Other than the season ticket holders who had paid for the game already who paid then Pepe me old mucka?

Zilch I believe to be the correct figure. Enlighten me who else did.

And as your Chairman is now giving you an extra game next season for free to season ticket holders it is in theory a game which everybody has had for free. Provided the season ticket holders renew and don't jump ship.

Your site says -

"Whilst in the short term this will only benefit non-season ticket holders, it is my intention to offer an additional one game discount to those season ticket holders who renew for 2010 in the ‘early bird' period when it is announced."

Tell me where I am wrong please?

See, it wasn’t too difficult was it?


You’ve answered it youself. 2,000 season ticket holders.

Well done.


No I paid for that game, as did 2,000 other st holders. What happens next season happens next season. It’s not like the RFL have to do it for us, or anything as worrying as that, is it?

Right you are, now congratulations on less than half filling your ground by throwing your doors open and offering free entry. Well done.

I was genuinely please with your turn out on Saturday. Lots of youngsters there too. Well done.

Yes me too.

If you get close on 3,000 home fans for a team that did not exist in any form 4 years ago then I think that is a good thing.

Are there any other rugby league teams that can say they have attracted that many new fans in that space of time, and I don't mean returning fans who stopped going because they sold so and so etc etc. I don't think there are as even Les Cats had teams there before.

and the crowd for the leigh widnes? with how far to travel?

Hence the reason you havent had any Leigh fans on here bagging yours

We however have different problems to you

Best of luck

and givent he crusaders were given a licence, have the advantages of superleague marketing, the backing of the sky machine far greater than the clubs outside SL, the advantages of quota dispensation and the freedom of not being relegated - you feel it's a worthy comparison to make having less than 3k for a home game with trying to galvanise hope from fans of clubs who were long ago excluded from all the above???

You may - I don't!

Omg you lot are still bitching about the licenses. Move on for flips sake.

What a daft comment! Like I'm going to say "aye ok - the RFL have shat upon us but it's ok now lads - lets move on eh"??
errrr NO! Not until the wrong has been righted!!

But that wasn't the thrust of my post as well you know young man. The argument (by now on this thread) is the comparisons made to the <3K crowd crusaders can attract compared with that of NL clubs.

I also found it a little ironic that when the reverse argument was made about Crusaders crowds compared to other clubs in the NL, the crusaders fans (rightly) were quick to defend the fact that freebies were handed out and that those figures should be included in substantive comparisons.
Yet - when the Vikins achieved 5k through their initiative it was rounded upon by the same group of fans!!! only a side issue and hardly important in the great scheme of life!

My dad always used to say - "it'll either rain or get dark afoore t'morning lad"!! Wise man me dad!!!

What Leigh get is their problem. Perhaps you'd like to take that up with them.


Widnes had 4,354 paying spectators at home to Leigh.




That's right. The licences have been handed out. I'm quite happy to wait another 3 years and see what happens then. I'm not moaning about Celtic.

You do know why we were rewarded the licenses don't you?

Yh that question was to FEv fan btw.

I don't believe the assessments and conclusions of what criteria were satisfield have ever been made public in their entirity. They weren't last time I asked.

Again not really relevant cos we have them. Even if Fev had one I'd still be voicing opposition to them.
Maybe it's your age - you aren't old enough to have seen the crusaders compete and occasionally succeed against all odds yet. It may happen and you may have a life long afinity with the crusaders (or any other club).
If that opportunity is ever removed from you, you[i may[/i understand how many of us feel.

It would be right if all fans of all clubs had that hope - then some of the crowds may return and you would see some comparable statistics.

Look I'm 15 and I've missed 3 home games since they were made and never been to an away game. And yes I feel your pain. But im simply saying What was done was done now get over it and move on.

And you didn't answer my question.
You probaly won't so heres the answer, its pretty simple.

To expand the game and to get more professional teams and more fans in Wales.And if Scotland get a pro team and the franchise system opens up again that Scottish team will get it for the exact same reasons.

Best of luck to your season.

And Pepe can catch me out here if he remembers what i said to him last night

First of all I do understand your pain.

Widnes, Leigh and Fev are great clubs in their own right. They have history, a fan base and on paper a lot more going for them than Celtic Crusaders.

If we could choose to be in Super League by another means and have promotion and relegation then we would do. Whether that would include the other clubs then that would be down to winning promotion.

Sometimes it is easy for me to tar everybody with the same brush. If a Widnes fan has a go at me then it is all too easy and sometimes logical to have a go at their club rather than them personally as that is what they have done to you and is the only thing you really know about them. You know nothing other than the club they support so it is the only option to have a go at their club and fight fire with fire.

Don't get me wrong here if I was to see a Widnes fan, Leigh fan, Fev fan whoever I would prefer to have a chat and a drink with them over what we call 'plastic' Liverpool, Man United, Chelsea football fans down here who think a replica shirt and Sky subscription makes them a fan. It doesn't. Your average rugby league fan loves the game. They don't love it for what it can give to them as your football fan would. For this reason I find a lot of rugby league fans knowledgeable and passionate. The total opposite to those football fans I spoke of earlier.

We have got the franchise. Not really our fault. If the opportunity was there I would like anybody to find a rugby league club that would not take the opportunity presented to them if it was there. Maybe we were ready, maybe evidence suggests we were not. The big thing for me was, it was now or never. If we did not get Super League this time I think the next go at rugby league down here would be away in the future if ever again. We had the opportunity and took it with both hands. Progression in Super League will take time but the work is being done and thing are being planned and I think we will succeed this time.

Rugby League needs to be expanded whether people like it or not. Union has bypassed league in so many ways over the years change needs to be made for the good of the game. To get a good share of the sponsorship, TV and whatever other revenue we need to expand. A good example of this is this year there are Brains Beer advertising boards at every Super League, Championship and Championship 1 ground I believe. Would this have been achievable without Crusaders involvement in Super League and Brains taking notice of rugby league and putting their money into sponsorship. No way. Why would a Welsh company that sells the vast majority of its product in Wales sponsor a sport that has no Welsh participation. In short it wouldn't. If you think it would then look outside the sport. The only other sporting teams they sponsor are Wales Union and Glamorgan County Cricket.

People think they can put us down with a 'what do Crusaders bring to Super League?' question. Hundreds of children playing rugby league who haven't played the game previously. 3,000 or so fans who pay to watch a game between a Welsh team who didn't exist 4 years ago and one they won't have heard of 4 years ago. Sponsorship from companies that had no involvement with Super League previously and have put money into the game in general and not kept it within the Welsh club. There aren't many teams who can say that. Just taking one point of children playing the game. In your Widnes or Leigh area children would have played rugby regardless. Not all make it but most children at one point or other play rugby league. No children down here will have played rugby league before the forming of the Crusaders. The club now have reserves, U-18, U-16 and 4 foundation regional squads feeding into the U-16's. That is around 175 Welsh lads who have not even played rugby league before Crusaders.

I have no axe to grind with any other fans and would love to get on great. Arguments escalate and things get said that people should not. I like Widnes as a club, always have with what JD has done there and a few other Welsh greats. It is nothing against Widnes personally. If Saints had a go at my club I would react by having a pop at their club. There is no particular agenda against a certain club, it just happens to be the club we get most negativity and put downs from.

All I will say is the fans who do not agree with us being in SL and ask what we bring to rugby league, just scratch the surface and see it for what it is. A new club in a new area that are achieving things all the time. If rugby league does not expand it will stagnate. It will have no appeal outside of the founding areas and will be frozen out of TV money, and international sponsorship by forward thinking sports like union and football. We need to keep pace and whether people like it or not we need to expand to do this.

If somebody puts a structured argument to us then I will try to debate and give answers the best I can and as honest as I can. When the debate starts and ends with 'What do Celtic Crusaders bring to Super League?' then a bit of research would go a long way.

Well said!!!!

Like I said "Expanding the game".

Like if a new welsh professional team was made in Bridgend for example, they would start of in the lower leagues like the Ithsmian, or what its called, Bridgend fc ,or what name they chose, wouldnt have many fans. But if they got promoted more fans would go.

And I would go and support them as their would be local and I love football.

maybe you do, maybe you don't. A very considered reply all the same and some very valid points.
Trawl the forum all you will and you will not find me having a dig at the crusaders as a club - some of their fans maybe but, that's largely due to a lack of the understanding of largely what you have posted.

Were you ready? - no I don't think you were, tho I agree that if you weren't have been given a licence the opportunity may have been lost. It's the licencing system that's wrong not the timing.
Will it succeed? - time will tell. The club gets talked up every week on sky apparently (I'm not in a position to confirm so argue against that if you will), and the rugby press give the crusaders plenty of column inches so it's not for the want of trying. - I still have my doubts as to the games viability and sustainability in wales but tho I've posted that though I do it with hesitation as it may appear to be deliberately negative or wishful. I'm not, it's just a view I hold.

I have never held the view the game should not expand. It's just wholly wrong in how it's been done and the short/medium future of the game is so exclusive now that more fans appear to have been alienated than created. My anger is, and always has been with the RFL. I have repeated so many times- I have no axe to grind with the celtic club. However, as the system is now such an exclusive one, clubs like Catalan and Celtic are the winners of the political schism and the NL clubs you mention the losers. As such, public scrutiny of their performances is always likely to be at the forefront of us ludites who see the systematic removal of hope for our clubs ever to play in the top league.

Celtic are bottom at the mo. IMO - should have a protection from relegatin as Catalan - others may argue with that. But relegation should still be on the agenda whichever club it is. But the likelyhood of Bradford et al agreeing with that is unlikely methinks.
It's a long way back and maybe we'll never achieve our ultimate - I'll never stop looking for that option tho.

On another entirely different point - youth rugby. From one who was involved with youth rugby for a long time, I really do appreciate the efforts to get youngsters involved in the game. That in my opinion is the greatest achievement in walers - not playing in SL!!!!

Fair enough.

I can agree and sympathise with almost everything you have written there. But you bring a lot of your problems on yourself because of what you have written below.


You will always get fans from other clubs who cannot let go, and think if they moan at your fans it will help in some way and make the problem go away. When you then have a go at their club, you are not fighting fire with fire you are fanning the flames. Try to take each detractor on as an individual, as I have tried to do with you, and leave the club insults out of it. I know it’s difficult, and occasionally impossible.

You are entering threads and slagging off all Widnes fans, for something that was mentioned by an idiot months ago on a totally different thread. You act as badly as the worst Widnes, Leigh or Fev troll.


Unfortunately, you clearly do, particularly with Widnes fans. Even when Widnes fans are not slagging off CC, which is 99% of the time, you ruin perfectly reasonable threads. It seems to me you have a bigger problem with Widnes than any Widnes fan has with your club. I know, if there is a thread about Widnes on the VT, you’ll be there trolling. I’m probably more sick of the minority of Widnes fans moaning about CC than you are. You have to understand, that the majority of Widnes fans are, at worst, ambivalent about CC and many are actually supportive.

There are fans in every club in the land who do not agree with the way the licences were handed out, or the licence system itself. It’s not just about Widnes, Leigh or Fev fans. It’s just a pity they blame your fans and slag off your club, when they really should be happy RL could be spreading to Wales, and blaming the RFL for not being entirely honest.


If you feel you’re getting more stick from Widnes fans than anyone else, that may be due to the situation. If you actually looked at it from our point of view it must be understandable, even to you. I don’t agree with Widnes fans coming on here slagging Celtic off, they’re still wrong to do it, but if it was Saints or Huddersfield or Wakey etc in our position, do you think they’d be any different?

If you continue to troll every Widnes thread on the VT, you’ll just end up making things worse and turning even the decent Widnes fans against you and your club. By all means give it to a Widnes troll with both barrels, I’ll even back you up, but when you just jump into threads slagging off all our fans and our club, you’re no better than a Widnes troll yourself and worthy of similar derision.

RL is a very traditional sport and many of it’s supporters families have also supported their club for generations. Many, including me, have had family members play for their club. This has kept the sport going for over 100 years. When you insult clubs like Widnes, Leigh and Fev you are insulting all that too.