great post.

Did Santa drop of your rose tinted glasses early or have we been having a little christmas drink too early??

You keep trying to tell yourself that Wakey still have a better application than Cas. Full planning permission will go in by next week for the Glasshougton site, not outline PP. Money is in place and the project is ready to go. I can not honestly believe that you think Wakey have the best application after yesterday's news.

I'll take your word for it but £11.5m seems light even in these competitive times. Newmarket was mentioned at £20m - high in my opinion - but there looked more in the Stadium at Glasshoughton so I'm surprised at £11.5m but we live and learn.

All the £11.5m (Fully's price) is in place to build the Stadium. Thats great news for you but just out of curiousity where is the £11.5m coming from ? I'm aware that the Council has put up land to allow a loan facility of £2m. Ben Bailey have an option on Wheldon Road but that will only be bought once Outline consent has been obtained and at today's market value which is well down on the peak values of 3/4 years ago when they took out the option.

Not my business but just curious.

Gloat all you like - I still say the final statement in that press release will not happen.


Or at least announce another deadline that they will probably fail to meet.

I hope that the appeal is successful and you get your stadium.

Here is my suggestion how it could work.

Plans for Newmarket re submitted for a much smaller and modest scheme of purely the industrial units and nothing more. These are all on the old pit site which would be much less contraversial. The much smaller planning gain from this would be given to glasshoughton.

Add to that the other £2M that should have gone to us and then you may just about there.

Infacts its back to where we were about 8 months ago

According to Fully the cost of your stadium is £11.5million pound, [uyou say the project is ready to go[/u that means that your club must have already sold WR and got the rest of the financial package sorted for you, and you have been sitting on £9.5million pounds until now, and that the £2million Wakey council has released to you will ensure your total funding according to that, thats good news for you, but don't you think that you would be better off on your own board trying to convince your own sceptics instead of trying to convince people on here who quite frankly atm could not care less hth.

If you read the post, you will see that I said that if Cas start building and have the funds to complete, then the Cas application is stronger, undoubtedly. I just have a suspicion, however, that planning permission is being obtained to demonstrate an intention, not an ability. If you have just planning permission, then I am not sure the RFL will buy it. And before you say it, I do think that you would spend money on getting planning permission even if you can't build, because without it your franchising application is dead in the water.

If you don't demonstrate an ability to complete, then on paper our application will be stronger, as we will be in a Super League quality stadium, and you won't.

I'm not being rose-tinted. Today, would rather be in Cas's shoes than ours, but that doesn't mean we are finished, and it doesn't mean that you are home and dry.

I'm just enjoying life in general at the moment and getting into the Christmas mood. Its been a good couple of days so far for me. I almost believe in Santa again.

Belle Vue has been sold and half the money received and spent. We are homeless at the end of the season as Cala homes will be wanting their land.

Demotion to the championship will leave a funding gap for Newmarket as the councils £2million land loan is based on us being in superleague and its requirement to upgrade stadia. It is highley likely to be withdrawn in July 2011should we miss the franchise. The same goes for Cas. So I would guess theres a chance that for whoever gets the chop their stadium may never happen, condeming them to a life in the lower leagues for many years, should they survive.

Thanks for that fella. Wish more Castleford supporters were more sensible about all of this as you seem to be. The gloating and lack of class shown by some has been really bad.

Thank you Richard. I do think the gloating is out of order from some people and that is a shame that this happens. There are plenty of us who wish Wakefield well with getting permission for your new stadium and hopefully the Secretary of State will do the right thing by Wakefield Trinity and give you the go-ahead.

Lets hope the RFL let you continue in SL with your plan B but not at the expense of ourselves obviously, personally i think the Wrexham lot deserve to lose their place,

Finally i was curious what SWAG stands for.......


Supporters Without A Ground perhaps???

sorry....couldnt resist

Enjoy it then while you can then squire, I noticed you chose to ignore the bit about all your funding being in place

perhaps you are another one that cannot determine fact from fantasy.

which stadium in Castleford is this?

As things stand at the moment Castleford are fractionally better off than Wakefield Trinity are, indeed it could be argued that due to the funding crisis at Castleford they may be further away from a stadium than Wakefield are.

I hope that that isn't the case and that Castleford can solve their funding problems, get their new stadium and retain their super league place but to suggest that Wakefield Trinity's board of directors have done their club and the fans an injustice by not going Glasshoughton is ill informed and myopic.

What like you were when you were all saying the PP will fly through, it was said all along that it would go to a PI but no ....... Get real, I'd wager when yorkcourt realise the costs in this process they will bail out !

Fractionally ???????? What exactly do you own ?

Its not an appeal at this stage, Its been called in to the Secretary of State to decide, if he decides against it, then there can be an appeal, You could be talking years in this process

We don't own anything at the moment but we will have a super league standard stadium to play in from 2012 onwards (probably Oakwell) whereas i wouldn't be so sure about cas having a super league standard stadium to play in.

How do you know you'll have a SL standard stadium to play in in 2012. You have nothing. You're out of Hearapindrop stadium end of next year and are homeless. Sleeping on a mates sofa really won't do. YOU have nothing but an eviction notice for September 2011.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas...

And arent you so happy about that. Stop with the gloating stuff because if GH does not come off you could look silly. Just think about if your club was in trouble and how you would feel.

what's that got to do with it?

Castleford have outline planning permission, the £2 million contribution underwritten by Wakefield Council, an old contract with Ben Bailey homes that isn't worth the paper it's written on. If and when Castleford finally apply for full planning permission Im sure they [iwill[/i be successful in obtaining it but then comes the problems of actually funding the build which Castleford cannot do at this moment in time.

That in my opinion is as big of a hurdle as the public enquiry issues that Wakefield Trinity have and as lI suggested in my previous post it could be viewed as more serious and potentially more difficult to overcome.

The big issue for me is the timing of the franchise decisions and the different way the two clubs are viewed from the outside. It is my honest opinion that the two clubs are of very similar standing in most aspects with one being strong in one area but weaker in another. Unfortunately for Wakefield I don't believe that my opinion is shared by those people who will make the decision about franchises and therefore Castleford will get the nod ahead of Wakefield.

I'm not trying to say that Castleford don't deserve their place in super league, of course they do, and believe me or not if the roles were reversed and Castleford were omitted from the super league I would be as disgusted as I will be if it were Wakefield.

As a rugby league fan I am dismayed by the franchise process and believe it's only a matter of time before we return to traditional promotion and relegation. Unfortunately I believe there will be irreparable damage done in the meantime to a number of clubs and obviously to my own club Wakefield Trinity should they be unlucky enough to lose their place in super league this time round.

Had Steve O'Conner not been around to rescue Widnes they may have been another traditionally successful and historic club to have been destroyed by this ridiculous process.

Some might suggest that I'm only saying this because Wakefield are in jeopardy but that's not the case, I've voiced my disgust and concern about this in the past.

You said Cas were fractionally better off than wake didnt you, i asked the question what do you own ? Am mi not allowed to ask that ?

Go on what do WTW own ?