Helping the lower divisions

Monday 30th November 2009

It is no secret that I like to wallow in nostalgia when it comes to Rugby League. The game has changed, as society has changed, in the many years I have been involved in it and I like to keep an open mind about what goes on.

There are plenty of things I enjoy about the modern game, just as there are many things I miss from the Rugby League of years gone by, but always my views are shaped by what I think is best for the game.

When the younger fans of today ask what I miss most about the Rugby League of the past, I always immediately think of international tours. There was something very special about seeing the Kangaroos or Kiwis come to play against your local club or county, just as the British game built so much of its strength - both in terms of status and finance - from sending our Lions touring teams down-under every four years.

As a confirmed internationalist, and somebody with a long involvement and emotional attachment to French Rugby League, another great regret has been the steady decline of France as a force in the world of Rugby League. People in France tell me that, back in the 1950s, '60s and much of the '70s, the French team never took the field for a Test match on home soil not believing they would win, be it against Australia, Great Britain or New Zealand. Of course, in those days Rugby League was a game of much greater physicality than is allowed today and demanded powerful scrummaging, plus France were not always handicapped by having to play under a referee who did not speak their language or understand their interpretations.

On the domestic front, the Rugby League I grew up with was a game where all the clubs felt part of one movement - one big family. There were no divisions and nobody being excluded from anything. Teams rose and fell purely by their abilities on the field of play and even the lowliest clubs felt they had a chance to beat one of the giants, especially when they got them on their own ground. Every club entered the Challenge Cup each year believing they could have a good run, and even get to Wembley - because there was not the huge gulf we now have between the full-time professionals of Super League and the rest.

For many people, that vast gulf has become demoralising, and it is desperately sad to see clubs who were once among the game's elite - and who played such a huge part in building its great history - now struggling along in the lower reaches of the Championship One (effectively the third division) wondering how they can ever rebuild themselves and drag their attendance figures out of mere hundreds and back into the thousands.  

I believe Rugby League made a big mistake when it split the game below Super League (which was, at that time, called the Northern Ford Premiership) into two divisions after 2002.

Outside the Super League the game wasn't strong enough, certainly from a commercial perspective, to create further divisions. By their very definition, divisions divide - and creating a split was always going to consign a group of clubs to a place where they were perceived as being "second rate."

I remember at the time, as a representative of the Whitehaven club, attending a meeting of the non Super League clubs, at which the proposal to split into two divisions was discussed. I made an impassioned plea that the idea be scrapped as it would only be damaging to the game as a whole. At the time, my own club was lying comfortably in second place behind Huddersfield in the table and with no danger of not making the "cut" at the end of the season - so other club representatives thought I was crazy for being concerned for them rather than just putting parochial self interest first. But I was wasting my breath as it had already been decided that the idea of splitting the divisions was going to happen, no matter what anybody said. It was a fait accompli.

What the future might hold now for many of those clubs in the lower division, who can say? There have been suggestions that they link up with Super League clubs and becoming virtual "feeder teams" - a move which, in my opinion, would effectively wipe away any hope of them rebuilding their status and would do nothing to honour their own histories (which, in several cases, like such as Oldham, Hunslet, Rochdale Hornets, Swinton and Workington Town, are magnificent).

But, as has often been said, history does not pay the bills, and having some of the reflected glamour of being associated with a Super League club might well be regarded as an attractive proposition for many players, supporters and club officials.
One Super League club already setting a fine example in trying to help those in the lower divisions are Leeds. They regularly send teams to play pre-season friendlies allowing the home team to retain all gate receipts, and they have recently set up a twinning arrangement with Whitehaven which promises to be of great assistance to the Cumbrian club.

Plenty of people can be cynical, but I have nothing but praise for Gary Hetherington and the Leeds club for what they try to do to help the wider game. Gary obviously realised that Cumbria is a heartland area of the game that needs help and encouragement, and the spin-off for Leeds will be that they get the chance of recruiting some potential future stars from West Cumbria - thus rivalling Bradford Bulls who already have a strong link with the Wath Brow Hornets amateur club near Whitehaven.

Leeds have already signed the outstanding young forward Kyle Amor from Whitehaven, plus a couple of teenagers who were on ‘Haven's scholarship programme. But, in reality, the Super League champions don't have an awful lot to gain by helping a lower division club - all the major benefits from the twinning arrangement should come Whitehaven's way. Leeds have already made their staff available to advise and educate on a variety of off-field matters, as well as player-development programmes, and they have even sent their Headingley groundsman to Whitehaven to help improve the Recreation Ground's troublesome pitch.

Leeds will be basing themselves in Cumbria, at Eskdale, for their pre-season bonding camp in January, during which the Rhinos stars will be touring the area's schools and junior clubs to help Whitehaven's development work. The whole Leeds squad will then attend a fund raising dinner for Whitehaven before playing ‘Haven in a pre-season friendly (this just five days before the Rhinos' Super League opener away at Wrexham) with all gate receipts going to Whitehaven. And, believe me, for a club whose last home game revenues were as long ago as 16th August, those receipts will be very, very welcome.

Read more about Rugby League and its history in "Rugby League Journal" - the current issue (just published) is a special tribute issue for the former Leeds star John Holmes.
www.rugbyleaguejournal.net