Absolute horse.

300% increase is good, but its clear to see that the information has been manipulated to make it sound more impressive than it is. I suppose its a start though and hopefully we will see more progress from Wakefield over the course of the season to justify their place in Super League.

Quote ="Chris Dalton"Absolute horse.'" Really? Which part do you debate? Is it that Celtic Crusaders' crowds in 2008 were higher than the majority of the league and comparable to the likes of Leigh and Halifax, despite it only being their third season in existence? Here's a link to the 2008 NL1 table with attendances if you'd like to compare: championshipstats.rlfans.com/Co- ... index.html Is it that in 2008 Celtic Crusaders finished second in NL1, and lost the Grand Final in extra time? The link above shows the final league standings, and here is a match report from the Grand Final: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 638206.stm Is it that several of the players from Celtic Crusaders' fledgling youth system in 2008 have gone on to sign for established Super League clubs? The Crusaders Colts side won the Conference National in their only season having comfortably beaten Bramley in the Grand Final, that match was played as a curtain raiser to the aforementioned NL1 Grand Final. [url=http://www.crusadersrfl.com/page.php?id=556Here[/url is a match report from that day, and here are links to the articles regarding those players moving on to Super League clubs: menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... -welsh-duo news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 211016.stm Anything else you'd like to question about my post?

Quote ="Chris Dalton"Absolute horse.'" Really? Which part do you debate? Is it that Celtic Crusaders' crowds in 2008 were higher than the majority of the league and comparable to the likes of Leigh and Halifax, despite it only being their third season in existence? Here's a link to the 2008 NL1 table with attendances if you'd like to compare: championshipstats.rlfans.com/Co- ... index.html Is it that in 2008 Celtic Crusaders finished second in NL1, and lost the Grand Final in extra time? The link above shows the final league standings, and here is a match report from the Grand Final: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 638206.stm Is it that several of the players from Celtic Crusaders' fledgling youth system in 2008 have gone on to sign for established Super League clubs? The Crusaders Colts side won the Conference National in their only season having comfortably beaten Bramley in the Grand Final, that match was played as a curtain raiser to the aforementioned NL1 Grand Final. [url=http://www.crusadersrfl.com/page.php?id=556Here[/url is a match report from that day, and here are links to the articles regarding those players moving on to Super League clubs: menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... -welsh-duo news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 211016.stm Anything else you'd like to question about my post?

It feels like 2008 all over again with the above post. The crowds in Bridgend were bumped up with a ridiculous number of freebies, and that was freely admitted by those who turned up (and they're still counted for the ones who didn't turn up either). The on-field aspect is surely disqualified by the fact that they had players who weren't legally allowed to play in this country? And I say that as someone who made the effort to go to Bridgend for the weekend, give them some of my hard earned and wish them all the best.

I don't think anybody has a problem with 'new' clubs climbing the ranks (if they do have a problem with that then they're frankly missing the point of sporting competition), but such progression has to be achieved on equal terms to the rest of the competing sides or it just gives a false picture and eventually the house of cards will collapse, as was witnessed in Bridgend.

There are regular 'debates' on the VT about promotion & relegation, but I don't get whet people are really argueing over.

If Northampton, Skolars, Gateshead or any other 'development' club progress and get good crowds and results and earn their way into super league I don't think anyone would argue.

If Northampton do okay and get forced through into Super League above more deserving clubs we would, and should go mad.

Why we have to be thinking and hoping is that the RFL and SLE have learnt their lesson.

By the way, brilliant that Wakeys season tickets have gone up so much.

Hmm, not so sure about that - we've not really had anything to shout about in recent years. This year however, compared with the same time last year we have:

A wealthy backer as an owner who has delivered on everything he's promised so far
Looked down the barrel of the SL gun and dodged the bullet
A huge increase in season ticket sales
Opened a new store in the city centre
Signed proven SL performers including Lauititi and Fox, along with some decent footsoldiers in Washbrook, Mellars and Kirmond. (ok nothing mindblowing there but a massive improvement on last years playing staff)

Of course all this will mean nothing if we fail to get this stadium pushed through, however barring some kind of bizarre twist of fate - we will find out the result of the inquiry around April and if successful we can move the diggers in straight away.

So all in all, definitely making progress and whilst I don't think we'll be troubling the 8 this year - I feel that we are laying good foundations for the future.

Whilst it is great that these things are happening, lets be honest here, they are hardly efforts which should be applauded. Having a store and selling 4000 season tickets isnt impressive, better than before but still pretty pitiful. Yeah you have signed a couple of players but the squad is still built of some pretty poor quality overseas players and is a squad which will almost certainly be languishing in the lower reaches of the table.

Interesting that certain people are criticising Northampton for showing a bit of ambition, whilst lauding Wakefields pretty unambitious achievements.

Depends what you mean by equal terms. Is it equal that a club like Leigh can fill their squad with players who have come through the academies of Wigan, Saints and Warrington because they are local, but Northampton wouldnt be able to because of distance from home would likely mean players wanted more money to move and they are limited by a salary cap set at a level which is beneficial for the heartland clubs?

I agree to an extent, and I agreed with your prior post on this topic. I was just pointing out some facts to a couple of people who felt the need to question my post without justification.

FWIW, the reason the club didn't succeed was nothing to do with any of the points you have raised. Yes, they were poorly run, but they faltered because the owner was a crook who pulled out and left the club in the mire, it's no different to what happened to Wakefield this year and the fact that they were an expansion club or 'didn't progress on equal terms' is of no consequence to their demise.

I don't think many WTW fans would argue that the club has been through some pretty torrid times in recent years; we had an owner who was out of his depth and ended up making some crap decisions, putting the club into what looked like a terminal downward spiral.

That appears to be over now and we have a new owner who has driven a massive programme of positive change in a relatively short period of time; granted those changes have probably only got us to where we should have been ten years ago, but they are welcome nonetheless, given where he started from.

What sticks in the craw of many of us though, is the glib sense of superiority that many fans of other more fortunate clubs (and the media - that's another moan) display whenever they refer to WTW. I'm not sure how long it takes a RL fan to grudgingly acknowledge positive progress anywhere other than at their own club, but I'm sure it will happen one day.

Flipside to this of course is that every time a superstar comes through the regions academy ranks, they are snapped up by these clubs. Whereas If Northampton Demons produced a good player, the new Northampton club would have little or no opposition from any neighbours.

Swings and roundabouts really.

Oh it is. It was entirely predictable that they would collapse in SL as they didn't have anything like the revenue streams to compete and their owner had a track record of "doing a runner" when things got expensive.

Remind me which crook pulled out of Wakefield and left them in the mire. Nobody says that they are a well run club but what happened there was quite different from Crusaders (3 bankrupcies / administrations in 3 years ffs). Nor were Wakefield lent £700k that the RFL will never see again.

You mean that people might say "that's a bit stupid" when the usual lunatics think a poorly supported club struggling to find players ought to be playing in SL.

Still thankfully Crusaders showed us all up. They've obviously achieved far more than minor club status.

While we're on the subject, it is amazing how few people think Catalans ought not to be in SL. It might have something to do with them not being a joke rather than them "not being a threat".

I think they might hold onto said talented youth a bit longer but a player with the talent to play SL isn't going to stay at CC / CC1 level indefinitely. Either a SL club will come in for them or they will be off to RU.

That's true, but for example, at least London Broncos got a few years out of LMS. If he'd come through at Leigh Miners for example, Leigh wouldn't have got a sniff at getting him in the side for a few years or a chance of a transfer fee.

You called?

Copy the original quote and say what was wrong with it and why.

Well, we would, but it would be Northampton, Bedford and Rugby RU clubs. I still expect to see our best youth players go to Broncos or other SL clubs, rather than the local club BTW.

You really had to be there to see it

So they get a load of Aussies on dodgy Visa's , Pay them full time wages on money provided by the RFL , allowing them to circumvent the Salary Cap , is that ' Equal ' ?

Part of the reason was almost the entire population of Bridgend hated the bloke , hardly somebody the RFL should have encouraged in the way they did , Entrusting their Welsh development budget to him and his company , and then advising on Visa applications , Mr Samuels wasn't the only guilty party in the Celtic Crusaders shambles , there were some very twitchy bums in a big building in Leeds as well

I'd love to see Northampton prosper and by doing it from an existing sporting clubs set up makes it that much more viable long term. They're only 40 miles up the road for me so might nip over for some games though to be honest with St.Albans Cents & Hemel on my doorstep there's not a great deal of incentive to travel regularly to watch similar std rugby

I remember Crusaders coming down to us in 2006 in the Northern Rail with 30-40 fans and the side were head & shoulders above everyone in NL2. However despite their fans enthusiasm when I heard of their entry to SL in such a short space of time I knew it was a banker for it to go wrong.
The whole situation was clearly contrived & mismanaged by the RFL who should take most of the blame for trying to justify their investment in the MM project. It was obvious they were never ready, their infrastructure didn't have a sound footing and the development of the club as a whole still had some way to go to enable a full time pro club to operate/survive without having all the tribulations that they did.

Expansion must be slow & sure but if rugby league wants the game to truly become national at a pro level they have to get rid of the present encumbants who are not fit for purpose.

If the RFL stick to four new teams then I'm pretty sure that Hemel will be one of them.

Quote ="headhunter"Really? Which part do you debate? Is it that Celtic Crusaders' crowds in 2008 were higher than the majority of the league and comparable to the likes of Leigh and Halifax, despite it only being their third season in existence? Here's a link to the 2008 NL1 table with attendances if you'd like to compare: championshipstats.rlfans.com/Co- ... index.html Is it that in 2008 Celtic Crusaders finished second in NL1, and lost the Grand Final in extra time? The link above shows the final league standings, and here is a match report from the Grand Final: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 638206.stm Is it that several of the players from Celtic Crusaders' fledgling youth system in 2008 have gone on to sign for established Super League clubs? The Crusaders Colts side won the Conference National in their only season having comfortably beaten Bramley in the Grand Final, that match was played as a curtain raiser to the aforementioned NL1 Grand Final. [url=http://www.crusadersrfl.com/page.php?id=556Here[/url is a match report from that day, and here are links to the articles regarding those players moving on to Super League clubs: menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... -welsh-duo news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 211016.stm Anything else you'd like to question about my post?'" The published figures might have been better , that doesn't mean they actually attended the games And yes , their ileagal players did finish 2 nd , and yes they did manage to get some promising Rugby UNION players to try out League , but dont pretend they ' produced ' these players in the same way a heartland club is expected to , to claim them as their own ? But anybody who actually visited Brwery field knew it was a joke , even the stadium was a mess , even the bloody pitch was a mess , My son broke his bloody leg there 2 years ago because the pitch was so bloody ' boggy '

Quote ="headhunter"Really? Which part do you debate? Is it that Celtic Crusaders' crowds in 2008 were higher than the majority of the league and comparable to the likes of Leigh and Halifax, despite it only being their third season in existence? Here's a link to the 2008 NL1 table with attendances if you'd like to compare: championshipstats.rlfans.com/Co- ... index.html Is it that in 2008 Celtic Crusaders finished second in NL1, and lost the Grand Final in extra time? The link above shows the final league standings, and here is a match report from the Grand Final: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 638206.stm Is it that several of the players from Celtic Crusaders' fledgling youth system in 2008 have gone on to sign for established Super League clubs? The Crusaders Colts side won the Conference National in their only season having comfortably beaten Bramley in the Grand Final, that match was played as a curtain raiser to the aforementioned NL1 Grand Final. [url=http://www.crusadersrfl.com/page.php?id=556Here[/url is a match report from that day, and here are links to the articles regarding those players moving on to Super League clubs: menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... -welsh-duo news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 211016.stm Anything else you'd like to question about my post?'" The published figures might have been better , that doesn't mean they actually attended the games And yes , their ileagal players did finish 2 nd , and yes they did manage to get some promising Rugby UNION players to try out League , but dont pretend they ' produced ' these players in the same way a heartland club is expected to , to claim them as their own ? But anybody who actually visited Brwery field knew it was a joke , even the stadium was a mess , even the bloody pitch was a mess , My son broke his bloody leg there 2 years ago because the pitch was so bloody ' boggy '

Hemel have had a very consistant team for the last few years, they just need to get their ground sorted out (As in it's a playing field & not a particularly good one at that)
I was over at Medway Dragons earlier this year and they have a fantastic set up and after only 4 years too. they had an amazing festival of rugby in the summer with about 300 or so kids taking part at all levels. THAT is the type of thing needed amongst others as a minimum criteria before entry to even semi pro leagues.
This is happening at so many clubs in the South now, at my club St.Albans the juniors are really taking off and the player coach has been developing leagues within local schools for the past few years. Without this kind of involvment at grass roots no team can hope to survive and develop in a way that promotes the game how it should be and enable clubs to expand properly.
It just can't happen in the blink of an eye.
That's why Crusaders were doomed from the off.