That's exactly what rob Parker is doing.

Nankivell prepare to be shot down.

For what its worth while its not what the majority of users of this forum will want to hear its a thunderbolt of reality.

I’m not going to shoot him/her down as he/she as the right to their opinion, and I hope we look after his/her son, wish him well and hope he enjoys his time with us.

But for me the main crux about no P&R etc it’s not about if we are good enough, it’s that it removes the sense of occasion, the special tingle in fans and players bellys. You can’t compare teams at the very top.

I couldn’t tell you our league position, as I haven’t looked at the league table once this season it simply doesn’t matter where we are, but I do know that the team I’ll be shouting for tonight at Ewood are 16th probably no chance of promotion

and more likely if they don’t buck their ideas up could still be relegated. (Even though tonight’s game is about a possible visit to Wembley

beating the Pie's there would be a Brucey bonus

)

I work in W!g@n and if you talk to their fans they’ll tell you they got better and rallied together because they had a season not too long ago where it looked at one point they could be relegated. That’s what sports supposed to be about players full of commitment, wanting/needing to win and fans going watching nervously because it matters, because we could 'win' promotion, because we could be relegated. Because we could win the Cup (50/1 Rovers



).

Interestingly I heard on the radio last week that Rangers (the Scottish lot not the Miners) are considering going to the European Court, as they beLeighve that preventing them from joining the English leagues is an illegal restriction of their Business under the European fair trade laws, it was mentioned that the impact of this should they win would have a similar effect of the Bosman ruling, and leagues all over Europe would not be allowed to put in place restrictive regulations that prevent clubs playing in whatever league. Whether this would apply to licensing rules for SL is currently anyone’s guess.

However the poster is correct in most of his points.

Time for the old boys at the RFL to go and bring in someone who will save a dying game, as if you look accross the board, even SL the attendances are down. Theres a thread on the VT with the SL and Championship attendences on.

The longer the set up remains the same, everyone attendances will begin to wane, even Fevs will decline again when they get rejected.
It was said at our LISA meeting we take 300 fans plus to away games but no one ever bring that many to ours.

You won't hear Leeds fans moaning about not being able to get promoted because they are in the top league and they have a chance to play in finals at Wembley and Old Trafford. I think you would hear them moaning if someone suggested they should twin with the NRL clubs, thus making SL a reserve league for NRL teams. That's not a bad idea - Hetherington and Nigel :O)

The problem for Champ sides is that they are playing in front of ever decreasing crowds because the top prize has been taken away from them and their promising young players get snapped up by top teams in SL. We just want a level playing field so that every team in Rugby League has a chance to aspire to the very top. If you see that as moaning, that is your perspective. I see it as supporters fighting for their clubs right to have a chance to get to the very top, which has been taken away from them.

Please dont get me wrong im all for P&R but am a realist the old days of yo yo teams bouncing up and down divisions getting tonked every week by 60 and 70 points are the last thing any sporting competition needs. What in all honesty is the reality of our club ever being ready for SL within the foreseeable future (barring a wealthy investor coming on board and investing crazy amounts of money)???? not to mention the fact other teams are in a far better position on and off the field and have been for many years now to make pomotion and relegation irelivant to us anyway.

When we all take off our Centurions tinted glasses and look at the big picture the reality is all we have is a Stadium (which is not our asset as we own it) and what else in all honesty that SL is really looking for????

The club is being run on charity and hand outs with volenteers in key roles doing what they can in thier spare time (which i respect 100%) but its not a foundation for full time professional RL.

Regards restriction on trades franchising was voted in by the clubs so i fail to see how anyone fighting against it would have a leg to stand on.

With the best will in the world and respect to Rob whos a great lad and has been a fantastic RL player he isnt a buisness manager nor a commercially driven guy.

Ive no doubt hes giving the role 110% effort and comitment and ive no idea what kind of deal hes struck to carry out the role but could we not have been smarter here?

Quote ="Starbug"While you are correct to a degree Graham , it is pointless worrying about things you have no control over , all you can do is do your best to expoit what you do have some control over , I'm sure at some point in your business life you were in a similar position , did you give up , or did you find the solution ?'" When things were taken out of my control, as they have to a degree with all Champ sides, and I lost my business and life savings, I changed tack and I wrote and self published a novel for secondary school children. It is called TOM O'KELL AND THE SHAMAN'S DRUM and is available on LULU.COM and AMAZON. It will soon be available on WWW.TOMOKELL.COM, maybe in a couple of weeks. I am also trying to get it into Waterstones. Someone who read it wrote me a two page letter saying that she couldn't put the book down and that it is a lot scarier and darker than HARRY POTTER. Maybe the club could invite me down to do a book signing if they can get enough children interested and make some money from it. Maybe there is someone out there who wants to invest in marketing the book and sponsoring me to write the sequel, TOM O'KELL AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE JACKAL. I had to get my advert in :O)

Quote ="Starbug"While you are correct to a degree Graham , it is pointless worrying about things you have no control over , all you can do is do your best to expoit what you do have some control over , I'm sure at some point in your business life you were in a similar position , did you give up , or did you find the solution ?'" When things were taken out of my control, as they have to a degree with all Champ sides, and I lost my business and life savings, I changed tack and I wrote and self published a novel for secondary school children. It is called TOM O'KELL AND THE SHAMAN'S DRUM and is available on LULU.COM and AMAZON. It will soon be available on WWW.TOMOKELL.COM, maybe in a couple of weeks. I am also trying to get it into Waterstones. Someone who read it wrote me a two page letter saying that she couldn't put the book down and that it is a lot scarier and darker than HARRY POTTER. Maybe the club could invite me down to do a book signing if they can get enough children interested and make some money from it. Maybe there is someone out there who wants to invest in marketing the book and sponsoring me to write the sequel, TOM O'KELL AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE JACKAL. I had to get my advert in :O)

You seem to have it summed up nicely there, and it hurts like hell, but we really don't have a chance of the 2015 place should there still be one in SL .

Dick it gives me no pleasure i assure you, like you say it really does hurt but reality always does.

If that is the case, why is it that you are still one of the most active and frequent posters across this website? Sorry to hear that you feel that way about the sport, hope your views change at some point in the future.

You are Neville Chamberlain and i claim my £5.

Lets hope the current directors are a bit more Churchillian.

Blinkered.

They also have the personal gratuntees(sp) with the bank, so why should they put in more?

Genuine question as I don't know, but was it or was it just SL clubs?

The SL clubs had 2 votes and the Champ clubs only counted as 1 vote so the SL clubs voted in favour of franchising to ensure their snouts stayed firmly in the trough and the rest of the clubs could then take part in a SL reserve competition a few years further down the line. The SL clubs don't give a toss about the rest of Rugby League and it cuts their costs to run a SL reserve league by twinning with Champ clubs.

This is pretty much how i understood it but bottom line is a vote was carried out a majority reached and the rest as they say is history.

The point being made even had the not brought in franchising we would not have been in SL since 2005 and are not in a position now to go into SL now if they scraped it so its not relevant to were we find ourselves at the moment anyway.

Let Sheffield, Featherstone and Halifax worry about SL lets concentrate on building a team lub that can run without having to put its hand out every couple of months and bring in fans and sponsership and maybe even an investor with a long term goal of maybe one day having the right structures in place to launch a realistic bid and not one based on hope and blinkered belief.

Voting system is designed to favour SL clubs even if all championship clubs vote against. The double vote of the SL clubs carries it everytime. So not really a vote at all

It wouldn’t matter anyway, we voted for the British government but have had rules overturned by the European Courts, as I said in an earlier post the fall out from the Rangers Court case (if they decided to act) [ucould[/u have implications to a wide range of leagues/business.

Who says you have to be part of a Franchise to be part of RL’s elite?

Do you have to have a Franchise to open a store selling Burgers in London’s West End or the Champs-Élysées?

I have avoided this particular site for several months ( just getting drawn in again when frustration gets the better of me ) and as I put last night, I will be taking a ' sabatical ' after this post,

I enjoy the VT ' mind games ' and discussions on other boards on mostly administration issues, as for watching, I might take in the odd match as a neutral, my last 2 being the Salford v Wakey game at the LSV and prior to that the Swinton v Fax game , but ultimatly I see a very bleak future for RL, especially at non SL level

Anyway loads to do so cherrio for now, maybe stick my nose in again in the close season

Do that and we end up as a SL reserve team in the new wonderland created by the RFL.

We need to increase income and secure investment to win a franchise next year, if they are not scrapped - if we fail then I pray its two tens and we are in the second tier

Agree totally, pretty much sums it up.

To do either, the club needs to increase income. Investment would be great if a wealthy investor like Dr Koukash could be found. But they are very few and far between, so don't hold your breath.

Somehow, the imaginations of the people of Leigh need to be stimulated to want to support the team. There are all sorts of ways that can be tried to achieve that, but combined with attractive hospitality packages for corporates, in and around the town, it should be possible to build up the necessary coffers to support the team that the presently few hard core fans desperately want. It will not, however, happen overnight.

A good Challenge Cup or National Rail Cup run would help, but frequent wins in the Championship should also be an attraction. Instead of looking at the negatives, "big up" the Championship competition and take a serious look at when you will host home matches.

Last weekend, to me, was a disaster from Leigh's point of view. There were 5 SL matches being played at the same time as they played. Also, to what extent the announcement of cash shortage affected the players is a ponderable.

I have read that many prefer Saturday evening. It wouldn't be my choice because Saturday evening is frequently a time when couples will go for a meal, or to see a band or just go for a few drinks. Also, Sky, more often than not, will televise a match on Saturday evening. My preferred choice would be Sunday afternoon. But that means nothing! Has anybody canvassed the preferences of the people of Leigh?

Advertising and marketing are major issues which need to be addressed. The club seem to have recognised that one of its players is probably the Championship's nearest thing to Super League's Sam Tompkins, but do the people of Leigh know that?

PS. And he's not my son!

So far as Glow's comments about the Wigan fans are concerned, I can confirm that at that time I was a season ticket holder at Wigan.

Ian Millward was coach, having been at St Helens for a number of years, and most of the fans welcomed him with open arms. At the beginning of what should have been his first full season, the team played very badly. An insider at the club told me that this was principally down to the new conditioning regime that Millward and his conditioner had introduced and that the players actually didn't feel strong enough to compete.

As a, then, Wigan fan, I was never in any fear that they would be relegated, nor did I get that impression from any of the fans around me. Most had cherry and white eye balls and despite the poor performances, the team could do no wrong! To suggest that the threat of relegation drove the fans to greater passion and support is, in my opinion and direct experience, a total myth.

I can only go off those I know and my MD and his family plus others I work with where concerned but it’d not be the first time that I’ve been wrong.





However it’s no wonder I get confused……………..