Quote ="Wembley71"Getting there... migration but also commuting and commerce, hence someone from Warrington is more likely to work in Liverpool or Manchester, or at least live next door to someone who does. As you say, culture is learned and led, but it's also changed by interaction between cultures, and those interactions (from permanent migration to daily communting) follow arterial transport routes. The axis of influence across the north of England goes Liverpool - Manchester - Bradford - Leeds - Hull.
I was speaking to the Leeds Met and GB Students Coach, Paul Fletcher, a couple of months ago, he says it's a doddle for him because all the kids in the north want to study in amongst the big city nightlife of Leeds or Manchester, so they get a huge pool of RL players even without trying... then their reputation for excellence brings in any waverers.
Warrington has a large base but it's pulled every which way. It's a hub but not a destination. On the plus side, it can attract talent but on the minus side, it doesn't have the same insular focus on its own traditions.
Wigan is smaller but more self-contained. It has a much more concentrated sporting tradition in RL, even with a Premier league soccer team and a couple of mainline stations and nearby motoway links, because the East-West axis is more important, and because the conjuction of E/W with N/S in Warrington is most important. It also has a finer tradition, particularly of 'recent' success through the 1980's and early 90's, when this generation of parents were children and teenagers.
The RL culture in Wigan is stronger than Warrington, and its big enough that its numbers are greater. The tradition in Leigh is arguably stronger than both, in percentage terms, but there's just not enough people in Leigh, and as the top of the pyramid is represented by clubs out of town, we lose the pinnacle of our talent. We are the worst placed club in Lancashire in that respect... South is Warrington, North is Wigan, West is St Helens, East is Salford. Only Batley and Dewsbury are similarly ringfenced by top teams.
To Sky, Crusaders are so important because they bring in thousands of casual Welsh viewers, who already subscribe to Sky for the Union, but who add to the value of the advertising spaces during the RL games. They also bring in lots of media coverage in the welsh press for a product (SL) that Sky have exclusive rights to.
Quins are vital because they are a presence in the capital, which has a population of 7million and a 9-to-5 population of 20 million, or 1/3 of the whole island population. I heard somewhere recently that Sky's RL coverage has more viewers in London than in the north. Wouldn't surprise me... there are just so many more people there. London is the 3rd biggest Australian city by population. Leeds, Bradfut, the Hulls and Salford are big city clubs. Wigan, Saints and Warry are successful RL die-hard towns. The rest are pretty much interchangeable.'"
But Warrington being a commuter hub doesnt explain why they cannot get large crowds and create its own youth as they have 2 large amatuer clubs 3 if you class Callands. Leigh doesnt have a transport link as good as Warringtons but then again it is a quater of the size and considering it has good transport links itself puts itself in a similar position to Warrington if you can compare the adverse affect of the commuters may have on the area in relation to the size of the 2 towns.
I still think Leigh has as much to offer as an awful lot of SL teams due to the tradition, local game, continuous supply of quality youngsters, fanbase and stadia (which is the point I was making at the start
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