The gate was declared on the official Saddleworth Rangers twitter and it's also on the match report on the club website.

They had 2 teams in the London area in the 1930s , one had been the previous Wigan Highfield.

So it's been tried for much longer than 30 years.

Will it ever take off ? I don't know.

But how on earth they keep going is a minor miracle in itself.

There are no excuses that can be offered by anyone connected with the club I have followed for 11 years now with regard to their poor attendances.

The Current CEO was relieved of his last post due to a decline in attendances at Surrey CC and is obviously out of his depth in a role that he is not qualified for. The person who hired him, our Chairman, is a hobbyist who has little if any understanding of what it takes to run a successful business...he is a broker.

Since IL was told to step away, we have had 3 CEO's, one a good friend of the chairmen, the other 2 from cricketing backgrounds.......in that time, 2007-now, we have won only 54 of 171 games played (31%) and seen out average crowds drop by 63%.

David Hughes has said that he was prepared to bankroll the club during this licence period, so 2014 may well be the last season of his involvement. If this is to be the case, then another 100% cast Iron nutjob needs to be found to plough 1.5 million a year into the black hole that is London RL, or, The RFL need to step up the plate in the same way Melbourne Storm is managed as an expansion side.......


...as I say, 1,136 is unacceptable and if Woods wasn't on the blower to MacKay straight away then he ing well should have been.......

Expansion in London is a joke. If the RFL wanted a sustained expansion of the game they should have followed the general laws of physics. Expansion is best done from the centre outwards. A SL team would stand more chance in the Birmingham area than on London BUT that should only be looked at after expansion into the north Midlands (Stoke, Nottingham, dare I even suggest Leicester!).

IMHO Crusaders would have stood a better chance in SL had they formed in North Wales rather than the deep south.

That is astounding

some of the attendances at the heartland clubs were a bit worrying this weekend,given that the easter fixtures are usually derby games and used to attract massive crowds to them
the cumbrian derby used to pull in double the 1648 it attracted, york v fev only pulled in 945,the south yorks derby only 1253
and as has already been alluded to oldham-rochdale got 664!
never mind the expansion teams,when traditional heartland clubs post figures like that then it's very worrying for the game.

And I've been speaking to the Secretary of Saddleworth Rangers this momrning at the Standard Cup Final and he has confirmed the figure declared on Saturday is accurate and to be honest, it looked about right.

Honestly, I'm well impressed - how come these fans don't turn out at the Roughyeds ?

Er, let's say it's political and nothing more.

[url=http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/saddleworthrangersarlfc/news/1187-watch-rangers-win-derby-911154.htmlClub website article[/url

Being part-time, having no chance of promotion and the door to the top firmly shut, then of course crowds in the lower leagues are going to be poor. Imagine football crowds in the Championship if fans knew they essentially had not a right lot to play for.

You'll be even more impressed that the official attendance at Saturday's NCL game between Egremont & Wath Brow was 1,483