We don't need merge get Newmarket sorted and were on our way to being a big club again. We're the only pro sports club in the city were starting to get the club run correctly and were ok. Wakey cas fev is only united by the same council other than that we've nothing in common we hate each other. A merged team would never work with more people wanting it to fail than succeed. WAKEFIELD FOREVER merged never

If only it was that simple!

Sadly this position has already been filled.
Forrard and never did have it as a job share!!!

I don't understand why we even want to mention the word mergers, especially at this time, it makes me cringe to be perfectly honest.

In less than two months, if things go to plan we'll have a chance to become the club we all deserve, how about looking at that and all the possibilities that go with it. Although the stadium isn't the be all and end all of it, with the management we have I think it will go along way to taking us where we want to be, it will be a gradual thing but I believe in a few years we can be a regular playoff team challenging for silverware.

It is we are Wakefield Trinity Wildcats we represent our City. We're not doing bad at the moment playing in a crap ground with a team were are building sponsers are increasing and getting more involved by the week, WTRLFC is a club on the up and is beginning to catch the imagination of the Wakefield public and the business community. We are doing ok and we'll do even better in the next few years we are Wakefield Trinity we're big enough on our own

My slant on it was that, it wasn't a merger. Wakefield , cas and fev would all remain and feed the representative (not merged) club.
I agree, we are improving hugely in most areas, but in reality we Weill only reach a level of at best mediocrity because the teams above us improve more or are subsidised to a level we can't achieve.
Added to this clubs will continue to take any player emerging as a talent as they can offer more, both financially and in terms of silverware and representative honours.
We are on the way to becoming a bigger club, not a big club, unless one or two suddenly have a huge shift in fortunes.

We are a team with a history of apart from two seasons, of being a poor club narrowly avoiding relegation. How is that "not doing bad"?
I know we have had our limits and less money than most and TBF to us we have done well to stay in SL.
The next fourteen years I can see is progressing, because we are a better run club, but that has a ceiling.
Eighth is possible, but that is still mediocre. It may be better than what we have now, but it's not successful.
In reality if all we can hope for is average it's time for a rethink!!

I dont agree with you KC.
If we continue to be a well run club, the business will grow and if we move into NM and achieve a "bounce" in crowd numbers to somewhere approaching 10k then there is no reason why Wakefield can not be the next Warrington.
When you look at their history, it is not too dissimilar to our own (a good team 40+ years ago, crowds of around 6500 (pre super league) and playing in an old stadium).
For now, we just need some vision and steady growth and if this happens, then perhaps in 4-5 years time we can start to properly compete.
If we can become regulars in the play-offs etc, we will attract the type of players that can take us to the next level and hopefully stop the drain of our own young talent.
Even Huddersfield, although they have an extremely wealthy owner, were unfit for SL not too long ago and now they sit at the top of the pile and appear that they may challenge for some major honours this season.
As momentum builds more fans will come our way and just as some Wakey fans drifted towards Odsal during the "Bullmania" years, we will pick up new supporters.
Roll on the return of The Mighty Trin

I disagree. Average is not a bad thing. You are wanting to go from well below average to the best. There is no silver bullet to do that. Stadium, Merger, Benefactor will all improve things but they won't just jump you to the top. Any decent business man will tell you that.

You have to grow, and from the ground up.

If we merge and take the best players we will have a good team that will compete with some of the best.............we will also have a much higher wage bill, instantly, with no extra income as you haven't gained any assets by putting the clubs together. That’s apart from the fact that we will be over the cap. The likes of Sts and Wigan do it by breeding the best, which means they start cheaper and you get “discounts” on the cap because of it.

We will have lost identity that will need to be built again. You can of course do a long lead up launch to get ready for it to generate interest, but again you would need money for that and while you are doing it you are making a lot of long-time supporters unhappy and will have to work on getting them on side as well.

On top of that you will have to lose some of the backroom and office staff, in the same way as when a business merges or takes over another. TUPE rules would apply for a start off. (More cash!) But more importantly you have a workforce that have been competing against each other for a number of years and will have lost some colleagues in the move. That’s over and above the playing staff, which will be a hard task to knit together, same as we have now.

So Merger isn’t a very quick solution at all.

Whereas if you take your initiator to do this and just apply it to the club we have now, you can build on top of existing foundations.

For the same marketing drive you would need to engage the Wakefield City public to follow a merged team, you could do the same to get them to follow the existing one. People follow trends not just success. If you can make Wakefield Trinity Wildcats the most talked about thing in Wakefield, people will come to watch. Glover and his team have proved that already. Cas proved it as well when they were relegated. They had great crowds because everybody was bonded against the common enemy and wanted to see Cas succeed again. Some Super League teams would have been proud of the attendances they got (including us!)

If I was the money man, and I was leading Wakefield, I would aim to fight on four fronts, none of which would include our neighbours.

I’d of course build a team of decent players and coach that could compete in Super League in the short term

I would invest in an infrastructure that would be a centre of excellence for young rugby talent with modern facilities and technology and personal guidance.

I would market to the whole Wakefield area on a major scale, to change the Leeds and Bradford fringe supporters into Wakefield supporters, and engage the people who we have lost over the years. This might mean offers to get them in. It might mean making the place safer for families. It might even be a case of adding more diverse entertainment on game day and the lead up.

The last one would be to make Newmarket a reality.

All four of these are currently being developed by the current administration. Some are working better than others, but they seem to be doing it. It is a quantum leap from where we have been before so they won't be able to do it instantly and may not in the end succeed if they are not good enough.

But if we achieve all this, even half way, we wouldn’t have to merge. We would be the dominant force in the area and Castleford and Featherstone would be trying to keep up and would have to take the less promising juniors and work on smaller crowds.
All these things though……need money! If you cut your cloth appropriately you can do it over time and use the money you have rather than getting in financial difficulties like Bradford. It unfortunately needs a sound plan and patient supporters.

We are the same as Warrington in many ways, but they have benefited from a seriously wealthy backer and have capitalised on the Bulls slide out of the top eight too.
It's not just about how well the club is run, that will only take us so far.
That's why I don't think it's so simple, we would need gates like Leeds to challenge teams like Leeds.
If all we can aspire to is mediocrity then it's time for a rethink!

A well written and in depth response, but the amount of money and time and the squad depletion that this strategy would take would be huge.
Build the money to spend on marketing and infrastructure would (to get us into the top 6-7) would be almost impossibly long.
We've made quick ground because all the new admin have done is change the glaringly obvious mistakes of the previous one.
Simple things done well.
But for the stuff you have included, you're talking decades and in that time there will be set backs that will hinder us every step of the way.
We will continue to lose our best players and our squad will constantly (as a result) peg back ambition.
I can't fault you on your desire and your view of a better future.
But I don't think half of what you have wrote is achievable and the other half will take longer than many forum contributors have left in the tank!!

Warrington have achieved their success in a n extremely short timescale and yes, they do have a wealthy backer but, I would suggest that their own catylist for success (apart from the ground) was a certain Tony Smith who comletely turned round their on field performances.
It really isn't so long ago that they visited BV with James Lowes in charge (I think in turned out to be his last game) and they were all over the place and yet within 4/5 seasons, they have become amongst the top 2 or 3 teams in the country.
Maybe Mr Glover should throw all of our resources at him ?

To say Tony Smith is the only thing that has made Warrington great is quite short sited, and I don't mean to be a smart bum saying that.

He was at Huddersfield as well, and I remember players at the time saying they had never been taught how to play like he did.
BUT that only got them limited success as they didn't have the infrastructure to go with him.

Warrington have achieved a few things to build their club to where they are now.

Stadium, council help, wealthy backer and a good coach have all added to get them to where they are. And even then it has taken them a few years.

Huddersfield is a good example of easy it is to forget how much work and money has been invested to get them where they are.

If I remember rightly they were prett rubbish with poor crowds and being held up by the RFL until they were relegated in 2001 (more than 10 years ago) When they came back they were bounced up and down the middle band for at least 5 years, without ever looking like making a move on the big four (or 6).
In that time though they built a club that was constantly being billed as a well run club. They made good decisions about players and especially coach but they also took a long time and game each person a real grilling to find out who was best.
They also went and found and then developed the best young players available. because of the facilities and the way they looked after them they kept them.
It is 11 years on that they are now making a run on the title.

Without the money they coudn't have done it, but it looks like proving sustainable because they put the ground work in before just spending money on the big money team.

I know we all want success, and I loved watching the likes of mark Graham and Steve Ella, and of course Wally Lewis coming to play for us when we splashed some cash......and would love to see that again. But if it is an either or, I'd rather see slightly better each year and end up with a team of Wakefield/West Yorkshire youngsters that are the best available and are pushing the top clubs.

Sinfield, Burrow and McGuire and now Watkins and Hardaker could easily have gone elsewhere. They didn't go to Leeds because they were a successful club as when they joined they weren't really that successful. They joined because they thought or were shown a development plan for themselves that would make them better and a plan to make Leeds a top team again.
Bringing that youth team through was the best thing Leeds did in 20-30 years.

No reason why we can't do the same.

I do seem to be writing long posts today. I will try to be more succinct


I'm enjoying the conversation though. Some good points being made on both sides.

Maybe I was beigng a little too simplistic but, the point remains that success is achieveable with good management and vision.
It certainly isn't easy and we have to assume that while we make progress, the big boys wont stand still. I know that there is a plan for
Wakey being able to spend the full cap and this will certainly help but, going slightly o/t, I would like to see us with fewer imports and relying
more on British players, but suplimented with just 2 or 3 top quaklity imports.
In the longer term, this will help with the stability of the club and the squad and hopefully make the future on Wakefield Trinity much brighter.

Course you want your team to win things and be successful but IF that doesn't happen I'd rather have what we have than some hybrid pretend team that I'll have no passion for, might as well go support Leeds Rhino's if all you want is success.

Agreed

A merger is a non starter. It would take a minimum of a generation for it to show any signs of working and the lack of interest would mean it would die a death long before then. For me its Wakefield or nothing and that wouldn't change. The afinity to a hybrid club just wouldn't be there and i'd wager that would be the majority verdict for supporters of all three clubs.

Not sure this is as true as it used to be. Generally people are a lot more careful about what they spend their money on and how they spend their leisure time. If you could get a Super League side challenging for honours in a top quality stadium then you would rapidly eclipse the crowds that any of the three currently get or are likely to in the near future. I'm not saying that none of the clubs could achieve this over a longer period of time but a merger would be the shortest possible route to success and that is what the majority of people crave these days instant success/fame regardless of affinity/achieving something.

In all honesty, if all people wanted was to watch a team they have no affinity with who have a good chance of success, there is club just miles North they can go and support. In my opinion a merged team would not unite the Wakefield District any more than a loan Cas, Trinity or Featherstone would. Its far too parochial.

I crave success for Wakefield, nobody else, I wouldn't spend my money to watch a team that wasn't mine no matter how successful they are. Maybe thats just me but it would be me done should there be a merger. Actually maybe i should actually support the notion, i'd be quids in every year!!!

Wakefield Trinity or nothing for me, we're on the verge of a new stadium and a better future. There's only 3 big clubs in RL Wigan Leeds and hull FC & we have the potential playing in decent stadia to be in the saints Warrington hull kr Bradford bracket. Put it this way if we'd have had the success saints have had in recent times we'd be getting bigger crowds than them. Why will a merged team be a success why will it have loads of money I doubt the RFL would give it 3 clubs worth of money, where will the thousands come from to support it and where will it play the community stadium at NM it will be classed as a wakefield team which cas & fev wouldn't follow or vice versa playing at cas or fev & who'll build a stadium in normy? Probably with the fantasy millions the merged club would get.
We are an awakening sleeping giant on the verge of a new community stadium in the City of wakefield as it home we are the famous Wakefield Trinity and thats who I support and nobody else

I'm sure we all know of plenty of Wakefield based leeds fans I know I do. I know that those of us on here would not entertain a merger and the same with the hardcore from the other clubs but this only makes up a very small percentage of the overall possible support for a merged team. Those who point towards Sheffield/Huddersfield and Hull/Gateshead as evidence that mergers don't work don't take into account the fact that these were long distance mergers where the opposing fans really did have no connection to. I understand that there would be much opposition and also that it will probably never happen but I don't think it would be the dead duck that some folk are suggesting.

I think the general consensus is that the RFL want just one team from the Wakefield area. There is no reason why that shouldn't be us if we get Newmarket. We are averaging over 8K in a poor ground and with a team performing poorly. That is the best indicator of potential. I agree that a merged team would do no better, as I think Cas fans would be most resistant, and if there was a merged team at Newmarket I reckon another Cas club would spring up and attract the support.

With a new ground and the route to the top flight for all the local talent in a real heartland, there would be so much potential. There is certainly a groundswell building for reducing the number of teams in the league. It crops up on Sky frequently. We have to make sure that we are not ones for the chop next time. A completed Newmarket would help with that.

The only problem I have with the view that there are just a few clubs with a chance each year takes a very time-limited view, an unfair snapshot. You don't have to go back far to include Warrington and Huddersfield in the "no hope" section, and not far at all to find Salford and Hull KR in a different division altogether.

This.

How would a merged team be the shortest route to success? it sounds really naive to think that you can stick 3 teams together and bang success. IMO it would take years and years to even get people round to the idea and then in the mean time you'd probably have a lot less support than either us or Cas.

Who's in charge of this club will have a huge say in whether it would be any success at all because even though you'd have the starting point of one big cub in the area you'd still need a bit of money man behind it. I believe it would take more messing round and would take longer to turn a hybrid club into a top side than the one we currently have.