That seems to be the one that's kicking around. Etihad Stadium, May Bank Holiday weekend.

Will this breathe new life into this do you think? Warrington v Widnes in Manchester.

I'll go with that. Mr F, can you book us all a Hotel in Warrington for 2 nights please?

I thought you were on about a dull radio station.

The RFL need to have a good look at all this Magic business
Taking it to Manchester, is hardly "spreading the Gospel" (if it happens). Salford is a handful of miles down the road.
Warrington, Wigan, St Helens and Widnes are hardly at the end of the world (though Widnes looks like the end of the world)

I would be surprised if a Premier League club would allow 14 superleague teams to mash its pitch up unless they intend replacing it

Think it stems from here .... twitter.com/#!/Chrisirvine

Think it stems from here .... twitter.com/#!/Chrisirvine

Lefty, it will be far better having a relatively full stadium than having a one third full stadium at Cardiff. We've have some good publicity over the past two weekends with the quality of the games on TV compared to the RU World Cup. We need to build on it. Manchester is fairly central to most of the RL community and not many people will need hotels (apart from Yed and me). To me, if we're going to have it, it has to be a location where we can get a good crowd, get some publicity, and make some money. My favoured location would be Newcastle on the second May BH weekend, 4 games on Saturday, 3 on Sunday, but have a Gateshead League game at the Int Stadium on the Friday night with tickets for that at £5 a head. We would get a good gate both days, and give RL in the North East a big boost.

Could work. I don't think Cardiff has been a failure but Iv'e always been skeptical that hosting it there actually does anything to " spread the game."

Having it in the North West should hopefully pull in a bigger crowd.

Thing is now... You may get a higher gate in total, but the stadium will still be as empty as fans will turn up for their fans game then sod off home with it being so close to the heartlands. At least in the likes of Cardiff, people who were staying there didn't really have much else to do apart from sit in a boozer watchin the game anyway.

In a way the RFL can't win, I'm happy at least they kept it though. I quite happily sit there, pint in hand watchin 7 games of SL in 2 days.

Well I won't be going Cardiff this year as I am the only one out of my group who wants to go. (travel and cost being big factors against it)

The way I see it is, moving it far away from the heartlands has only succeeded in ing off the people who actually want to watch the game. If the Rfl were to get it somewhere central (not Leeds or any other heartland town/city) and get people down who enjoyed the Grand Final (Rooney etc) then they are bound to create buzz. I am sure that the United and City team would come down to watch Wigan vs Saints.

Having a half empty stadium in a place that prefers rugby yawn-a-thon and football (in that order) over Rugby league serves no one.

Roy Keane watched us play Leeds.

they already announced cardiff for a 2 year deal so must be there next year

If it is in Manchester which i doubt regardless of the rumour it more or less admits that expansion is not the reason for Magic weekend and more the RFL exploiting our players for their gain, what's 'expansive' about Manchester? They could have least made it less obvious and had it in Birmingham.

I still think help Quins out and play it at Twickers.

I'm sure I was told that for a Stadium to host a magic weekend style event it needs to have an adjoining facility suitable for teams to warm up on during the closing minutes of the preceding game, which rules most places out.

Hasn't city got a little athletics facility close by?

I'm actually up for the idea. We neglect our strengths sometimes and try to run before we can walk. I'm pretty confident we'd get near to full house in Manchester and the money that would bring in over a period of time could be used for other projects to help the sport grow.

Take it back to Cardiff in a few years when the event has a following.

I'll be warming up in Mary D's if it's played at Citehhhh

Manchester Magic are a local basketball team that play in the John Amaechi Centre in Moss Side/Hulme.

I'd rather drink my beer out of a tramps boot.

This is the athletics stadium next to our ground as it currently is:


This is what is being built just across the road:

I think that's what they actually serve in there! I'm normally in The Townley before City games and town after games.

I hope this happens. Been calling for Eastlands to host the Magic Weekend for a while. Enjoyed Cardiff, but I think they should take it to an area central to most clubs and you can't go wrong with Manchester. Only problem with having at a ground which is home to a soccer club is its hard to find a slot where they'll let you use it, as others have pointed out.

I know the Magic Weekend is about expanding the game and taking Rugby League to new areas, but to that, the event needs to be marketed a whole lot better than it has been. Its all good taking it to new areas, but if you're not really bringing the new comers in, then its not benefiting the sport.

i'm sure there's a couple of people on here that'll go down on the coach with you.

People keep forgetting the primary initial reason for Magic weekend. It wasn't about expansion - that was just a convenient supposed add-on to being in Wales at a time the Crusaders were looking to join SL. Fat lot of good it did!

No, the primary reason was simple - Cardiff had enjoyed hosting the Challenge Cup (not to mention loads of football) whilst Wembley was out of action and they wanted an event to help fill the void. The city paid the RFL to bring an event there, knowing in return they would benefit from hotel bookings and food and drink sales. Nothing wrong with that either - RL is hardly a rich sport, it needs all the encouragement it can get.

Sadly (I've been to them all and enjoyed them all) the highly critical RL fans have not supported it in sufficient numbers to keep it going.

At the end of the day... The real reason for the Magic weekend is it's another payday for the RFL to go with the Play-Offs & the Challenge Cup. There's no doubt in my mind this will attract the most fans compared to previous years (Although not all in the stadium at the same time) so this will generate the most revenue. Not forgetting City probably would have made a bid to host it too I would suspect.

All in all, making more money for the RFL that will hopefully be put to good use.

FWIW I love the concept, and will watch all the games no matter where it's taken in the UK. Maybe it could go to a different city each year? That would certainly be different.

If it's in Manchester I'll probably go for the first time, but I'll turn up five minutes before Warrington kick off and leave immediately after we finish.