What is wrong is that nobody in SL realises what damage is being done to the lower divisions by having no promotion. Batley, after earning the right to a spot in the first season of SL were denied entry. Our average attendances dropped by over 50% the following season and have never recovered. Even winning the Mickey Mouse Cup (The Trans-penine then) in 1998 didn't bring the supporters back to the club as most realised as I did. There is no hope for clubs like Batley, Dewsbury, Keighley and sorry to shatter a few dreams here, but Leigh and Featherstone either, and several others in this country too, who are not in the SL clique have absolutely no hope of ever getting in.

Has it not dawned on any of you yet, that Hetherington (destroyer of the game and an all round house IMO) decides what happens at the RFL. Think back to the Shuddersfield and GatesHull fiasco, all his idea. 3 divisions when it suited him at Sheffield then back to 2 and then back to 3, this guy is the supremo pulling the strings, not Sky. Who's idea was dual registration? Mr Hetherington again! As has been seen recently at Widnes with Ainscough, smaller clubs are once again being shafted by the SL and Hetherington. 2 votes for SL and 1 for all other clubs anyone??? you guessed it Hetherington.

There's the bad guy you are looking for, at the helm of the Rhino's.

Get him out and save our game from the oblivion he is creating.

Castleford and HKR got balloon payments when they were relegated from SL, if a balloon payment should be made surely it should go to the promoted club who have at least earned it by winning something. Not ensuring the relegated club is fighting with 3 times more money than the rest of the clubs in same division ensuring there safe return the year after. If a parachute payment was paid to the promoted club it would give them a chance of survival once promoted. They could invest in the infrastructure of the club. I'm talking about Marketing the game and building a fan base, and building from the roots with further investment in junior development, and recruiting a competitive team not just recruiting a team full of rejects and SL journeymen at the end of there careers ala Widnes when they were last in SL. Real investment in strengthening the club as a whole not just paying has beens.

Rant over! tell me I'm of the mark?

another very important point .fred.
its exactly the same in SL,would the millionaires keep propping some of these club up if they thought they couldn't lift a trophy every now & then.i dont think so.

Pride, you cant invest in those things when you know the chances are you'll be down again within a year. Just can't be done.

not a rant at all mate.
very well said actually.
harrington is the new lindsay

But that is why a parachute payment should have been made the other way to the promoted team, Leigh and Widnes when they were promoted, giving them the best chance of being competitive and not yoyoing. Surely you cannot defend paying £100000's to a team like Castleford for being relegated out of SL?

The game is corrupt. Can you name another sport where there is no promotion? Can you name another sport where the rules are changed to suit so regularly? I cannot I'm afraid. Sport should be governed by what happens on the pitch, with all teams playing to the same rules, if a team earns the right to promotion then they should get it. Not this rubbish about "ooh your in a development area you can sign 94 Australians if you want, or you can't be relegated for 3 years and you can start in the 2nd tier of the game without earning it because your in France". It stinks!

Development through academies and infrastructure takes YEARS of money, not a one off parachute payment.
Teams shouldnt be able to buy a team then claim 'oh its what happened on the pitch', there's one way you're going...BROKE.

Where's halifax's academy, yours? Widnes have one. Halifax and Barrow have basically bought a team over the last couple of years without having an awful lot else or healthy club

well said pal.
you know something is right when what you say is answered with something completly different

The one we have now isn't worth talking about anyway, you only get money if you are actually on TV AND are the home team. The amount, well take 100k and divide it by the number of TV games that are shown. Oh and that has to be spent on the night, usually on free tickets.

99% of money to the RFLSL goes to around 35% of the RFLs member clubs.

your banging your head against a wall mate.

He's talking utter rubbish hence why so many clubs were a) filled with journeymen b) went bust.
What on earth is a one off payment going to do in your scenario (other than pay some aussies wage).



Wasn't this myth blown out of the water the other week on the VT? Im certain I read Chp clubs received money this year. Besides you hope the current deal tests the water for future deals, Catalans started in a similar situation TV wise and they've since moved on to better deals

The RFL decide which clubs can have an under 18's, they would not let Leigh have one (after first agreeing that we could) and thats a fact, dont come on here and spout crap unless you know what you are talking about.
TV deal for Championship clubs? how much does each one get out of it? NOTHING they get money from The Cooperative which has to be spent on free tickets, promotional material etc for THAT game.
How can money pay Aussies wages when we are only allowed ONE?
CATALAN have always recieved a FULL amount for TV from the SKY deal because they have always been in SL.
Tolouse were allowed to negotiate their own TV deal other Championship clubs were not.

Just goes to prove the VT is full of sh*t. Its as far from a myth as it could be.

I think you'll find that we almost had a deal with the old Setanta channel until SKY stopped it.

What do we get from the SKY deal anyway?

i thought euro sport came in for it as well.
but lets not let facts get in the way of a good troll eh

We're not talking Championship here kidda.
We're talking about where potential money would go from a payment to a Chp club if they were promoted to SL.
I said it wouldn't be possible to get the structures in place for one year just for you to risk going back down again, hence the journeymen aussies.

You obviously need to learn yours.
Eurosport said they would show it if the RFL paid to have it made, farr too expensive.
Sky run thursday nights at a LOSS as part of the Super League deal.

But it all has to start somewhere, and if proportions of the payment had to be allocated to the start up costs of infrastructure they could be met with the payment. You say YEARS of money. How many? and why would it take years? It will take time to establish a successful Academy team, but my thoughts on academies is to have a local club allocation strategy allocated by a catchment area. e.g. Players who live in Leigh play for Leigh, Whitehaven play for Whitehaven, and Leeds for Leeds etc.
Does it make for better players in the long run at academy level for say, Wigan or Leeds to snap up all the promising talent and have them win easily every week and year after year, against an opposition who were streets behind them? Or would it not be better to have the talent spread across the whole division with good players in every team and have an even and competitive division, where lads have to perform at there best every week to win the game. Surely that would stretch and challenge the lads making them better players IMO. Yes there is the argument about better coaching etc. at a club like Leeds, but that is where the money needs to go to at smaller clubs, to provide the best possible platform to develop talent in the future, but you also need a fair crack of the whip when it comes to signing them on. Marketing is a fast moving environment it is very much today's news, tomorrows chip paper. That doesn't take years. See Cougar Mania for details, from 500 to 3000 fans in 1 season.



Batley, for all in tense and purposes are a national league 1 side (3rd division side) who have managed to stave off relegation every season for years now. We have always fought way above our weight, and we simply cannot afford to run one and hope to remain slightly competitive with teams in our division with far bigger playing budgets than ours anyway. So to spend money on a 2nd team when you could use what very little cash is available to make the first team more competitive seems like a good move to me. Especially when you look at the number of players who have come through the ranks over the years and made the 1st team. Only 4 players IIRC have made it to a regular spot in the 1st team in approximately 25 years of me watching. Again, it comes down to money Leeds for example can afford to throw £10000-£20000 for instance at a load of 16 year old lads who look promising but might not make it. If Batley were to spend £10000 on a player they would have to be pretty sure he would be a regular 1st team player, not an academy lad who might make it. So where are all the best young players going to go? Where they are getting paid the most, and that is what has happened for years, teams like Batley are left to sign the players who are not good enough and will never make it. I include myself in that too, as I played for the academy but was never good enough sadly.



Who are the favourites to win the league this year? Barrow and Halifax, and who were in the GF last year? oh let me think? So is that not happening anyway? This licensing system is a sham, it is just a smokescreen to allow the RFL to do what they have done for years, and that is to keep it in the boys club, allow in whoever they want, and feather the SL clubs nest at the expense of everyone else. Other than location how could Celtic get in to SL above Widnes, Leigh, Featherstone or even Sheffield? Could it be the glorious delight of Brewery Field? I've seen amateur grounds with better facilities. There amazing support perhaps? Batley are better supported. Face facts it is a joke!!!

Very well put and in total agreement.

It started, lost, started, lost, eventually as you say, most teams ditched their academys as the best players go elsewhere. But that's where I came into this debate saying that the yoyo effect of the pro/rel was just stupid, teams werent spending any additional funding on anything other than journeymen.
I brought up academies because it highlights, for the most part (Widnes not included) Chp clubs just aren't ready right now and when they are a 3 year franchise allows you to put those measures in place.
Considering your comments, most of which I agree with, it suprises me you back pro/rel rather than franchising.

Halifax admitted recently they struggled financially, they're not ready.

The area talent idea doesn't work, teams get very lazy and its unfair on the youngsters coming through a poorer development model. The current system is unfair on teams like Leigh and Batley but no offence, that's just the way it is. Leigh/Batley/whoever are just small towns, they're never going to compete with Warry/Leeds/Wigan no matter if you have parachute payments, promotion or anything. At Wire someone like Harrison would be what, playing chp under your system whereas he went to the WC at 20 comingthrough at wire.

You're really scraping the barrell suggesting Featherstone or Sheffield should have come in before Crusaders. Lets see where they are in 5 years time, I bet you're wrong.
The door is not closed to teams like Leigh/Batley they're just not good enough in almost every capacity, people complain its all about stadiums, well it blatantly isn't otherwise Leigh would be in and their fans cant seem to understand this.

There's more british players knocking around in SL than ever and that's because of franchising imo ALREADY, not 2 years in. I cannot grasp how its a bad thing

Football clubs do give a stuff outside of PL. Considering you could choose lots of clubs outside PL who are FT, where just one of these clubs get goodness knows how many punters more than the whole of the championship comp put together. There isn't a cat in hells chance of say Everton being replaced by say Stevenage if they was in a PT league below PL.

Why should AT pump even more money into 1st chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow with how it used to be, and then get relegated a season later only to start over. Who really benefits from that cycle, because AT wouldn't for sure.
history is there all to see that crowds went down chasing the dream. The 101 reasons for not going in SL where great also. history is also there with bensongate when we all thought it was curtains at the time for the club. Just not worth it.

Dico thinks we are upset about franchising because we play at the newest stadium in the game.

Amazing.

Dico Leythers think 2 and 2 is four.You will probably tell us 2 and 2 was a pound of dogmeat pre decimalisation.

But it's only 5 minutes since Widnes were bust, and they are ready now? If 3 yr franchises are so good, why not have it in the CH as well. Surely the teams in CH need that safety net too to develop and prevent the likes of Keighley and Dewsbury yoyoing. It would give other teams like Batley and Leigh the chance to develop talent too, without the threat of relegation and we don't want boom and bust in CH1 either where you can be promoted? Yet alas it is still allowed to happen, so it doesn't wash with me.

3 points for a win in the CH's, 2 for a draw and a bonus point. It is such a good idea that the SL has adopted it, oh wait a minute no they haven't cause it is e and has the opposite effect of promoting attacking rugby. You're 14 points down and get a penalty with 2 minutes to go, do you run it, with a chance of scoring a try or do you take a pot at goal for a bonus point. I'm underwhelmed with it!


Why scraping the barrel? both Sheffield and Featherstone not to mention Leigh and Widnes, would've had larger home attendances than Celtic did last year, and therefore more money coming in, making them more competitive. Even if you just put it down to the travel costs of the away fans. I'd guarantee 5000 every week on average at Batley if we were in SL, not because we are well supported because we aren't, but purely based on location and the visiting away fans don't have far to travel. Sheffield and Featherstone would do the same and more besides I've no doubt. Bridgend for a weekend get away with the missus and a match, I'd take self catering in Baghdad first if there was a match on, at least it's not likely to pee it down.

The door is closed for Batley (see SL 1 for details) we finished in the 2nd automatic promotion spot behind Keighley and were turned away, both of us. Never to recover the fan base we lost because of it. The door is open, but the steel shutters and barbed wire are down.

Dico is a complete jerk who said on previous threads that he hates Leigh, so anything he says about our club is pure bile.

That aside unfortunately the average SL fan is more like Dico than you would like to admit.Many of his arguments are based on ignorance and from a position of looking down their noses at non SL clubs.

His point that Leigh and Batley are too small Towns to accomodate a SL club is blown away by Cas. which has a smaller poulation than both the Towns above.

Leigh for decades held their own with the big boys as did many other clubs in the Championship,the only reason they could not now is money from Sky, the same as 90% of the SL clubs if they had Sky money taken away.

To now try and say the only thing we have going for us is a stadium is a joke, thats like saying the only thing that makes an F1 car win a Grand Prix is its engine.The stadium was supposed to be integral in any SL clubs bid and now because some of the SL brotherhood are getting nervous, its becoming less important.

Leigh has a great RL tradition and would more than hold its own crowd wise with several of the current SL teams, all we need is the millions of pounds that Wakey,Salford,Cas etc have had over the years from Sky, to be competitive.

Apart from in 2005, when you did recieve the Sky money and were absolutely smashed every week.