I also have no desire to watch a merged 'county' team. And neither did I on the previous 8971 topics of exactly the same nature.

South Yorkshire isn't a county.

It was a council.

Boringhell.

<chuckle>

But you know it's right .........

No they would not..................... Ask ANY Cumbrian Rugby League Supporter........

Merge three teams that are so close together.....



Barrow to Whitehaven = 53 miles
Workington to Barrow = 61 miles

Come on.......you obviously have no idea about Cumbria. There are approx 25 separate clubs in the Furness and Cumbrian area with 8 of those in Barrow alone. Barrow/Furness Area deserves a SL Club just as much as Workington and Whitehaven.

Why not merge all these clubs around Featherstone, Castleford and wakefield or even Widnes, Crusaders and Saint Helens or Rochdale, Swinton, Leigh and Wigan..............

=#FF0000Failed mergers: Gateshead to Hull = 141 miles

and Huddersfield to Sheffield = 35 miles...............


In 1995 when Sheffield bought Doncaster for a £1 and the talk of a merger then fell on deaf ears. Donny may be twice as old as Sheffield in terms of RL, but merger...... it would not work.

Barrow's not a Cumbrian team.

Why was Hull/Gateshead Hudders/Sheff a failed merger?







Castleford,Wakefield,Widnes,Wigan,St Helens,Leigh can all manage on there own they get crowds and are happy on there own,I would be dancing on the feckin moon if we got 3k plus crowds,i wouldnt have even mentioned it,The fact ive mentioned it is because we dont get any crowds and its the only thing stopping us getting there and i cant ever see us getting crowds so have to look at alternative options if we want to get in super league,Its not that hard to grasp,Im not rupert Murdoch and not planning on merging Cas,Feath,Wakey or anybody else,Just think it would be worth a thought for us,Would be interesting to find out Eagles fans who dont live in the city and what there opinion is?

:3jq3nm2o


To many of us Barrow is Lancahire through and through and you had to drive from Lancashire thro' Cumberland and Westmorland to get here in Barrow, Lancashire. Unfortunately due to a certain political party South Yorkshire AND Cumbria were formed at the same time and certain people "tagged" Barrow as Cumbria. There is a Barrow and District ARLFC and there are the Cumberland Leagues and no matter what they do not want mergers.

Barrow is not a team at the moment

Well not as such !!

Workington and Whitehaven could merge as they are close together, but with their history I can not see and that suggestion going down too well.

The "discussions " [

I really enjoyed my holiday last week in Yugoslavia.

I think you are talking Balkans

It's interesting that this has been brought up again. A couple of years back I interviewed Gary Hetherington for a piece that was due to go in a book about the history of English schools rugby league (remember Sheffield Schools U11 played at Wembley in 1993). The conversation naturally wandered onto Eagles matters and Hetherington reiterated his opinion that the only way a Super League club would work in our neck of the woods would be a merged South Yorkshire "franchise".

Of course he would say this as he thought it was a good idea in 1995, but his argument is pretty much that Sheffield alone is just not interested enough in Rugby League. He did admit that neither club's fans would buy into it, and therefore it's a non-starter.

It may have worked if neither the Eagles or Donny existed, or if Donny hadn't existed when the Eagles started. Now… unlikely.

Eagles do have a problem in terms of generating and sustaining crowds, but in the old division one and SL days our crowds hovered around 4,000 - not amazing, but comparable to people like Salford. At the time of the merger Huddersfield were getting no better crowds than the Eagles. They've only improved in recent years 'cos they've worked stupidly hard marketing themselves.

To be honest I'd rather see the Eagles play games "on the road" in the Midlands than play any in Doncaster. No offence to Donny fans, of course

GH was right then wasn't he?
I wouldn't be bothered where it was played as long as it was done properly.

I cant believe this thread is still going.

I suspect it'll still be going when I get back from France. Or as Griff refers to it, the German Empire.

I prefer to call it "Ancient Gaul"

I hope the game goes ahead, I hear the Vichy Regime aren't too keen on rugby league

I think you'll find it's Prussian.

Can we please get back on topic

Has anyone noticed that EB is always updating on here during working hours? His gaffer must let him get away with murder........

Well, I don't know what young Gary's thinking of. One minute he's saying it's the only course of action and then it's a non-starter.

Said it earlier in the thread - the reason it won't work is that neither side will see it as "their team".

8 pages of this, thought someone might of locked this before now!

Anyway since it's still going...

Sounds un-loyal (if that is a word) but I wouldn't travel to Donny every other weekend for a home game and I'm sure Donny fans wouldn't travel to Sheffield neither.

It's a non-starter for me, I know we have so much to compete with in this city, not just in terms of sports teams but other stuff to do but if we surely should be able to get an average of 2,500 in if we push for it in the next 2 years.

Everything this club has achieved since it's reform has been the 'Sheffield Eagles', not South Yorkshire Eagles. Let's keep it that way.