2025 : Sat Sep 21, 2024 11:10 am  

Group therapy time?

Eccles at least talking about us still existing in his post match interview. V cagey about whether he'll be there which is wise from him, but a shame.

Re: 2025 : Sat Sep 21, 2024 1:10 pm  

the-bearded-lefty wrote:

Group therapy time?

Eccles at least talking about us still existing in his post match interview. V cagey about whether he'll be there which is wise from him, but a shame.

Could be a very small group Lefty! Thought at one stage he was getting a bit emotional & who could blame him. Despite a litany of mistakes by Hughes since he had control of the club, as Orange frequently reminds us, this current position is totally of the RFL/IMG's own making.

It is beyond me why some teams signed up to the patently daft criteria put forward by IMG, but they did. Hughes needs a slap for that because that was the time to push.

Who in their right mind thinks Social Media presence is more important that developing young players? Who the hell given how large Leeds' catchment area turned out to be is fair if we apparently only have the Borough of Merton? How objective is a 3 year evaluation period when SL has run for 28 years? Then the final cherry on the cake, implement the changes from the following season giving one club & only one club no chance to remain in SL?

Hughes failed to join the furore when it was at it's height, then threw his wobble when everyone else had lost a bit of interest. I'm not aware of, but may have missed it, that the morons responsible have ever tried to justify any of the selection criteria.

Anyway, unless Hughes wants to waive goodbye to his millions, he has to continue in the hope that somebody at some time will buy him out. As it stands, the club assets are a few players who seem to be signed for next year, goal posts & balls. Not unlike Roy & Barbera Close in 1984 & its only taken 40 years to get back to that. A dark room to lie down in I think. If the club survives, hope Cake stays as he has done better than I thought he would but guess Sheriden will be off.

Re: 2025 : Sat Sep 21, 2024 10:51 pm  

A big day this coming Monday. The club is to be put up for sale on that day. What there is available to sell I do not know.
It is said that at least one party is interested, but further offers are being sought.
I am keen to hear what will be said come Monday and from whom. I am sure fans would like situation explained and to find out
if the club has a future.
Perhaps the RFL might even give us a few words, who knows?
One thing for certain, David Hughes has done the money that he put into the club. All nearly thirty Million of it.
We will just have to wait and see!

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 8:59 am  

Victor wrote:

A big day this coming Monday. The club is to be put up for sale on that day. What there is available to sell I do not know.
It is said that at least one party is interested, but further offers are being sought.
I am keen to hear what will be said come Monday and from whom. I am sure fans would like situation explained and to find out
if the club has a future.
Perhaps the RFL might even give us a few words, who knows?
One thing for certain, David Hughes has done the money that he put into the club. All nearly thirty Million of it.
We will just have to wait and see!

Thanks for the update Victor. Not entirely surprising although the fact that you and the match commentator have provided more clarity than the club about what’s going on is pretty standard these days.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 10:57 am  

Will we ever know why Hughes voted for the ranking system that was always going to see us excluded from SL. Maybe he just wanted an out or perhaps this is just the latest in his series of dummy spits ?

The thing is, we were not expected to be in SL this season (though deserved to be). When the vote was made, surely we would have been planning on being a Championship side. The squad assembled for this season clearly suggests we had expected to be playing in the championship. How would we have fared in that league ? Let's say we finished in the top 3. Would Hughes still be putting the club up for sale ?

I appreciate Hughes has put in a lot of money but not in a particulary effective manner. He is clearly leaving the club in worse shape than when he took over as sole owner.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:38 am  

Interesting to note that the accounts for London Rugby League Limited are overdue. The accounts made up to 30 November 2023
were due by 31 August 2024.

The company has 100 ordinary shares, with Hughes taking on the 65 owned by Lenegan on 01 Dec 2010 to have sole ownership.

The last posted accounts made up to 30 Nov 2022, show creditors of almost £27.5m. A small proportion of this may be Lenegan but primarily it would be Hughes.

As of 30 Dec 2022, all the shareholding was in the name of Jack Hughes though Hughes senior is still shown as the sole director and the only person with significant control.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:44 am  

I am told that the vote to bring IMG into the RFL fold, was on the platform that IMG will sort out Rugby League, just leave it to them.
Somewhat like the Labour Manifesto in the last election, there was no detail and once in place they started adding all sort of things. Most of which nobody in the sport likes.
David Hughes just went with the flow like so many other chairmen, only to get caught out by the fine detail.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:45 am  

jbuzza wrote:

Will we ever know why Hughes voted for the ranking system that was always going to see us excluded from SL. Maybe he just wanted an out or perhaps this is just the latest in his series of dummy spits ?

The thing is, we were not expected to be in SL this season (though deserved to be). When the vote was made, surely we would have been planning on being a Championship side. The squad assembled for this season clearly suggests we had expected to be playing in the championship. How would we have fared in that league ? Let's say we finished in the top 3. Would Hughes still be putting the club up for sale ?

I appreciate Hughes has put in a lot of money but not in a particulary effective manner. He is clearly leaving the club in worse shape than when he took over as sole owner.

Can’t argue with that. He’s spent a load of money and energy over the years it hasn’t worked but the way we’ve gone at it this season has been odd. IIRC Newcastle United had an owner everyone hated and eventually he wanted out. What he didn’t do was run the club down (intentionally) what he did do was spend a bit, maybe not loads but a bit, to shore up the investment so it was sellable. That makes sense. Letting all our players leave is odd. Not recruiting is odd. Spending a lot trying to improve off field and then pulling the plug is odd. Of course, the oddest thing was the move to big new ground, make no effort to engage with the local area and compile a poor side/coach. So a positive person would say we are on an upward trajectory. And then of course compared to Keighley we look a model club.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 11:56 am  

On the other site there was a suggestion that Mr Hughes hasn’t been attending matches recently. That’s a bit sad considering what he’s put into the club. Me, I gave the 2nd Cats at home match a swerve which is typical as it was one of only two at home we won.

Re: 2025 : Sun Sep 22, 2024 12:03 pm  

Victor wrote: I am told that the vote to bring IMG into the RFL fold, was on the platform that IMG will sort out Rugby League, just leave it to them. Somewhat like the Labour Manifesto in the last election, there was no detail and once in place they started adding all sort of things. Most of which nobody in the sport likes. David Hughes just went with the flow like so many other chairmen, only to get caught out by the fine detail. That's simply not right. Proposals were presented to clubs in Dec 2022 with details being provided to clubs in Feb 2023 and some revisions in March 2023 prior to the vote in April 2023. The March 2023 version of the grading system is still available here. It was perfectly possible to calculate our score from the March 2023 publication. I did it myself and was very close to our provisional grading. Hughes voted in favour of that grading system. Our fate under it should have been very clear to him. There were some minor adjstments afterwards but nothing too significant. Hughes did not criticise the grading system until Jan 2024 some time after the indicative grading placing us 24th had been issued in October 2023.

Victor wrote: I am told that the vote to bring IMG into the RFL fold, was on the platform that IMG will sort out Rugby League, just leave it to them. Somewhat like the Labour Manifesto in the last election, there was no detail and once in place they started adding all sort of things. Most of which nobody in the sport likes. David Hughes just went with the flow like so many other chairmen, only to get caught out by the fine detail. That's simply not right. Proposals were presented to clubs in Dec 2022 with details being provided to clubs in Feb 2023 and some revisions in March 2023 prior to the vote in April 2023. The March 2023 version of the grading system is still available here. It was perfectly possible to calculate our score from the March 2023 publication. I did it myself and was very close to our provisional grading. Hughes voted in favour of that grading system. Our fate under it should have been very clear to him. There were some minor adjstments afterwards but nothing too significant. Hughes did not criticise the grading system until Jan 2024 some time after the indicative grading placing us 24th had been issued in October 2023.