Here come the fixtures!

Friday 18th December 2009

I was sitting here pondering the fact that the Co-operative Championship and Northern Rail Cup fixtures have finally appeared.

For most people the delivery of the fixtures is a given but, believe me, I can tell you from my experience gained while working on the staff at Red Hall that it's not quite as easy as many people may think.

The Championship clubs in particular give the compilers more than 600 variables to take into account before the fixtures can be issued each year.

This year it has been even more problematical.

For a start there was the great Gateshead - Leigh switch that saw the Tyne and Wear club take voluntary relegation to Championship One and Leigh accept a face saving ticket back to the Championship.

Now what are we coming to when a club can ask to be relegated? I know they lost most of the players that helped them win promotion and then keep their Championship status. But that shouldn't count for anything in my opinion.

What's won on the field should be lost on the field.

But asking to go down....and being allowed to makes a nonsense of the whole thing.

It completely shoots down in my eyes any arguments about making new clubs come in at the bottom and work their way up the league system.

So many people have argued that Catalans and Toulouse should have been made to play their way up from Championship One. But why should they?

The game has now conceded publicly that it can arbitrarily mess about with the league structure without a ball being kicked in anger. So I hope I don't hear any more people bleating on about newly form clubs having to do a Celtic Crusaders.

The fact is the RFL does what it has to do get new clubs in.

Toulouse reportedly wouldn't go into Championship One and it appears that it suited the RFL's purposes to give in to their position.

Olympique have their eyes on a place in the engage Super League and wanted to prepare that bid for a licence from the Championship without having to risk missing out on promotion from Championship One. Fair enough, given current circumstances.

Anyway, back to the fixtures. Then there was the worry over whether Keighley Cougars would survive the winding up order imposed on them by Her Majesty' Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

How sad that the Cougars having battled their way to last October's Grand Final against Oldham and winning a classic encounter 28-26 should find their joy hammered in the High Court!

I don't know enough about their debt situations to make particular comments. But my connections with the club - I worked for them until last month - makes me appreciate how hard it is to survive at Championship One level.

I now think that it would be a very useful exercise for all RFL personnel to undertake month long attachments to the clubs because that would give them an extra insight into how life can be when certain decisions are handed down.

I would cite the decision to make Championship One clubs, and by default Championship clubs too, wear squad numbers.

For very little in the way of marketing gain, well very little from where I stand, the clubs had to undertake the added expense of buying in the gear to fix meaningless numbers to the back of their playing shirts.

I'm not against squad numbers at the higher levels of the sport although I see very little evidence that it's made that much difference even in Super League. But I can't see the point outside the full time professional game.

Again the fixtures...I see the first TV game in the Co-operative Championship brings Leigh Centurions face-to-face with last season's Grand Final winning Barrow Raiders.

It'll be interesting to see whether Ian Millward's return to Leigh will have a dramatic effect on the Centurions and whether Steve McCormack's arrival as Head Coach at the Raiders is going to see them step up to the plate again.

I think that Sky Sport's decision to give the Championship clubs some air time on Thursday evenings has been one of the most positive developments in the sport's recent history and the arm chair fans have been treated to a host of cracking encounters in the last two years.

I just can't wait for the action to start again.....