light.

We cant approach the problem we have with visibility by trying to bully papers in to giving us more coverage, we need the RFL, through the obvious channels to be showing the benefits to media outlets to cover RL.

We shouldnt expect coverage, nor do we have any entitlement to it, if the Telegraph doesnt want to cover RL, its a private company, it can choose not to, it is up to the game to make itself unmissable, its up to the game to put itself in a position where media want to cover RL, thats what we need to concentrate on.

Because I point out the areas where I think the game needs to change tact, I am now a troll........wow, outstanding assessment there......I look forward to post 193....



So, it's not just me then......
Careful SmokeyTA, they will brand you a troll because they don't understand your point of view. Whilst well intentioned, 1 bloke having a moan at a multi million pound organisation because he doesn't agree with the contents of their paper is hardly a game changer and as has been pointed out doesn't really paint RL in a good light.

As for the Self Appointed Troll hunters....put down your pitchforks and put out your torches.....nothing to see here other than a dose of reality.

I think you need to re-read your history books. You will find that there have been many occasions when one person, man or woman, has stood up to 'multi million pound organisations' and have ended up changing the world, never mind one organisation's view of the issue that is the subject of the campaign. Campaigns always begin small. That doesn't mean they stay small. But sadly the small [iminded[/i, like yourself, are always there to pull things down and undermine the good things, of which this campaign is one.

There are a growing number of people who support what Stuart is trying to do, including me. I hope he has real impact. I want to see our game noticed. I would imagine most rugby league supporters want that too.

But there is a big difference. The Telegraph arent doing anything wrong by not giving RL coverage. They have made a business decision, thats it. We have no right to make 'demands' of them. Nor should he be 'at war' or having 'campaigns' against them.
There is a right way, and a wrong way to do this kind of thing.

If it was simply a matter of badgering then PR would be the easiest job in the world (its not far off the easiest job in the world, but there are people who are good at it, and others who are not so good).

Surely you must see the risk that campaigns like this, rather than sell the game as a professional multi-million pound, cutting edge, sport it makes us look small. Surely you must see that badgering and harrassing and picketing isnt going to endear you to people, its not going to make them look fondly upon the game. Its not going to make them think the game has huge support when all they see are a few 'nutters'.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, the game needs to put effort into increasing its visibility and definitely the visibility of its stars. A one man picket isnt the way to do it.

So the Daily Telegraph now has a Rugby League tab on it's website. So what?

The difference between how Smokey put it across and how you put it across is that Smokey wasn't trying to be a patronising condescending git about his disagreement with what he is doing. He doesn't agree with him, but isn't knocking him for what he's doing.

You've offered nothing but snide comments. No suggestions on what you would do or what should be done. Just knocking someone for having a go whilst you're in the comfort of your chair behind a computer screen. Well done.

Try and answer your own question and we'll see what you can come up with...

Rubbish! As potential paying customers from whom the Telegraph makes its moniey, we have an absolute right to make demands! And of course we should be campaigning against them if we think that they are doing something wrong. Have you completed the questionnaire on the BBC Trust website yet? You know, the one about the decimation of local radio services? Do you think this is wrong or do you think that because the BBC is a big organisation who have made a business decision we have no right to make demands of it?

An organisation doesn't have to be using child labour/polluting the planet/putting health and safety at risk/name your issue to be doing something wrong. In the eyes of other sporting communities they may be the bogs dollocks but not in the eyes of the rugby league community because they have made a policy decision to release their RL correspondent and almost completely ignore our sport. In the eyes of many rugby league supporters, that is wrong.

The only way to campaign is by being visible and audible to the organisation that is the focus of your campaign. Picketing, writing letters, emails, articles, making phone calls, creating leaflets (and Stuart created a really good leaflet), films, motivating support, whatever - these are all perfectly valid means of campaigning and they are used by individuals and organisations the world over to protest over a practice or organisation or individual considered to be wrong by the campaigners. You might not agree with them - as obviously you don't - but that doesn't mean their protest isn't valid or that the issue they are protesting over isn't actually a problem.


So everybody who pickets is a nutter then? I suppose you have just written off the miners, dockers, public sector workers, animal rights activists, political activists, etc, etc, etc. Stuart might not have been alone had more people known well enough in advance about what he was going to do. 'Badgering' is a very good way of protesting. That is exactly what should be done.

And Stuart strikes me as a very intelligent, articulate and dignified man. Nothing 'nutterish' about him at all.

I would suggest that your real problem is that you are a fence sitter, embarrassed by people who take a stand, and it is YOUR embarrassment rather than the validity of the cause which is determining your position in this matter.

Fine then, as a potential paying customer im going to picket outside babestation. Im sick of the lack of RL themes on babestation and it is wrong. Over the next two years i will spend hours and hours 'researching' babestation to see how many mentions of the RL World Cup there is. And if there isnt, Babestation are obviously doing something wrong.

If RL fans want a newspaper which promotes RL they can buy one, In fact there are two dedicated RL only papers. The only reason RL isnt promoted in the Telegraph is that people who buy the Telegraph buy it regardless of its RL coverage. If showing RL were to make the Telegraph money they would cover it. As it is, it doesnt, so they dont. No amount of badgering is going to change that, they only thing which will increase their RL coverage is RL coverage bringing in or keeping customers for the Telegraph.

No, thats badgering, its harrassing. The Telegraph arent going to spend money on covering RL just to stop people annoying them.

No, not everyone who pickets is a nutter. But people who equate something as trivial as RL coverage in a newspaper with things like Jobs, pensions, animal rights etc, etc, are clearly not playing with a full deck.

That may be so.He seems a bit misguided though

You would suggest wrong. People should get involved and they should do what they can to help the game. Im full of respect for those who go out and get clubs set up, who pester, and badger, and beg, steal and borrow to get clubs, and team started and continuing. Im just pragmatic enough to understand there is a time and a place. I understand that whilst a letter writing campaign might help get an amateur side a grant for a new club house, it isnt going to get a council to buy a new SL stadium. And I understand that you might be able to badger a local paper in to advertising a gala day for a local amateur club you arent going to be able to pester a multi-million pound media group into reassessing its sports coverage.

Get some perspective FFS, If you honestly think Ben Clissit is going to try and secure the extra funding needed to increase RL coverage on the basis that someone is annoying him and he just wont shut the f@#k up then you really need to do yourself a favour and speak to someone who has been involved in this type of stuff before.

Our job isnt to annoy people so much the cover RL just to stop us bothering them, that is a stupid way of approaching it. Our job is to show that RL is a popular sport, attractive, and exciting. A sport that we want to read about, that we will spend money reading about.

As i said we catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Babestation aren't claiming to cover the news though, so it's a completely ridiculous argument. The Daily Telegraph are claiming to cover the news, but leave out a vast portion of it. Those that buy it for the (sports) news are entitled to have their say.

If you want to compare using Babestation, it would be like them claiming to have the best babes on TV, but refusing to put on say northern girls because they don't want to. Maybe the viewers want to see northern girls, since they get some of everything else. They are allowed to ask for it and campaign for it if they wish because the station is claiming to offer something and isn't. They never claimed to be a news or sports channel, so asking for rugby league is just ridiculous.

I read the DT for about 25 years before I moved here. Regularly saw adverts for England Internationals, Bar barian Games, Lion Tours and Rugby Union Club games.......never, not once did I see any form of paid representation in the DT.
FACT.....Newspapers will a) print what they believe their audience want to read. b) receive cash for advertising that producers and servicers are willing to pay to reach the audience they are attempting to reach. c) always give more column inches to subjects that also spend advertising revenue in their paper......

I am the first to bang on about the lack of coverage for League, but I will not blame the papers, radio stations or other media......the blames lies squarely with TGG and the total lack of understading of how topromote itself.

I repeat...his claim that nobody knew the double header was on is stupidity at the highest level and does the game no favours at all.......the FACT is that the RL community knew the game was on and couldn't be bothered to fork out a tenner for 2 games of RL.....that is the problem, not the lack of coverage in a right wing unionite favouring paper.

Call me any name that makes you feel better....it won't change the fact that my opinion differs to yours or the other 15 people a month who will click on the RL tab on the DT website every month!

At the end of the day, the DT will publish what they think will sell copies. Of course the readers can voice their opinions as to what they want to see and if their is sufficient demand, there may be changes but at the end of the day, the role of the editor(s) is to sell copies, not please everyone.

Lol at the Barneysook telling RL fans how it is seeing as he had no clue what RL was until 2001-2




Raaaaaaaaaaah

........and there you have it. Simple when you think about it really.....the fact that 1 guy has complained is admirable, but that only. It will make no difference to the content of the nearly 600,000 copies they sell every day at ₤1.20.

Keep it up idiot.....it shows you in your true light, although I'd be keen to hear why you pointing when I started watching Rugby League has anything to do with the issue under debate?

It's obvious. He wants to diminish your credibility by pointing out you've only been watching sooooooooper dooooooper league (haha) since 2001, but then, that doesn't quite work out because it's 10-11 years ago now.

How do you know the RFL aren't doing all they can to promote the game and are just getting shown the cold shoulder? How many RL fans complain about the lack of coverage in the papers they read? How many of them actually do anything about it? How are the RFL supposed to argue that people want this, that and the other if the people that are supposed to want these things don't actually do anything about it?

This guy may only be one guy now, but if there were more fans as passionate about the game as he is we might actually be able to get ourselves as a game noticed, but probably because there's a section of our own fanbase that actively seek to p*ss on anything positive anyone tries to do to help the game that doesn't happen very often.


By nobody, I'm guessing he's talking about outside of the RL community. We're supposed to be targeting new audiences. We were in London. And not all tickets were a tenner, and even if they were, it's not just a tenner to come to the south for the day is it? Hence why we need to be advertising to those potential new fans in the south and regular stories in papers that seem to want to ignore us would help.


You're entitled to your opinion. But your negative and patronising attitude about someone trying to do something positive for the game whilst offering no alternative or better suggestion isn't going to achieve anything.

The DT doesnt pretend it covers everything that happens everywhere.
I notice they dont have a tab for darts, or Lawn bowls, or squash or a dedicated athletics tab, or sailing or a multitude of other sports because space is limited, investment is limited and what they cover is limited we have no right expect, or demand that they choose to cover our sport. We arent entitled to it, they will choose to cover the sports which are most beneficial to them. They arent a public service operator, they are a private business entitled to make whatever decision most beneficial to them.

Besides, is this the image we want to present as a sport? cover us or some lone nutjob will create as much of a stink as they can, they will pester and badger you until you meet their demands. Im sure that will have media and sponsors falling over themselves to be associated with us.

Because the results are there to see. The RFL arent doing enough and that much is obvious. If they were we would have better column inches and more coverage and more visibility. But we get that by presenting a solid, professional image. One of a cutting edge sport, with a large, loyal fanbase. We present ourselves as a game and an industry with a professional outlook, with a knowledge of working use of media and image management. Not one which stamps its feet when it doesnt get what it believes it is entitled to handed to it on a plate.

Get 15/20 thousand people in and around london paying to watch live rl every week and newspapers like this might start giving a stuff