Seems a strange one. I can't really see much of fan base for this team. Guess it will end up like Team Bath

That's fair enough, but why bill it as a university side? It just makes the competition look like a bit of a joke, and as said I can't see them attracting too much local interest, especially as there won't be any students there for the majority of the season.

Wonder if the name will change to Gloucester All Golds or such like so as to help attract the local people who live in Gloucester and the surrounding areas with a name they could identify with ?

If they're going to be playing at the Prince of Wales Stadium surely they'll need to change their name to Gloucestershire as it's in Cheltenham.

I really do wonder if they have gone for the wrong Universtity as Loughborough have done similar in Rugby Union and have been promoted to the third tier of the RU League structure and had built a 3,000 capacity rugby ground built on campus for next season.

That is working well and to be honest Team Bath worked in non league football until the Conference got snotty about them and the way they were funded it is just a shame there were not 4 stand out applications from current Conference (or other) clubs as the three sides in so far look more we want this location rather than any playing history or development pedigree (granted University of Gloucester have done great things building RL there but so have other non heartland institutions).

Bags of potential but this should have been as big as announcement as possible. Most rugby league people I've spoken to this week had no idea a decision had been made, never mind that the new club would be revealed this week. An all too common damp squib from the RFL.
Gloucester isn't a small place and it's bang in the middle of a rugby, albeit union, hotbed. What are the attendances for Championship 1 clubs like? If after two or three seasons the club is still well behind their rivals in terms of crowds, then I'd be disappointed.
Loughborough Uni have long been a beacon of sporting progress and innovation but they didn't apply so it's rather a redundant point.
The way I've read the statement posted on the RFL website leads me to believe it will be a club run by the university, using the university facilities but not a university side. Leeds have already done plenty of work down there and Hetherington's comments make it sound like there could be an agreement similar to the one between Wigan and South Wales Scorpions.
Basketball is easily the second bigges sport in Spain and many of the top sides started off as university teams. They eventually outgrew the university and gained a wider community fanbase.

The club is owned and backed by the University of Gloucestershire, but will not be a student team. It will be a semi-pro Championship One club like all the others, operating to a business plan approved by the RFL. The expansion clubs are getting funding in line with the other Champ One clubs, which the existing clubs saw and signed off last year.

The club is named after the New Zealand All Golds, who won the first international test series by beating the Northern Union in Cheltenham in 1908. The club will wear a Golden fern as their emblem, with the approval of the NZRL.

UG has invested time and resources to an impressive degree over the last few years. One of their strengths is that as a university they are very strong in Sports Science and Sports Coaching qualifications. They already have in place a formidable structure for S&C, Analysis, and Physiotheraphy, where by a postgrad or academic leads a team of six undergraduates, who as a part of their degree have to complete live placements with a pro-standard club. This team of 21 backroom staff working on the conditioning and performance of the players is far stronger than most SL clubs, never mind C1 clubs.

In addition to a Rugby League Community Coach, who they have part-funded, the Uni also has a number of Sport Coaching degree students who do community RL coaching as a part of their courses, and various business, events management and marketing students, who have contributed to the running and administration of the club and its events, again as a part of their academic programmes.

The Student club has approximately 10 hours contact time per week with its players, plus matches. The pro club will be different, because many/most will have other jobs (although of course students wanting to play semi-pro RL won't find a better place to study!)

The venue is yet to be announced, although the student team has played at the Prince of Wales stadium in Cheltenham... not unlike London Skolars ground... for the last few years (under lights). Their SRL fixtures attract crowds of around 100.

Gloucestershire Warriors Community team run 2 teams. All Golds are already running U18, U16 and U14 teams, largely through volunteers and students under guidance from the Community Coach. Gloucestershire schools have been playing RL since 2008, so there are a cohort coming through at 16 now who have been playing to some degree for 4 years, and the u18s have been playing as long. St Peter's School, one of the leading rugby union schools in the country and a past Daily Mail Cup winner (champ schools for union), has partnered with the RL locally to become a dual-code school, committed to RL from February-July across all ages and both genders.

In addition, the Filton College (now renamed South Glos and Stroud College) Academy is about 30 miles away north of Bristol. They run a 16-19 Academy programme, and have been playing into the universities leagues (all 18+, obviously) in this, their first season. They still managed to win the SRL Plate competition, beating Newcastle Uni 2 in the final in Leeds. Bristol has its own network of Schools RL, and a Community Junior leagu at u14 and u16.

Cheltenham & Gloucester sit either side of the M5, like Derby and Nottingham or Sheffield and Rotherham on the M1. They are effectively the same conerbation. The combined population is about 250,000, so similar to Warrington or Wigan. Gloucester Rugby are a union giant, and regularly attract 10,000+ to Kingsholme. In fact it's said you can kick a ball from one pitch to the next and go all around the city... there are around 17 union clubs in Gloucester, most putting out at least 2 teams, and at least half of which run juniors. The Union players and fans in Gloucester are NOT like union fans in the north... it is genuinely the working man (and women's) game. There's also Hartpury College just up the road, who play union in the national leagues. There is no shortage of support or talent for oval-ball collision sports. To what extent League can tap into that remains to be seen. Cheltenham, meanwhile, has a Football league pro soccer team, with its own fanbase of a couple of thousand. There's a proven market for spectator sport on a football field.

Bristol is 40 miles south, Worcester is 30 miles north, Swindon is 40 miles west. All have small, but pretty keen, RL populations. Cheltenham is about 2 hours from Warrington... a similar distance as Whitehaven to Leeds, but quicker because it's all motorway. It's also a really nice place to stay (Gloucester has it's moments, but is a bit rough!).

There was a bid from Bristol, and Bristol Sonics are still in conversation with the RFL about their longer term plans. Some of the potential partners in a Bristol Bid are now working into the Gloucestershire club. The backing of the university was decisive in bringing that about. Bristol has a population of 430,000, a World Cup game, a National league team, the Academy at SGS, junior community teams, and 2 universities that play. But Sonics have only just stepped up to national level, and are keen to develop at their own pace. They don't have either the same infrastructure or financial resources as UG, amd doubtless the westcountry clubs will look forward to professional derby matches in the future, when the timing is right all round.

UG will debut in the pro nines series at the end of the month. No idea what the situation will be regarding the student players who are already on pro contracts (at Scorpions, there are three of them). Looking ahead, and even now, there are SW players on the books at Featherstone and Scorpions, a few more being looked at by SL and Champ clubs over summer once term ends, and others playing just below with Conference teams.

It is, at very least, a robust and exciting development, and at best has the prospect of founding a great club in a new RL 'traditional' area.... one that goes back over a century.

Not a single person from a single RL newspaper or magazine title came to the launch, though they were invited a couple of weeks ago.

Regional BBC, ITV, and Sky were there. Local and regional newspapers were there. Local radio was there. No national papers, but several were keen to cover it via the RFL press department's feeds (at very least online).

One rugby league journalist I know didn't travel down due to the costs involved. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised the launch was dominated by local media.

By the way, your previous post is a cracker. Nice to get some facts down before we continue the thread.

Interesting concept

Somewhere I have some cuttings from a south west newspaper from the early 1990s on the subject of RU players from that area who "went north" between the wars. There were a surprisingly high number of west country converts.

There were efforts to create a pro league down South West just before WWI but it didnt quite get off the ground. There were some games played against pro clubs (I know Coventry went down there to play a couple of games) but they were sadly just too late to link up with Welsh developments that were just dying off then.

This year is the Centenary of the Torquay Northern Union team. We're hoping to stage the Devon v Cornwall game on their ground. There's still a picture of them in the clubhouse.

Good luck to them. The university's backing might prove crucial in keeping it going, so a good partnership to have.

I hope they don't play at a union owned ground. I hate RL clubs being union club's b**ches.

The most likely ground is the Prince of Wales Stadium, which is owned by the council, and currently used by the UG RL team, the Cheltenham Tigers RU club, and an athletics club. It's just about Champ1 standard with plenty of room for improvement. Tigers RU also own a large expanse of lands called Newlands, out of town on the way to the racecourse.

The University own a lot of land in Cheltenham and Gloucester, including The Folly, just down the road from the PoW, where the uni 2nds sometimes play and where the huge schools comp runs. There's nothing there yet, but room for a stadium if that is how they chose to go.

Aside from that, there's Cheltenham Town FC, Gloucester RFU, and potentially Gloucester City FC, with stadia that could stage pro RL.

Sometimes it's the only option to share with a union club.

Hoping to stage the International at Torquays ground? Lets hope the tides not in when it rains then.

Who's coaching Devon this year?

Rob Stockwell if he's around, with Matt Cuss either way

Are Gloucester City close to returning home?? Always enjoyed going to Meadow Park and it was a real shame flood damage drove them out.

They're years away from a return, I believe, and currently play at Cheltenham Town having had a few years playing at Cirencester.

An Oxford bid is competing with Coventry for the final spot.
A decision on the fourth venue will be announced later this summer.

Wish they'd let us know before NCL application deadline.