Realistically unless a club can draw around 8000 crowds they can't be long term sustainable without significant private backing. Which cumbrian club could achieve that?

There's enough interest and people to have RL represented as a sport in the area. There's just not one spot big enough to support a SL team in terms of finance and that would be able to attract fans from the entire area to support a club.

I would love to see a team from Cumbria in SL as I think our heartlands should all be represented.

The reality is though it isn't going to happen any time soon. There is too much parochialism between the three Rugby towns
of Workington, Whitehaven and Barrow and there isn't a good enough stadium or financial support. A combined team might be the way forward and look appealing with each of the three clubs acting as feeders but there isn't enough money in the game to do this. One of the three clubs has to meet the franchise requirements and improve thier stadium facilites and capacity to do it. Its the only realistic way.

Although the amateur game has been traditionally strong in the area one of the biggest often over looked problems is the terrain and logistics of the area. There is no train service between Barrow and Whitehaven and Workington on a Sunday, which means its either bus or car to travel between the towns and from everywhere else if matches were to played on a Sunday.

To put another thing in perspective the distance between Barrow and Whitehaven is 46 miles and it takes 1hour 25 mins in the car. (Anyone who travels the route between the two towns knows why.
As a comparitor, the distance between St Helens to Huddersfield is 48 miles but it only takes an hour in the car.

Unless the logistical transport issues are improved in West Cumbria the idea is also a dead duck.

I actually wonder if Stobart might be the key to backing a SL team in Cumbria based in Carlisle.

Then we could try and push on to Scotland.

It may well but it would end up being a Carlisle Team and not a Cumbrian one. The heartland of the game is on the West Coast of Cumbria. ask yourself why the Carlisle club went out of existence.

The problem of wherever it is is logistics. Cumbria is a huge geographical county with a low population density and poor public and road transport infrastructure in many areas . If a SL club was to be based in one place in one stadium, then wherever it is the supporters/people from the rest of Cumbria would have to travel a considerable distance to get there.

If Carlisle was the location for a franchise or new club, its a 1 hour 50 minute journey from Barrow. Its also 55 mins from Workington and and hours drive from Whitehaven.

Two solutions:

1. Whitehaven and Workington amalgamate as Cumbria and share fixtures between their grounds

2. Barrow make progress

Regarding transport links; has there ever been any discussion of a bridge/tunnel linking Morecambe and Barrow or are we more likely to see hover cars first?

My view is theres a big enough population and lack of competition for attention for a Copeland SL franchise. A cumbria club that tries to also draw support from barrow and carlisle is a non starter. It would be great if it ever happened but seems unlikely sadly.

yeah, great idea so why not put a team from the Bradford area in SL ?

oh, ehhrr .... wait a minute !

Barrow were certainly looking like the strongest of the teams/clubs up until recently and logistically its now easily the easier of the three areas to get to from the rest of the RL clubs in the north. Spreading the fixtures out between the clubs might work but its down to all the stadia being improved and the transport links greatly improved as well.

Sadly, the chance of a Morcambe bay bridge is nill given the state of the UK finances at present and for the foreseable future.

And your point is??????????



Bradfords problems are nothing at all to do with the discussion of a SL club in Cumbria.

my point is very clear

Bradford IS in a so called RL heartland,with good transport links and a large population within it's catchment area to attract the fans and make a very viable business - all the ingredients are there

if THEY can't make a go of it what chance has a Cumbria based club have FFS ?

there's not one heartland really, its 2 seperated by nearly 50 miles and a long road journey - i could get from hull to leeds quicker for example, until the duddon channel is bridged, ulverston and barrow will be too far from whitehaven and workington to be viable. you would almost have to build a stadium halfway, in sellafield, or at the foot of hardknott pass

plus in my lifetime i can never remember any of these teams posting consistent crowds in excess of 4000, so i can't believe they will now

Good post and very true and in line with what i Posted earlier. Unless transport logistics are improved in the West Cumbrian Coastal area its a complete non starter.

Between the three clubs Barrow have the best chance of making it on their own because it has the biggest population to draw on support, but I sadly can't see a club from Cumbria in SL any time soon.

It frustrates me to see such a heartland of rugby league going to waste, with support dwindling. Just a few years ago Whitehaven were drawing 2,000 - 4,000 every game but now struggle to muster 1,000 for even the Cumbrian derbies. The problem is that the clubs are so stubborn in their hatred of each other, Haven, Workington, Barrow etc. could never join up to form one club because there is rivalry between the towns. It's frustrating that Barrow don't have a reasonably sized stadium because they are still drawing crowds of around 1,500 despite being in Championship 1 and the recent 'problems' with the running of the club. Remember they applied for a license not so long ago and drew about 5,000 I think? vs Wigan in the Challenge Cup. They would easily get that every week if they were in SL.

Thought this was going to be another Stevo thread.

1996....11 Home SL games for Workington Town...average attendance 2,305.

I have no doubt the Cumbrians are all RL mad, but logistically, getting gates anywhere near the 8k needed to be self sufficient would be a hard ask....and it's 2 hrs minimum for most away fans...4hrs for Hull fans.........a Cumbrian team would have the tradition, but not the population. A combined Whitehaven/Workington team would still need 16% of their combined poplulations to attend games just to break even....



Pespective wise, PSG averaged 8,026 in year 1. The folllowing year, an average of 5,509 was enough to see them disappear.......
The Cottage burners of South, then north Wales averaged 3,827 for their 39 home games in SL, but didn't have the luxury of a benefactor willing to throw money at them for the 5-10 years it would have taken for them to get their crowds up to the 8k needed....
London, after 77 name changes and 406 ground moves, have averaged 3,766 for their 218 home games in SL thus far....but have the advantages that 'london' is a weekend away destination, there are many expat northerners who will watch "their" team when they play London (Wigan, Leeds & Saints) as well as an untapped audience of Aussies/Kiwis and a benefactor willing to throw 1.5 million at the problem every year (for now anyway).


Interesting slide here.....from Cumbria to 'stralia and beyond?

Outside of NSW, there are 6 NRL teams....The NZ Warriors are owned by a billionaire Owen Glenn and his millionaire mate Eric Watson

.....The Melbourne Storm and Brisbane Broincos are owned by the ex-50% owner of the competition and the favourite to secure the next 5 years TV rights, News Limited. The Gold Coast Titans are close to deaths door, the Raiders are currently the worst supported team in the comp and the North Queensland Cowboys had to be bailed out by News Limited (see above reference to Brisbane and Melbourne) back in 2001, or they would have gone to the wall......
Expansion should be about the sport.......but in Australia, it's all about the TV viewers. News have an interest in 50% of the teams that aren't in NSW......of the others, 2 are financial basket cases and the other represents an entire country and is owned by money.....where the new teams are placed is important financially but has little to do with "expansion" of the game.

Back to Cumbria......do you reckon SKY would increase ad revenue/subscription sales if they demanded a team in Whitehaven?

Boy is he a big unit !







especially in the second stanza !


et al. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The reason why there isn't a Cumbrian team in Super League is because hardly anybody lives there. It has the second lowest population density in the UK, has a smaller overall population than Cornwall and is also several miles away from other significant population centres that they could draw upon to form support (both from fans and corporate sponsorship). There are several US states that are hot beds of producing talent in different sports that can't sustain a professional sporting set up because of similar issues. Sad but true.

Barrow and the Furness peninsula has a decent population. They have an amateur league in place. They have a large defense contractor for sponsorship. They had an investor but he seriously broke the salary cap rules.

If they could find another investor and get a ground share in a new stadium with the soccer club tapping into all available grants, they might have an outside shot at a SL spot. They were pushing 2,000 attendances when the wheels fell off with their investor and they are by far and away the best supported club in CC1 and better than half of CC.

I agree that the West Cubria duo are too small, too poor and too divided to become a SL franchise.

Oh look another Cumbria club for SL thread , started by a SL club fan, who knows nothing about the clubs ir the general makeup of Cumbria

The only way a SL club would get to SL would be via P and R

Its simply not true that hardly anyone lives there. Cumbria as a county is not far short of a population of half a million people. As you have alluded to, the population density and spread is one of the real issues as its the transport logistics of the county in terms of getting from A to B.

(Barrow in Furness alone has a bigger population than Castleford, a similar population to that of Widnes and just a tad smaller than Wakefield.)


Under Promotion and Relegation Barrow would have been promoted to SL in 2009.

If Barrow could get Craven Park upgraded and attract more supporters then they would have a chance. Realistically though they are the only town with a big enough population to draw on to financially sustain a SL team.

why would any of the cumbrian clubs want to go into super league ? It's so flawed in so many ways (finances etc.), it could kill thier clubs. I would rather Halifax stay in the championship until super league is sorted out and if that's never then that's fine by me

Just read over on a French forum that Bernard Guash seems to think Super league is expanding to 16 teams. Which seems unlikely and goes against what most people seems to think should happen i.e a reduction in teams. translate.google.com.au/translat ... CFoQ7gEwAA Last paragraph of the interview. Edit: In the Catalans section under the heading "we can be proud of what we offer."

Just read over on a French forum that Bernard Guash seems to think Super league is expanding to 16 teams. Which seems unlikely and goes against what most people seems to think should happen i.e a reduction in teams. translate.google.com.au/translat ... CFoQ7gEwAA Last paragraph of the interview. Edit: In the Catalans section under the heading "we can be proud of what we offer."