Is everyone forgetting who's bottom of the league then?

Having gone to the Catalans vs Hull KR game in Toulouse last year I was bowled over by the opportunity for RL in the City (affluent town full of sports (and rugby) nuts, great stadium, already established team), and what that could do for RL in France with the 'local' rivalry within SL.

I remember hearing all sorts of reports about the RFL being there to observe and coming away from the weekend (where I think 15,000+ turned up for the match) thinking it's a given they'll be in SL within 1/2 years - it's just such a sensible decision for SL.

And then, of course, the RFL decided to cut the number of clubs and squander the opportunity...

It's not often I agree with you, but spot on. I wonder if the RFL actually realise what a top/strong London club would do for the game, London is the strongest commercial name in the sport. You can't demand national coverage if you're stuck on a small part of the M62, with a lot of small towns that most people haven't heard of.

Spot on. London is the right opportunity in the wrong hands.

David Hughes has ed £13,000,000+ up the wall since 2008. The blame for the state of the club now lies:
1. With Him.
2. With the idiots he employed to key roles but who were incompetent.
3. With the RFL for letting him do it.

In the book, A Pastel Revolution, Hughes is quoted as telling Ian Lenegan:[iI am an oil trader and successful at that but, but marketing, finance, business management, human resources etc are not my strengths[/i

I am stunned that the games governing body has permitted a man, who by his own admission is a crap businessman, to ruin the games chance of getting a foothold in the nations capital.

Everyone knows Bradford are currently at the bottom but unlike London and Les Catalans, Bradford have won 2 of their 4 games so far and so look like they are capable of quickly making up the deficit and climbing to safety. The same cannot be said so far of both London and Les Catalans, though the French are considered by most as the old cliché goes "too good to go down". While Bradford may end up being relegated West Yorkshire is hardly short of clubs (SL or otherwise). As far as the top tier goes both London and Les Catalans are the only game in town so their potential relegation could be strategically much more damaging to the sport. I'm sure you are aware of that though.

This is the risk run by reintroducing P & R although I feel the benefits will possibly outweigh the consequences. Especially in terms of fairness to sovereign clubs who have been purposely suppressed, and the effects of having something to play for at the lower end of the table. My club did benefit from licensing and the effects have been felt as we have been building season on season but there was always the nagging doubt that the RFL could simply toss us out at any moment plus the bitterness was massive across the board. I certainly felt it.

The acid test will be whether these teams are allowed to drop as others are or whether, as has happened in the past, certain clubs cheat the cap and are basically allowed to get away with it to save themselves because they are perceived as too big to go down. Will they be rescued or will they be treated like everyone else? I recall the season Wigan were struggling and there was a feeling that they were actually too big for us to lose to the championship. I don't think London are, and I think the south should be broached outside London to be frank, but Catalans is too big an opportunity to waste yet they may be and in the interests of fairness and equality (something ignored frequently) they can't be protected.

I am 100% in the Licencing camp, but now the RFL have decided that this new 8/8/8/ with a possible pathway to P&R is the way forward, then I hope that:
a/ they give it time. 6 years of Licencing wasn't enough...this new system needs 10 years or more before we can start to make judgements on it's success/failure
b/ Treat all clubs equally. Once they can rid themselves of the Lease on Odsal, the RFL need to get back to just running the game and leave "nature" take its course. Advances of TV cash and the like should be put to the SL chairmen in their monthly meetings and if clubs go under, then let them.

The club I support in SL will be in the lower tiers from next year and there can be little sympathy with our plight. The RFL have managed SL quite badly IMHO over the first 18 years, but let's hope they get the next stage of its existence right!

But Bradford would be just as big a loss to the SL though. Sure they're a basket case right now, with very little money, but there are no big city clubs currently playing in the Championship who have a potential to bring in 10K+ crowds waiting to replace them. Not to mention the history and prestige Bradford brought to SL. London and Catalan would be huge losses, but so would Bradford.

This season no Championship club will be replacing them , but they then will have the opportunity to replace somebody else in future seasons

IF they are big and good enough to do so?

There are no clubs in the championship big enough and good enough to replace Bradford or Les Catalans.

Pre Peter Deakin Bradford Northern were no great shakes either crowd wise or on the field. Crowds rose for a short time during Bullmania but with the success gone, so have the crowds. Wasn't it a SL record low for Bradford against the Broncos just recently? They have been steadily dropping over recent years leading up to this, except for a brief unsustained rise when ridiculously cheap STs were offered. A large proportion of the crowds that were pulled in during the early years of SL have not showed loyalty to the club during this lean period. Any club having a good spell can attract hangers on and glory hunters. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those Bullmania fans now watch Leeds as they win things.

As for history and prestige, it was for a period of 6 to 8 years that they were a leading club and that ended about ten years ago. (Prior to that they had not won the cup for about 50 years and the championship for about 20 years so other than those 6 to 8 years they were hardly building much prestige). Its the past and that's all it is now. Hunslet, Swinton and Oldham have plenty of fine and proud history, all three won cups and championships and had big crowds and famous teams and grounds. All that history and prestige hasn't kept them at the top table, nor is Bradford's history (which also contains an incident of them becoming defunct 50 years ago) a reason to keep them there. Success and failure goes in cycles every club has highs and lows over time, it's just that some clubs have less devastating lows and some have less glorious highs.

If Bradford were to spend a period outside the top tier then so be it. Some other club from the area would absorb their fan base and keep those people watching the sport. It won't happen instantly but it will happen, to say no club could replace Bradford is insulting to those clubs in the second tier. Halifax for example have had periods where they were successful in the past just like Bradford and spells in the doldrums just like Bradford. Their crowds won't leap overnight but given a period of competing in the top flight and chasing trophies then some of those hangers on would start to find their way to The Shay as all such hangers on want is a way to watch a top tier team. They could just as easily find their way to Huddersfield or Leeds. Then in ten years time you have that club again with 10k crowds but rather than at Odsal it is at The Shay or the John Smiths Stadium, or maybe Leeds will have to be shutting people out each week. Over time support will gravitate towards the bigger names, the better teams and the top flight, if after a decade or more Halifax and Huddersfield have been in the top league and Bradford haven't it will be Bradford that will be the small fish looking up. The loss of Bradford would be absorbed, that couldn't happen with London or Les Catalans.

Also in sport "big city" means nothing, York, Bristol, Coventry, Leicester are all big cities. With the notable exception of Leicester Tigers where are all of their clubs. Likewise how much good has being in a city helped Nottingham Forest, Leeds United, Bradford City (or Bradford Park Avenue) or the teams in prestigious old cities like Cambridge and Oxford. Being in a city is only of use if you have the ability to garner that support and to use that to push on. Bradford have been going backwards for a decade.

thats a pretty one sided view of Bradfords history, they may not have been as successful in the preceeding years as they were during Bullmania, but it would wrong to pretend they werent contesting for trophies at the top end.


As you mention Bradford had their lowest crowd in SL the other week. That crowd would have been average for Huddersfield and good for Halifax when they were in SL. What you have put simply isnt true, and even it were, The game would still be losing out. IF only one team can be successful in an area at any one time, the pretty simple answer is to only have one team in that area.

Well it did Leeds and Notts forrest a fair amount of good. There are 4 leagues titles, 3 FA cups, 5 Leagues Cups 2 European Cups (and another final that was decided by a series of disputed refereeing decisions, the referee never reffed again and was as bent as a 9bob note) and 2 Uefa cups (with another final being decided by a referee later banned for accepting bribes to influence decisions)

THats not a bad total.

Just taking this small piece of your mostly well reasoned post, that simply wont happen in any appreciable numbers IMHO. Last weekend I didn't notice any significant rise in attendances elsewhere to indicate the missing Bradford fans had gone elsewhere last weekend, or indeed over our gradual decline in attendance over the past few seasons I don't think there has been a correspinding rise in attendance at Halifax, Hudds or Leeds that isn't accounted for by other factors (cheap deals and success at Huds for example). Speaking purely personally as a season ticket holder since the 80's, if Bradford is in the lower leagues I'll watch them there, but my dad who I go with probably won't (he's getting a bit old to go whatever league tbh is what he's said anyway) - but he wont be going eleswhere. If the club ceased to exsit I would just watch RL on the BBC when it was on, and probably attend the odd international and final as a neutral. I would not be attending any other ground for a league match.

Didn't stop them being relegated

No it didnt, and what a strong argument against P+R those clubs are.

Forgive me for one moment...aren't clubs now meant to earn their position on the pitch rather than on the terraces or the accountants books. I am sure that is the point of P&R. A club with crowds like Bradford have the potential of drawing should as has been said have no problem assembling a team for SL. However they have not been run right and unfortunately have to pay the consequences. They may yet escape.

People ask what do London bring to SL, how about what will London bring to the Championship?

What about the other grounds that RFL own/have interests in?

They only need to cut down the tall poppys, the others are fine.

not really they fell below the standard required on the pitch and were rightly relegated

There really is no end to the rubbish you spout

Oh, there is and it's got a bell too!

Relegation absolutely destroyed them, Leeds certainly, and cost millions, one of the best academies in Europe was utterly destroyed, they had to sell the stadium, have been in 2 administrations, a possible third, a roughly 50% drop in crowds and over a decade later they have yet to even begin recovering never mind recover.

Relegation from the PL also worked well for Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield Utd, Leicester City, QPR, Portsmouth FC, Oldham, Southampton, Crystal Palace, Portsmouth again, Bradford, QPR again, Crystal Palace again, and Derby County.


If you are looking for a way to destroy a professional sports club, Relegation is the way to do it .

Prior to the inception of SL and the Bullmania era the last title for Bradford had come in 1980-81.Their second in a row. Following that they finished 5th,9th,7th,8th,12th,7th,4th,8th,4th,7th,11th,3rd,2nd,7th and 7th. Largely mid table during that time, of the occasions when they did make top four they were 10 points or more behind the champions so hardly contending, just better than the rest. The only exception was 1993-94 when they and Warrington ran us very close for the title. They also finished near to the relegation places twice. So it would be wrong to pretend they were contesting for trophies at the top end as other than in 93-94 they weren't contending. They have had darker times than that period but they were largely run of the mill at that time.



Huddersfield and Halifax were both in SL alongside Bradford and other West Yorkshire clubs. Huddersfield's crowds are still quite low but they are improving and came from a very, very low point after decades in the doldrums. Halifax when in SL were competing with SL Bradford, who were very successful at the time, for floating fans. Those floating fans would have gone to the spectacle of Bullmania and to watch a team competing in finals (as the Bulls were then). Somebody moves to Leeds and has seen SL on tv, they are new to the sport and fancy going to watch some games, do they go to multi trophy winning Leeds or do they go to Hunslet? They will almost without exception turn up at Headingley in a Rhinos shirt. That same new potential fan if moving to the Bradford area with a choice of SL Huddersfield, SL Leeds, SL Halifax or Championship Bradford won't be likely to pick Odsal. It does happen and has happened when one club drops far enough down the ladder. It is part of the reason we don't still have clubs in the likes of Liversedge and Tyldesley and why we have some clubs in one geographical area at the top and some in the same area at the bottom. At some point in the dim and distant past another (at that time) more successful club in the area took the now weaker club's potential fan base away and one club grew while other clubs shrank and fell away. The same will happen in the future to some clubs we currently think of as big clubs, we just may not live long enough to see it happen.



Ipswich and Derby won trophies in the 70s too do you want to include them? What about Bramley and Dewsbury from our sport? They won things in the 70s too. When was the last time either Forest or Leeds won a major trophy? If not pre Premier League it was in the early days of the PL. Where are those two clubs now? Where are the Bristol clubs? The Cambridge and Oxford clubs? Where are York City (or the York City Knights)? How many league titles and European Cups have they won? My point was that being a city club does not mean you will win trophies or sit in the top tier nor does being a team from a small town preclude you from that. I was just making a point in response to Pinkerton's statement that there were no big city clubs in the Championship to replace the Bulls with.

I think I mentioned it in my earlier post but this process won't happen overnight, it never does so no one would expect a crowd that watched the Bulls to suddenly en masse defect to watch another team all of a sudden. Some would but the majority would not switch so readily. The process is more a shifting of the demographic for potential Bulls attendees over time to becoming attendees at another, more successful local rival. Some will be the very same people but others that start turning up at for example Huddersfield will be people who decide to take up watching live RL who would previously have opted for the Bulls (when they were at their peak) but with Bradford on the wane and Huddersfield contesting for trophies will now go to watch the Giants instead. The recent success you mention for Huddersfield will be the very thing that sways them. If current trends in competitiveness continue then over time people who would have (10 years ago) watched the Bulls will instead watch the Giants and the Giants crowds would rise while the Bulls ones fell. The impact is made not by people like yourself who have a long standing affinity for your club (I have similar feelings in regard to my own club) and will go regardless but by the people new to the area or not yet born who look to the big trophy winners when choosing a team. In all likelihood the Bulls would have to be out of SL for quite a few years (or stuck at its lower end for a long time while rivals shared out the trophies) for it to have a major or lasting effect.

Other than periods of dominance, even the best clubs will be mostly mid-table.

It would be like arguing that Wigan were a struggling club between 2004 and 209. They didnt win anything, and were a step behind the leaders. It would be wrong the argue they were a small club or struggling during that time.



It’s a huge assumption that a large proportion of BRadfords fans would have simply switched allegiances to Halifax of Huddersfield, especially considering that even now, when Hudds are the minor premiers, Bradford have spend the best part of a decade as a middling SL side, have had some horror seasons, been in admin twice and are struggling to get out of it now, even under this set of circumstances, Bradfords attendances are still roughly the same as Hudds, and neither are close to bullmania levels.
The reason that most fans in Leeds go support the Rhinos and not hunslet isn’t simply because Leeds are more successful than Hunslet, its that three-quarters of a million people live in Leeds and would identify themselves as people who live in Leeds and the team which represents them is the one which bears the name of the city they live in. Most people, even those who live in Hunslet, would say they live in Leeds.

Even if we swapped the last twenty years of Hunslet and Leeds, hunslet would not be attracting 5 figure crowds, it is a small area in a much much bigger urban area and is no more likely to be able to support a pro RL club than Middleton or Rothwell.

You can include Derby and Ipswich if you want. Leeds won the league in 1992, they appeared in the League cup Final in 1996, they appeared in the Uefa cup semi-final in 199 and the champions league semi-final in 2001.

Being a city club doesnt mean that you will win trophies. The reason for that is that we have few trophies and many cities. However big clubs are City sides. Barring London which is a collection of cities in a large area , all our big sporting sides are city sides, in pretty much all our sports. The only exception, which isn’t a great one, is Aston Villa who are based pretty much smack bang in the centre of Birmingham.