Young ones are as entrenched as the older ones - If the team wasn't dominated by one team then I doubt the support would ebb away to such a degree. The attendances would be hugely influenced by the success on the field - surely merging them increases that possibility.

You need an anchor wrapped around you and thrown in the Calder.

Up the Trin
Love this Club
Love this City

You reckon that 75% of Trinity and Rovers fans would go to Cas to watch a merged team? You’re not as bright as you think you are.

Tigers own their own stadium so they could throw that into the hat when trying to cobble together some money to do this "super-merger". Fev seem to be doing well at their level and could possibly put a bit into the tin. What could Wakey provide financially to go towards the merger?

Featherstone are having to ditch half their squad because they haven't got sufficient cash to fund the current squad now that they have missed out on the top 4

Why would Wakefield want to merge? Big enough City don’t need to merge. Neither club would want to merge separate City and town separate identities always was and always will be a non starter.

Up the Trin

But with you both having trouble trying for a new stadium why not get one together that why when one is away the other is at home problem solved

Where did say the stadium would be in castleford.

What a load of absolute rubbish, you clearly dont understand the game and just why supporters follow a particular side and you cant seem to grasp that Castlefords recent success and increase in attendances stemmed, not from marketing but, from employing a very good coach in Powell, who moved them from a top 6/8 side into top 4 contenders and this coupled with a Challenge Cup Final appearance plus, GF appearance has seen their support increase by a couple of thousand.
Not rocket science, not marketing but a little bit of genuine on field success.

You claim to ba a London fan and then talk about attendances



Once again you claim that Wakefield are "like the anchor that is holding SL from being super" and yet, despite their much publicised financial difficulties and their REDUCED funding (200k) from SL (due to their poor facilities), they too have gone from being a side that regularly finished in the bottom 3, into a side that is now competing in the top half of the table and achieving far more than some of their big city rivals.

IF both Castleford and Wakefield suddenly found themselves in shiny new grounds and both had attendances over 10k, how much do you think the TV deal with Sky would increase ? Answer = 0, zero, feck all

They are getting plenty of things right both on and off the field and have a Chairman and coach who are doing incredibly well with the resources that they have and pillocks like you have the audacity to say they are holding the game back

Say a player is binned out of a Super League academy at 19, joins Halifax reserves, then a few years later makes it into the Halifax first team.

Does it matter that he didn’t play for Halifax academy? Without Halifax reserves this player would probably be lost to the professional game.

The question shouldn’t be how many have gone academy to reserves to first team. It should only be how many have gone reserves to first team.

Again look at the squad and you get the same answer - clubs like Halifax don't buy young players from other clubs with a view to nuturing them through their reserve grade - they sign players who are ready to play in the first team - the fact they may have to play some games in the reserves due to recovery from injury or loss of form isn't the same as development through reserve grade.

What new stadium ?

Your wasting your breath wrencat, CMG is simply a wind up merchant when it comes to Wakefield. As he's proved many times, his knowledge of the club is sp to say the least.

Gotta love a fan of a club that now gets lower gates than London used to in 2004 having a pop about getting grief for the sheer waste of money that they represent

Or a Rugby Union fan who loves knocking everything to do with the other code



Surely a club that despite receiving less money than all other SL clubs finishing 5th is money well spent.
The clubs wasting the money are surely those that have empty plastic seats, spending full SC and yet still cant muster a finish in the top half of the table ?

Why do you have such an obsession with attendances (which you clearly do) when the GAME is about the on field action, something that Trinity have been pretty good at in recent years.

The cold hard facts are that as you've said so many times, attendances are no longer important.
Modern sport is all about filling tv screens and quite frankly, the attendance or numbers of plastic seats has rock all to do with how many people are watching the game from the comfort of their living room or local pub and potentially being drawn in by the advertising on Sky.

Well done for citing a cherry picked season for London for having a pop at Trinity's support, it's similar to the Catalan attendance at Wembley and intimating that their appearance at Wembley wouldnt have a negative effect on the attendance

or the 50,000 neutrals that would turn up anyway



Maybe you should get back to watching union and give us all a break

I don't know which squad you're looking at, but Fax have 17 players in the first team squad that have progressed through the reserve team.

You are completely wrong in using Halifax as your example. Our reserves are lads that have been thrown on the scrap heap but are given a chance to develop. We have a few youngsters now that are really coming on and in the next few years can develop into 1st team players.

Really - how many first team games have they played?

If the 1-17 is the indication of the squad then your note above is without foundation. As far as I can see only Butler, Calcutt, Syme and Morgan have come through the Halifax system all the other started their careers elsewhere.

How many new SL players are required every year ?

Let's say a squad of 25 , a career lasting lets say 10 years , so every year each club needs 2.5 new players , we'll times that by 10 clubs for ease of calculation

So every year 25 new SL players are required , how many players do the SL clubs that run academies induct every year ?

Probably a dozen , times 8/9 teams , let's say a round 100

So every year there will be a surplus of players not making the grade , where do you expect these players to go ?

This thread is titled ' Mergers. ' , so let's be clear mergers don't work , so there won't be any , ok, end of

I wasn't meaning players when I said contributing to a merged club - I was referring to cash.

You said "clubs like Halifax don't buy young players from other clubs with a view to nuturing them through their reserve grade - they sign players who are ready to play in the first team". You've changed your point with your latest post.

We don't claim that Fax have taken many school age players and led them through academy grade, then reserves and into the first team. Calcott is one player that has done that, and we have the structure in place now to repeat the process with other players.

What we have done though is taken young players who have been cast off by other sides have developed (and continue to develop) them in the reserves. A lot of these are now registered 1st team players, albeit not many command a regular place just yet.

How this all relates to mergers, is that the structure is very much built on the amateur scene and schools in Calderdale, and it would fall apart if Fax merged with another team (or teams).

So essentially Sparky what Fax are doing is , instead of taking lets say players number 51-63 in Yorkshire every year and trying to find a very rough diamond you can polish up for Leeds or the Giants to nick off you , you are picking some of the previous 3/4 years players numbers 1-50 that hasn't quite fulfilled their potential for whatever reason and giving them a different environment that they might flourish in

Sounds good to me , well done

High quality entertainment eh ? , are you sure ? , if that's the case which team do you suggest I go watching ?

Brisbane maybe ? , Man City perhaps , how about New England ?

Better still , just the WWE Diva's , that'll do

it is a shame that Halifax cannot run a reserves team like all those Super League outfits. Otherwise I might be congratulating them for their sterling efforts to keep our game alive.