with respect,you can't compare the french & english set-ups - mainly due to the size of the countries and density of the population etc having Catalans & TO would be like comparing it to having only two SL teams in the north of england say Hull & Wigan (with lower league teams dispersed between the two) - that is to say,one on either side of the country - it's a wholly different cultural,demigraphic & social thing - most of the french RL heartland is rural where most of the english heartland is industrial or white collar - the population in the french RL heartland is only a fraction to that of northern england - you can't compare the two,just take each case on it's own merits

which is why it is ridiculous to describe the south of france as a heartland, and lump it in with the heartlands of the UK.

It may well be the french heartland, but from an RL point of view it was clearly an expansion area.

yes,of course it is/was

This is the post that started this particular argument

that had been in existence for 3 years with a whole area of France that has had pro RL clubs for decades

The south of France was ripe for a full time SL club , it was just a matter of where to put it , in the end they plumped for a merger of 2 clubs to increase the chances of success , but nonetheless this area has been producing International class RL players for 60/70 years

Then on the other hand we have a town in South Wales where if you asked the locals at the time they either didn't even know a pro RL club existed in the town or were veheremently against it

Very similar

no it wasnt
no, i quite clearly compared one french club, to one welsh club,

no they didnt,

so you think i was saying the south of france was in the same position as wales? ah thats probably how you confused yourself

I think Hemel want nothing more than to become semi-pro. But theyve been struggling to raise the funds to build a stand for years.

you are clearly ignorant of the french RL set-up - you should either do some homework on the subject or refrain from making yourself look silly IMO merci et Bonne Année

You'd hope that the RFL would want to help something like this.

Then you remember that it's the RFL.

Depends on what Hemel are planning. A "proper" cantilevered 1000 seat stand is around £1 million and that would pay for a lot of RFL development officers. Those 100-200 seat stands that are 10 deep rows of seats on a concrete base are less than £50K from places like Arena Sports.

I thought it was a mere planning permission issue (which has now been resolved).

yes it was

I stated ' area ' ie the area that UTC is in , and the area Celtic Crusaders were in , but compare Perpignon to Bridgend if you want

So you are suggesting that the clubs around perpignon have never produced any International players ?

Either way you are completely wrong and showing yourself up again

Try to confuse all you want , but you aren't fooling anybody

The original area mentioned was ' north calatonia ' , I would suggest that is the south of France

For someone so demanding of acuracy in others you might be interested to know that they actually finished third and reached the 2nd division Premiership final that year. Still, never mind, don't let facts etc

Somebody got out of bed on the wrong side. First day back at work?

Anyway I checked London were fourth not third.

Actually they were 4th in 1994-5.

And yes it is easy to get irritable when people keep knocking certain clubs with "facts" that are either urban myths or made up.

no it wasnt. read back you will see
YOU did. I didnt. YOU may wish to change the comparison to the South of France v Wales if you want. It doesnt alter


No, im suggesting there has been very few international class french players from the time between about 1990-2005
That is nice, but once again, i didnt compare the south of france to wales. I simply said that France isnt a heartland of our game. It used to be, various factors meant it was left behind and became, sadly a small outpost with few players and few fans. I then compared 2 clubs to highlight the growth that was needed. And to explain how France was an expansion area, rewritten as a heartland because it suits. Everyone sees through the attempts to rewrite history and why it is done. To separate the success of Les Catalans as an expansion club and any other expansion club.

I would like SL to expand NFL style. Two conferences. Two leagues of 10, with the top four from each going on to contest in the finals series. A Magic Weekend where the conferences clash against each other for points. IE 1st East vs 1st West and so on. A shorter season and a mid-summer break for internationals.

SL West and London

Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Barrow, Widnes, Crusaders, Catalans, Leigh, Harlequins, Huddersfield

SL East

Leeds, Bradford, Castleford, Wakefield, Hull FC, Hull KR, Toulouse, Halifax, South Wales Scorpions, York

Long-term, it'd be brilliant to see some Irish representation in ESL, a side from Belfast and / or Dublin. As well as a team in Paris. Further representation in places such as Gateshead, London, West Country and the Midlands would be fantastic too. That's a long way away, if it were ever to happen.

How's that Geography course going?

What a terrible idea
and how is South Wales in the east?

The game could expand the game into Cheshire! Sorry it did do in 1972 when they moved the county boundary north to included the South Lancs towns of Warrington & Widnes.

Whatever happen to Birkenhead, Runcorn, Stockport.

France has it's own RL heartland completely independant of the UK or anywhere else - it always has had - RL would continue with it's own federal leagues as it always has done irrespective of if it's a part of SL or C/C1.
SL through Catalans has allowed many of these die-hard french RL fans to watch top-class RL and the TO has allowed the french die-hard RL fans to watch Championship level RL,which has been great for french RL. Whether the introduction of Catalans & TO respectively has actually improved the RFL set-up as a whole is subjective.Obviously the 'expansion' experiment with respect to these two teams has increased the popularity of RL in france and will continue to increase in popularity if the RFL allows it to happen.

Birkenhead switched back to union, Runcorn went bust during WWI and reformed as a soccer team, Stockport went bust and the football club moved into their ground (Edgley Park was built as a RL ground). Altrincham played Northern Union at one point too, I think.

Cheshire competed in the first dozen or so RL County Championships.

Thanks for that, I suppose I was being sarcastic, in pointing out that the game cant even expand back into its original areas (all three towns being capable of supporting superleague or Semi pro teams by population size) that are not a dozen miles from today heartlands. But so many people including the RFL still proposing expansion into Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin etc. We cant even expand back into Carlisle!

Really?

I don't think the fact that they were promoted to SL because Murdoch wanted it that way rather than winning a place through merit is a myth.

And in any case Bronquins did not appear in the final. Keighley beat Bronquins on the way to the final at Old Trafford where they played and beat Huddersfield. As "corrections" go, this doesn't rate very highly.

I said London finished third and reached the Premiership Final in 1994, the year you claimed they finished second bottom. To back your claim up you now inform us that they didn't make the final in 1995. This is indisputable, but it is difficult to see the relevance to your original claim about a different year entirely. As "re-corrections" go you'd be struggling to get gamma minus.