Maybe the RFL should grab these people and force them at gunpoint not to 'pack in'.

It's sad to hear any team folding but especially in the season. If the York Chairman has had enough, I wonder why the RFL can't step in and run the club at least till the end of the season then take it from there. There are places that the games could have been played if the people involved and the RFL had the appetite. It also sounds like the owners have had a tough time of it as far as support from the local Council.

Real shame, great city and always enjoyed going to a pre-season friendly there. Were doing so well this year as well.

Never good to hear that a Club has gone down. Sorry to hear it. Hopefully the Club will come back in name and for York.

I don't know the numbers / $$'s but viability is critical and getting the crowds/TV back is key by making the sport highly marketable.

The AFL in Australia is booming because they made it a social sport where to really enjoy it, you must be at the game. Regular Club games of 50-100,00 don't lie in a city of only 4 million ( Melbourne ) with multiple Clubs. RU is on it's knees in Australia, and the crowds in NRL have been diminishing for years as people watch the box and play bets. There's lessons to be learned from the successful sports in Australia, France, North America and UK.

Folks have to participate and encourage the RFL to think outside the square.

FFS I'd have thought that was obvious even to your little band of SL apologists

Indeed - the key word is city.

The SL apologists on here wet themselves if you mention that a psot man in Coventry has shown an interest in RL - if his wife also shows an interest it's enough to demand a franchise and the expulsion of (Wakefield normally) from SL to make way.

Yet we have a great city like york and nobody gives a damn. Some people say there is no appetite for the game their, yet somehow there is in London where millions were wasted or lets go random Oxford!

If we let clubs with histoery within the heartland die then exspansion will never happen - that's not anti exspansion it's the truth that the exspansionist cant accept. If the roots and trunk are weak there can be no braches.

Save York now before we lose another RL City.

This makes perfect sense to me but you will still be slaughtered by the expansionists!

Except you, along with Willzay, obviously know nothing about the situation at York. You're just using it as another excuse to have a pop at the RFL about expansion and the "letting heartland clubs die" rubbish.

Even in the club statement announcing their closure, York praises the RFL for their help and assistance.

The RFL has helped York City Knights for years and whilst some blame can be thrown at City of York Council, the majority of the blame goes to the incompetent, inadequate and even ridiculous way in which York City Knights were run by their owner for years. This has been coming for a long time, their issues with the new stadium merely highlighted their problems and only hastened, rather than caused, their end.

Even now, the owner is still trying to "make a point" in his personal feud with the Council, York City and anyone else he's p!ssed off along the way by closing the club now and not at the end of the season.

The phrase "pi$$ up in a brewery" comes to mind. They bought Bradford's ground and loaned it back to them, surely they could the same with York. As for the owner, what are they doing then passing a bloke like that fit for purpose to run a RL club?

They cant really do that in York because it is the football ground as well but what I don't quite get is why they cant just go play somewhere else. I guess it would take a long time to get a deal and it obviously wouldn't be ideal but it would be better than going out of business. :-/

Like your sarcasm

This is a huge shame, I don't have the time or energy to start looking at who is to blame, I don't think anyone is coming out of this with any credit.

What I would love to see is the RFL helping the fans through the process of taking ownership of the club themselves (or starting up York City Knights: Part 2), moving the club to the ground at Heworth and going from there, even if it means having to drop down to the amateur leagues while the club is built up again. The groundsharing problems at Bootham Crescent will only surface again if someone comes in at the last minute and saves them.

On a related note I've seen comments on various forums asking if there is any demand for rugby league in York. They have averaged 594 in the league and if you take the cup games into account too the average has been 755. Might not sound much to Super League followers but it's second only to full time Toulouse. If Coventry, Oxford, Gloucester etc can survive playing at university sports facilities in front of 150-200, then York can too.

York may not have folded. Officially on the RFL site , York v Doncaster is postponed : www.rugby-league.com/kingstone_p ... -postponed When will the RFL inform us?

York may not have folded. Officially on the RFL site , York v Doncaster is postponed : www.rugby-league.com/kingstone_p ... -postponed When will the RFL inform us?

Best thing is for the RFL to fund them till the end of the year pos with a ground share at doncaster if its cheaper, allowing them to complete all their games and it wont screw up the 8's.

Might make the games more interesting as the players will be fighting for another club.

According to Doncaster, the York fixture is only postponed : doncaste.champmodel.dyndns.info/ ... -postponed York has not folded yet officially according to the RFL

According to Doncaster, the York fixture is only postponed : doncaste.champmodel.dyndns.info/ ... -postponed York has not folded yet officially according to the RFL

Except that it really doesn't make a lot of sense at all. This isn't about being pro/anti expansion or anything like that, it's about having a competition with clubs that are commercially viable. I don't care whether the sport is played in Wakefield or Winnipeg, as long as it can be entertaining, can thrive and can grow.

The situation at York stems from a range of issues, but particularly disputes with the local council, the local football club and financial challenges - all issues that the current owner has decided he doesn't want anything to do with any more. If the owner of a club decides to walk away in those circumstances, I fail to see how this could possibly be interpreted as "the RFL letting clubs die".

I also don't think it's really the RFLs place to start getting heavily involved in how clubs, privately-owned commercial interests at the end of the day, are run. The RFL's remit is to provide a sporting structure in which these clubs can operate. Beyond that, it's down the the clubs. It's certainly not, in my view, the RFL's place to act as some sort of bail-out fund.

I hadn't thought of that option. What's the chances - has it been done before ?

It made perfect sense to me. I can only speak (type) for myself.

www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... james-ford The RFL have been involved and Cas, Fev and Donny have all offered to stage their games.

www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... james-ford The RFL have been involved and Cas, Fev and Donny have all offered to stage their games.

Would it not be easier for the RFL to allow special dispensation to allow York to play their remaining 3/4 home matches at Heworth who have also offered use of their ground, keeping them within the city and allowing potential local businessmen to come and view the club? A 90 mile round trip to Doncaster to play the remaining games won't help things.

Play at Heworth, see if any players are willing to play for pride, bulk out the squad with players on loan from York Acorn until the end of the season and take things from there.

You're utterly deluded.

You and your cronies have been telling us how to run the game since SL began - in that time we have achieved virtually nothing despite having an income stream people like David Oxley could only dream about.

You've had your chance, you get proved wrong on a weekly basis but you NEVER admit you are wrong. May I suggest you zip it and let people who really know and care about the game get on with it and sort out this mess before it dies on it's feet.

You do realise that if Sky ever lose interest in our sport the game is virtually over and those clubs with the least chance of surviving are in fact your beloved flagship clubs.

And here is another on right on cue, the we know better than anyone else brigade - well you don't.

Like the fact that you don't get sarcasm.

It's the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence - his comment is not fit for purpose on either regard.

We have a situation where an egomaniac owner has decided to fold a club mid-season to send a message to a local council that he has had running battles with for years (reportedly almost all of his own making). This is the same crackpot who has issued stadium bans to half of his directors and called his own fans 'window lickers' last year. And yet you and a bunch of other Wakefield fans are here ranting and raving about the RFL for some unspecified reason. It would be funny if it wasn't sad.

Come on then genius, what's the answer to a rather questionable club owner going AWOL? How does this amount to "the RFL letting the club die"? You clearly know the answer so please enlighten us.

Sorry, but I'm with headhunter on this. If you're not going to rationally refute the points made and instead just resort to your chippy, defensive type, then you're probably not cut out for such grown-up debate.