That's what you'd like all to think but we know better
That erection of yours still there is it since last season now you've got a super duper stadium

Actually, I meant what I typed. How many hundreds of thousands have been wasted on planning and drawings, feasibility studies etc, all driven by the requirements that were set and never enforced by the RFL/SL?

So 'didn't make them' rather than 'stopped them' - big difference. As for feasibility/drawings/planning I doubt either has spent much, if anything; it's all been done by their partners.

Can you please clarify what a WUM is as I have no idea, go on spell it out. And as for destroying my ramblings, not really your the one ramblin and name calling and crying over your keyboard because you know I am right, You have offered nothing other than bitter salty tears.

Wind Up Merchant

I believe the issue is that there's a collective of Trolls (or possibly one with multiple personality disorder) who will frequently target Wakefield as an example of the type of club that we should jettison and replace with {INSERT FAR AWAY CITY HERE}.

Whilst I don't share the opinion you are one of these "collective", calling BV a slum is hardly going to endear you to Wakey Fans. Yes, it's not ideal, but unlike Warrington, I don't see Wakefield doubling their gates if they had a new stadium, so I see the benefit of repairing what they've got, which is apparently their plan

mmm don't recall calling bell vue a slum, and even if i did its not far off it is without a doubt the worst ground in super league and not far off the whole RL, think this says more about the touchy chip on the shoulder paranoid minds of some Wakefield fans than about anything else, i get there frustrations at lack of progress on stadium by the club and council, but the all start crying and carrying on when people point it out.

Are you suffering from amnesia "sham, slum of a club" were the words that YOU used, although you have since deleted that part of the post.
No paranoid chips here but, you were on the wind up although, in Boris Johnson style, you now seem to be suffering from selective amnesia and have tried to alter the historical fact.



I will ask again, just how many developments a club should be working on at any particular point in time, especially when plans for said stadium have already been passed- now, jog on back to Headingley, where, despite the millions spent, your club still provides 2nd class facilities for visiting fans.

Someone tell me what Castleford or Wakefield bring to super league.

My bad.... You went all in

Well, in terms of Cas, we are generally competitive on the field. More so over the last few years, but SL isn’t exactly full of high quality teams and the Championship certainly isn’t.
We produce a good number of club-trained players who play for the club, other SL clubs and the international teams. Considering the population of the town, the club produces its fair share of future talent.
Our core support is higher than many other clubs. This means we take more away supporters than many other clubs and therefore have a positive financial impact on the other SL clubs in terms of attendances.
Castleford are more financially stable that most other clubs. Whilst many will criticise the ground (and rightly so), at least it’s ours. Every penny spent in Wheldon Road goes to the club, unlike at many other clubs. We don’t have any rent to pay, we take all the income on tickets and on game-day and we aren’t at the behest of a football club or a council or a third-party.
But if you’d rather have a club like Paris, Crusaders or New York, that’s your opinion. Just be prepared to lose out financially, have fewer quality players in SL, non-competitive games and clubs going bankrupt every year.

Well the fact is Rugby league is a regional sport, minor in it's own alleged "heartland" but nonetheless it has a small but passionate following and it makes the best of itself. To do that it manages to get an English TV deal which supports the top clubs going professional. The TV deal is very limited and the private investment is limited too so the sport has not been able to upgrade enough grounds, especially at some of the "top" clubs.

Often local council help is vital to build a new ground. Sometimes a club has got such a ground sharing with Soccer like Doncaster. In the wakefield area there's no big soccer club to share with and the council resist helping apparently because Featherstone, Wakefield and Castleford are all in the Wakefield council area and the council I think said they could not assist one club and not the other two, and they can't afford all three. It's therefore the case the game is relatively strong in those parts, enough to warrant Superleague inclusion because they have good fan numbers and produce great players. That's my reply in good spirit, whether your enquiry is equally made in good spirit I don't know?

i said sham slum of a club not ground, and i did create that statement and apologized. so can you remove your chips now.

not on the wind up you are all just over defensive and paranoid.

i have not deleted it but i apologies for the post.

ahh the old lets have a go at the western terrace argument, even though the western terrace as access to superb facilitates in the adjacent cricket stand like 50 meters from the of the stand. Clutching at straws out of jealously.

"Superb facilities in the adjacent cricket stand" ? Really ?
So, when the heavens open and it's tipping it down with rain, you think that a 50 metre walk for a burger from a van or a pint of weak "electric" beer are excellent facilities and lets not mention the impossible view of the big screen.

Headingley is 3/4 of the way to being a superb RL ground, although the South Stand does seem to have lost some of it's atmosphere, despite having a stand that looks like one of the best in RL but, the western terrace is awful (apart from the view).

Hospitality is also very, very good but, again this doesn't help your regular visiting fans standing in the rain, even though as Trinity fans we've been well used to that over the years.

I notice that you still havent answered how many developments any club should pursue at any one time

The company i work for is looking for new premises looking at both building something from scratch or suitable long term lease, its called keeping your options open thats how things work. So looking at 2-3 alternative sites or redevelopment should be par for the course.

Western terrace is still better than anything st Bell vue and even in new fully roofed stadiums people get wet when it rains due to wind direction.

More utter nonsense.
There isn't a company on the planet that would progress more than one site beyond planning permission, let alone ANY RL club in the UK - you are being deliberately delusional. - they may "eye up" multiple sites to begin with but, when cash becomes involved, this would very quickly focus on one site to take forward.
As for the Western Terrace being better than "anything at Belle Vue" well, you've clearly never had the "pleasure" of the Headingley Western Terrace on a damp Friday Night.

As one of the previous posters suggested, you certainly do seem to be a typical WUM.

I remember Tigers had to sell Joe Westerman to Hull FC to fund the 140K fee for detailed design plans for the proposed move to the first site in Glasshoughton at Xscape.

2 financially stable clubs ?

Decent opposition, playing a decent brand of RL and who regularly test and beat the supposed top 4 sides in SL.
That ought to be plenty and those that try to deride these 2 clubs are just hoping for some "easier" opposition from newly formed expansion clubs.

One thing that's galling from a Salford fan's point of view is that we were told circa 20 years ago to move our of The Willows and get a new ground or be booted out of SL (as I believe were the likes of Cas & Wakey). To have to leave your spiritual home in the heart of the community to a ground 3 1/2 / 4 miles away is bad enough but we ended up in a spot that had nothing around it for pre/post match drinks (part of the match day experience for a lot of fans). Add in the last 5/6 years of traffic issues which have now gladly eased with the link road and it's taken a long time for fans to call the AJ Bell our home (it will still never replace The Willows) When you then also factor in that the club gets NO REVENUE at all from match day food/drink sales and you should be able to understand why we feel we've been shafted royally by the RFL/SL.

Nothing against Wakey & Cas at all but they've managed to dodge the bullet which was pointing right at our temple and it still rankles as our move to the AJ Bell almost saw us almost go under before Koukash came in and saved us from oblivion.

It's this I don't get, how the hell have we dodged a bullet FFS. I'm truly gutted for you as you sit in your brand new stadium I really am, as we bullet dodgers sit shivering in our slums waiting to be kicked out if something doesn't happen soon. Seriously do you think that where we are now, which is more or less nowhere is where we wanted to be, by what logic do you come to that conclusion?

Let's get this straight, we have a huge mortgage on BV and as yet we do not have a penny to do it up. If we dodged a bullet then the bayonet didn't miss did it.

Yes I understand the trauma of leaving the Willows, I do, but at the end of the day, you are safe in that you are the masters of your own destiny. Both Trinity and Cas remain on a knife-edge. You want that then you're welcome mate.

Unfortunately there really aren't any winners in this situation, and the piling on is nonsensical.

There's no question Wakefield have been strung along, particuarly when it comes to the YorCourt / NEWCOLD situation. That really needed an enquiry into why that Section 106 was not properly enforced.

Castleford's situation is equally frustrating, but betting the farm on retail developments was always going to come with inherent risk when you look at how retail has changed since the recession. Warrington and St Helens were fortunate that their developments went through before Tesco reviewed its policy on "hypermarket" style developments.

Nobody wants to see the game still being played in venues that aren't suitable for 21st century professional sport, but the gloating and finger pointing isn't helpful. Yes, there are valid points to make about how the clubs have gone about their respective stadium projects, but they're not entirely to blame.

You obviously missed the bit about us making NO MATCH DAY REVENUE (except ticket sales) and having lost income from the likes of the Variety Centre and Vault Bar, which were an integral income stream at The Willows. You also missed the part about alienating fans by moving out of the heart of the city. Apart from Saints (who have a successful team and a lot larger fan base) I can't think of any other SL club whose ground is in a more fan-unfriendly spot. I forgot to mention the continual excuses from away fans saying they can't get to the AJ Bell as it's situated somewhere just outside the Arctic Circle (and subsequent further loss in income)



Cas & Wakey may still be in dilapidated grounds but at least they're taking in a decent amount of revenue and actually own their grounds. We were bullied into moving with threats of expulsion yet 8 years after we played our final game at The Willows Cas & Wakey are still part of the SL set-up.

Don't get me wrong, considering they're from the "dark side"

I actually have a lot of time for both clubs, there just appears to be a set of double standards in relation to how the whole stadium shenanigans have been handled.

Carlsberg don't admit they are wrong, but if they did

Cant argue with any of that and to say that things should have been done differently / better is an understatement.

The Willows wouldn't have taken too much to upgrade and you could have then retained the matchday income, which may have been possible had Koucash come into the club before the AJ Bell was decided ?

The new place is in a nicer part of town though