Because, the role of the RFL is to make sure the WHOLE of the sport is strong, not just the top league. Now toddle off back to aus

You are quoting the bigger clubs in that league which would still draw smaller crowds than the bigger NL1 clubs, Coventry for example barely get more than 1000. The smaller clubs you can measure in the hundreds.

Unless it's gone down a lot in the last 3 years they get more like 2000 which is similar to a top Championship side

Wrong


So we should bankrupt the whole sport just because an Australian troll is impatient?

Because the concept of working class people seeking entertainment outside their immediate area didn't arrive until about sixties with mass transit systems?

Even then surrounding rural areas tended not to be connected to this infrastructure.

It is a bit odd to be claiming that NU clubs weren't marketing themselves around their "region" at a time when steam trains were about the only means of transport for those unable to buy a horse.

Those kinds of factors appear to carry little weight with our argumentative friend.

Its not Japan, Brazil or Uranus, but lets get the game NATIONAL first, which includes Lincolnshire last time I looked at a map.

Close on 115 years and the furthest you've got is just over the river? No wonder fans other sports look at out development and laugh, that is pathetic.

Ahh, another one.

So you excuse parochialism and pathetic attitudes to expanding the game?

10 miles in 115 years and we're supposed to pat the club on the back and say well done?

Be fair. It's a very wide river.

Aye, seems they've only just realised we've built a bridge over it...

Well, it was opened in 1981 which sort of limits your complaint to 28 years rather than 115 at one fell swoop.

Now that's what I'd call a pathetic attitude.

They not get roads and railways in them parts? They not think about setting up teams there? What has happened in the 28 years since the bridge was open?


Run along, the adults are talking.

South Humber Rabbitohs?
Shorpe Barbarians?

Not really, it's just that expansion of the game for expansions sake is not a requirement placed upon an individual club now or ever has been.

It is a ludicrous argument to say that heartland clubs have not expanded the game for 100 odd years because for many of those years there were factors limiting the practical catchment areas for any given club which may not exist now but did.

Furthermore the game now (at the highest level) is fully professional. This places burdens on clubs that never existed before, at least to the same extent.

The RFL have created a number of criteria that all SL clubs, with a desire to remain SL clubs, will be trying to achieve. Those criteria never existed before. So it's a bit dim, to say the least, to have a dig at clubs that are doing what the RFL want them to do now but never required of them in the past.

Aye

Ahh I see. Very clever.

Would you like a hand out of that hole?

It was an 80 mile trip to Grimsby from Hull before the bridge was open. About the same as it would be for Leeds. It's a terrible argument that Hull should have had to do something before the bridge was open when it would have been a closer trip for Wakefield or Castleford.



I think the clubs have sort of been concentrating on staying afloat in poor financial times! KR have been a FT team for 4 years and were nearly bust before that at one point. Hull FC nearly went bust a decade ago. It's easy to point fingers and say they should have been doing it a long time ago.

You are having a go at them for doing something. It's a very negative attitude to progression (which at the end of the day is what it is). They don't have to do it. And it will be costly (the bridge isn't exactly cheap to cross if you're going there and back every day). So I think you should back off a bit.

Would you like a hand expanding the game? Say somewhere exotic like Bolton?

Would that still not be expansion? Why does it matter if it is exotic?

I don't get what your problem is?

That we have had all this time and instead of expanding the game it has shrunk, places so close to the real heartlands of the game don't even know it exists most of the time, for years the closest thing we had to expansion was Castleford, hardly spreading your wings.

Those whinging about looking after the heartlands first have had their time, they can't even get people interested from 10 miles up the road, if they are allowed to set the agenda the game will die or worse merge into RU.

How has it shrunk? The game has spread at amateur level all over the country (I think I remember reading that every county plays the game). It has spread at schools level, college level and university level. More money is being pumped into the grassroots than ever before because of more investment. Saying the game has shrunk is a complete and utter lie.

It has taken all this time because the game has had countless barriers to climb. The free gangway between RL and RU being the major one. We are now getting more investment from the government than ever before so we can now actually afford to get into expansion more.

The game hasn't shrunk at all.


And what is your proposed alternative? All you've done is have a pop at a club for trying to spread the game a little further than it was before. I'd like to say I was exaggerating, but I'm not. How can spreading the game (no matter if it's a new area 10 miles away or 100 miles away) be a negative? Whether it should have been done before or not is irrelevant. It's a positive that it is being done.

Whilst i'm fully in favour of expansion, if we ignore the heartlands and put all our resources into expansion the result will not only be the same but come much faster.

It doesnt have to be about putting all our resources into expansion or the heartlands we should be doing both, people like yourself are holding the game back just as much as the most parochial flat capper.