The ‘House Full’ notices are set to be posted at Bloomfield Road on Sunday July 12 for the first time since the Northern Rail Cup rolled into Blackpool four years ago.

With 10 days to go before the home of Blackpool FC hosts the finals of the Northern Rail 9s and the Northern Rail Cup final between Widnes Vikings and Barrow Raiders, just a handul of tickets remain unsold.

Widnes, who are priced at 4-7 favourites to win the Northern Rail Cup by bookmakers William Hill, have already sold out of their allocation of 3,757 tickets, while fewer than 100 tickets are still available from Barrow, are 5-4 outsiders.

Although both clubs have sold nearly all their allocation, the RFL is holding in reserve a number of tickets for the supporters of the four clubs involved in the finals of the inaugural Northern Rail 9s tournament, the earlier rounds of which will be staged at Fylde RUFC club on Saturday and Sunday, July 11 and 12.

“The Northern Rail Cup and the Northern Rail 9s have really captured the imagination of the rugby league public and we’re looking forward to a fantastic finals day at Blackpool,” said Phil Williams, the Rugby Football League’s Marketing Manager.

“The Northern Rail Cup finalists will be well supported and it would be great to see the fans of the teams who will contest the Northern Rail 9s trophy final and plate final be there to get behind their club at Bloomfield Road.”

The RFL expects some tickets to be made available for general sale at Blackpool from noon on the day of the Northern Rail finals but are urging supporters to move quickly to guarantee their place at Blackpool.

A limited number of tickets are still available from the RFL Ticket Hotline on 0871 226 1313.

So it’s not actually sold out then, and tickets are being held back for sale until the amount of people who upgrade from the x9’s on Saturday is known. Then they’ll just release whatever is left over one the day of the game and fans will have to travel all the way to Blackpool and hope they can get a ticket in time.

Being Scousers, your lot will probably just jump the gates anyway.

Could be worse. We could be pie eating Mancs like you.

I think Matts on a wind up tonight, seems to be cracking a few jokes and baiting with low blows.


Ill let him off though as he has it tough following the Centurions.

Being a Mancunian won't help either.

Well your lot won't have the need for such skills given that you won't be in the final

I am not prepared to let anyone off calling me a scouser.

Good on ya Bertie lad.

Probably a bit harsh that mate on reflection, hence the edit being used. Mat normally posts reasonable stuff, so decided to retract my bold statement.

Dunno why I was quoted in your original post.

From the release they seem pretty confident this will sell out, which suggests that they haven't held 2k back for the 9's tournament, as that would be a risk, and why would they post this.

A positive for you though is that there are still some on sale, so hopefully none of your fans should miss out.

Good news if it is a sell out. Fancy that, take two traditional RL teams and they manage to sell out a final. Im sure the RFL will come up with a stupid idea to stop this happening again.

Dont forget though that this year there is an extra incentive to winning the NRC that it did not previously have



Just as getting to the GF will in some ways be more important than actually winning it

That reminds me of an article a long time back in a Widnes Programme, I cannot remember who quoted it:

"When we win we are scouse s but when we lose we are the World Champions"

Thought I'd share that slice of nostalgic banter with you....

So, a week on Sunday at about 5:15pm, I'll be staring in wide eyed, open-mouthed wonderment at a packed out stadium that is bursting at the seems?



The RFL were turning down Widnes fans since the day after we won the Semi-Final, when they rang up for final tickets. They were saying they were sold out then!



Unless Barrow and Widnes fans have been buying up all the x9's tickets that were allocated to the other clubs, I would think it unlikely to be a total sellout.

We'll see

Can't disagree with that, I would expect a few empty seats, however if they have held 2k back, they would be mad to announce an expected sellout.

The fact that they say they have held tickets back for the four finalists of the nines suggests they have only held a few hundred back for that. Makes me think that they have got rid of most of the other tickets through partners and sponsors on top of Widnes and Barrow selling theirs.