[JTB]

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:41 am  

tim2 wrote:

We are outside the heartlands and when I contacted BARLA originally to help start up a league they simply weren't interested and passed me to the RFL.

Since then I've had fantastic support from the full time staff at the RFL and we have a part time community coach who is generating more players than we can handle given our volunteer base. If we had been "given" the money by the RFL, we would have to have hired a community coach anyway, and figured out how to employ them, managed their time etc. Everyone at the club works for a living and we simply don't have enough free time.

Like Bury, we also have difficulties with facilities. Union clubs use you when they want money from you but aren't really interested and get aggressive if they see you as a threat. Councils have barely heard of rugby league and it takes a long time to persuade them to consider sports other than football, even though we have, in just 3 years, generated players who have represented England Community Lions, signed professional forms and signed on to academy and scholarship.

The money from Sport England has very specific objectives, and if we want to see anything like that money again, we have to do what SE, and ultimately the government, say. It looks like the funding post Olympics is going to be targeted at 16-19 year olds. We have to start gearing up for that now, so that we can present a credible case when competing against other sports who also have full time governing bodies.

Following on from what Tim has said, our club (Wigan Riversiders) took their first tentative steps in the league Tim created, which, as an alternative to the BARLA NWC was our only real option. We've gone from there to running 2 teams, 1 in the top tier in the NW, and have involved probably 100 players in the last 4 years as a result. Whilst we've all probably had our moments with RFL officials, having full time staff there to consult on matters pretty much all day every day has made getting to where we area fair bit easier.

Having to spoken to administrators at 2 of the biggest amateur clubs in Wigan in the last couple of weeks, I have been told that 'funding organisations' are being actively encouraged now to look favourably on summer clubs as opposed to winter ones. That's the dark side of the RFL. Regardless of whether this benefits my club, participation is participation regardless of affiliation and time of year.

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:13 pm  

there is a bit of stereotyping going on that some people are BARLA people, some RFL. What's critical is that we represent (and work for) the best interests of our clubs and our players. Frankly, I couldnt care who was administering support as long as it was good support. On that basis, the RFL have been far better for us than BARLA. That doesnt mean we accept everything the RFL say - i have a number of issues currently with the changes they are making and will continue having my arguments (e.g. I think they are setting the facilities standards for the bottom rung too high - it'll push clubs in development areas into partnership with RU because of the standards required and I think the organic development of an independent RL club should be encouraged more).

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:17 pm  

Cronus wrote:

BARLA have done precisely naff all to help us establish our club in a football/RU area. We've struggled to find players, we've struggled to find training facilities and we've struggled to find a pitch.

Bury Council own a superb facility: home to Bury RU and cricket - but they won't entertain us. The council have told us they won't convert ANY of the dozens of football pitches into a RL pitch as they're all booked up. There are very few floodlit areas and we can't use any of the grass ones.

Meanwhile, those RFL staff you complain about have gone into the local schools and started working hard. Directly on the back of this, the school which acts as our current home ground kicked out Sedgley Tigers (a major RU club) in favour of the RFL programme. Also as a direct result (and mmp's hard work), they agreed to let us mark out a pitch (we still had to raise the money to buy the posts ourselves) and move in. There are also local school teams now popping up. We're even looking at playing double-headers this year: U-15s followed by open age.

I've seen more development and work from the RFL in the last 2 years than I've EVER seen from BARLA. I'm not anti-BARLA by any means, in fact I'd love them to be a success, but I'm simply looking at what's happening.

As for numbers - in the last few weeks I've had direct contact with RU, football and even badminton lads who are interested in joining us for the summer.

And any team, if desperate, can find 'free' training facilities in the summer. They just need a decent field.

sorry, but i have read the thread with interest, and the first thing that hit me when i read your statements was 'cart before the horse'. surely before/during the time in which you decide/plan to form a new side in such a challenging area/community, you would explore these boundries (bolded for ref) before making any commitment. it actually makes you look incapable. view it as market research or R&D!!

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:22 pm  

HouriganTiger wrote:

sorry, but i have read the thread with interest, and the first thing that hit me when i read your statements was 'cart before the horse'. surely before/during the time in which you decide/plan to form a new side in such a challenging area/community, you would explore these boundries (bolded for ref) before making any commitment. it actually makes you look incapable. view it as market research or R&D!!

You're seeing an amateur rugby league club as a business. It is a quasi-business in that it's outlay must be covered by its income. But it is something you want to set up in an area because you want to play/have rugby league in your area beacuse you think "it's worth it" rather than because you think it's a market to be tapped with an income stream to be simply drawn upon!

What you do is start small, identify the barriers as you go and try to overcome them. As you do, you keep an eye on your costs and income and occasionally, take a few risks to get that club off the ground. If I had started with my list of barriers - no players (unsurprising given there is no rugby league club!), no pitch, no money and just said "bugger it, that's too hard" then there would be no Bury Broncos and no rugby league club in a Borough with a population of 180,000 people!

This is how clubs organically develop - and it remains part of our constitution (and is incidentally, what I think we should be very proud of) that we exist to provide opportunities to the people of Bury - unlike many overnight clubs that have popped up in summer in development areas in the north we havent flooded our club with players from RL areas. I've been to a fair few summer games and seen a side full of NWC players, often from outside the immediate area - how does that help teh game as a whole grow? In Bury, many players were utter novices when they started with us (we had another first time novice train with us last night) and we have ensured throughout that local lads get their chance - out of 35 people who have worn a shirt this year, only 4 live outside the Borough's boundary.

It started in Bury with an open meeting December 2008. I was there (I live in the very south of the Borough) and another guy who lived near Bury town centre. I said I could probably get 7 players (people I knew) and he said similar - and from January we were training once a week as a mess-about session open to anyone who wanted to turn up.

So, we had an idea that there were about 20 people who maybe* wanted to play. That was our market.

I then spent a lot of time that summer talking to the Council and anyone who would listen trying to find a place to play, some money, a social venue etc. - where there was a barrier, I sought to overcome it.

By August 2008 came the big decision. We had a sponsor who would put £1k in to get us started, I was weighing up a Sportsmatch application using that sponsors money, we had c. 20 lads who might play, and I had found a school pitch that we could use (although at a silly price!).

The question was should we enter NWC and take the risk given that 20 lads wouldn't really be enough for a full season week in week out, we would need to sign up to £1k of costs for pitch hire and would need an outlay of c. £2k on equipment (including 2 kits) as well as £1,600 to use an all-weather pitch under floodlights to train. We took the risk, we budgeted carefully starting with a borrowed kit before buying our first in October and second at season end and we just about got through that fist year and then a second with the number of players rising to about 30.

Going into summer 2010 I started having detailed discussions with another school about it being a 'home' to the club, and then Cronus on the clubs behalf visited a Cricket club to see if they could become our social venue. The two sites were two minutes walk apart. We did a deal with the school saying we would focus junior development work there, we would pay for posts and pitch marking, and we would support them in grant applications etc. if they became our playing base. We helped get £5k for works to the school allowing us to have access to the changing rooms without having access to the rest of the school and we now use the school for FREE as a result, it cost us £1,300 up front but will save us every year from now on.

This week, we have negotiated with the school again so that we can use it as a training base and have storage space and have done a more formal deal with the cricket club so its our permament social base again for this summer. In April we will run a two day Easter Camp for juniors and aim to run two junior sides this summer alongside our open age. And although we occasionally concede a game because we still lack depth of experience we will finish 7th in Div 5 of NWC winning 8 games. In year 1 and year 2 we won just 2 games yet still kept that core of novice lads togther. As we go into summer this year we hope to have 30+ lads again and hopefully another group of newbies to the game to convert. All of this from small steps over three years.

So...that's how a club can develop with its sole focus on giving people opportunities to play RL and with all our revenue recycled back into expanding those opportunities. It will still be hard - our average age is close to 30 so we need a flow through but we'll keep going because "it'll be too hard" wasnt our attitude at the start and hasnt been at any point since.

The reason I put all that down was because i'm currently worried that the RFL have forgotten that such organic processes exist and that, in my view, an organic RL club focussed on RL development is better than an overnight club using players from an outside area and operating from an RU club (who are after the revenues they can grab rather than actually increasing RL participation more often than not).

The form that we had to fill in for this summer had conditions such as a social bar on the same site as a pitch (ours is still 100yds away but so what!?), dug-outs, permament pitch surrounds etc.. No offence, but no organic club could have those overnight!!! and the bonus point for fielding 13 players rule in the Merit League is barmy! surely a comp designed to help clubs get off the ground should reward a development side for turning up with 11 if that is all they have?! Why enter at all if your penalised for trying?!

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:35 pm  

HouriganTiger wrote:

sorry, but i have read the thread with interest, and the first thing that hit me when i read your statements was 'cart before the horse'. surely before/during the time in which you decide/plan to form a new side in such a challenging area/community, you would explore these boundries (bolded for ref) before making any commitment. it actually makes you look incapable. view it as market research or R&D!!

I suggest you read mmp's post carefully. And I'm not quite sure why you think the fact there have been hurdles make us look incapable - quite the opposite in fact: we've overcome those hurdles and found alternative solutions and are growing despite an utter lack of interest in most official quarters. Of course he explored pitch/training options before deciding to enter the NWC; to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. To be honest, if you think the word incapable defines by the huge steps we've taken and the leaps forward we're seeing right now, I also suggest you buy a dictionary.

mmp has established and grown the club - organically - from nothing. I'm sure in your wisdom you are fully capable of doing exactly the same thing more successfully in a borough with almost ZERO interest and barely any knowledge of Rugby League, and only a handful of players. If so, you're welcome to come down and show us how it's done.

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:34 pm  

HouriganTiger wrote:

sorry, but i have read the thread with interest, and the first thing that hit me when i read your statements was 'cart before the horse'. surely before/during the time in which you decide/plan to form a new side in such a challenging area/community, you would explore these boundries (bolded for ref) before making any commitment. it actually makes you look incapable. view it as market research or R&D!!

I can see your point but exploring these boundries when starting a club (and im not saying Bury didn't) only applies to a degree if the team your trying to start effects/weakens another RL club in your area. Otherwise you have to grab the bull by both horns and go for it....waiting for your town to help is useless, you have more chance of changing a towns allocation of say pitches when you 'no were to play this Saturday' when are up n running than 'going to have nowhere to play on a Saturday IF we start a team'

So as bury had/have no clubs in there area they decided to give RL a go. Now even if they only lasted 12 month they would of gave 15 or so lads the chance to play RL who would not of thought to travel to Bolton, Rochdale or anywere to play RL as these towns are off the radar. If only half the lads decide to carry on playing after Bury had folded and are willing to travel to Bolton or Rochdale these 7 or 8 lads will make a huge difference to the teams in those towns.....as it goes they have have not folded and have succeeded in running a RL side in a non-RL town (how long can we keep saying Bury is a non-RL town now the broncos are there - just because there is no pro team?? silly)


My point is this on starting a team and the summer Vs winter (RFL Vs BARLA) debate. I know this is not the pure topic of this thread but its getting there!

The RFL make life easy when starting a team.

I started Rochdale Cobras the same season mmp started Bury Broncos, both sides went in the NWCs 6th division. We didn't know each other prior to us starting the clubs but soon got talking and its safe to say both teams received great help, advise and assistance when starting up from the RFL. Both teams are now weighing up our options for summer (with every other team) and we are getting more info and solid facts from the RFL before BARLA get any info out. Before anyone comments on that last statement I do know why the RFL are doing this and how they have the ability to help (push) teams into summer but so what? If by ticking their boxes to Sport England and other government groups we get (the option!!) to play week in week out in better weather with a larger pool of players from football and RU....then Ill tick as many boxes as the RFL like.

Please note..these comments are mine and not that of the Rochdale Cobras committee or players but just one frustrated, undecided and confused member of the Amateur RL community.

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:15 pm  

Just to reiterate why its important to take a punt... http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... _id=289256 the Yr 5 tournament was won by Sedgley Park Primary. That's my old high school hosting a RL festival won by my old Primary school. In my 13 years across each, neither of those schools EVER had any rugby league at all.

Just to reiterate why its important to take a punt... http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... _id=289256 the Yr 5 tournament was won by Sedgley Park Primary. That's my old high school hosting a RL festival won by my old Primary school. In my 13 years across each, neither of those schools EVER had any rugby league at all.

Re: BARLA Statement - issued this week : Fri Apr 08, 2011 1:33 pm  

mmp wrote:

The form that we had to fill in for this summer had conditions such as a social bar on the same site as a pitch (ours is still 100yds away but so what!?), dug-outs, permament pitch surrounds etc.. No offence, but no organic club could have those overnight!!! and the bonus point for fielding 13 players rule in the Merit League is barmy! surely a comp designed to help clubs get off the ground should reward a development side for turning up with 11 if that is all they have?! Why enter at all if your penalised for trying?!

I wouldn't worry about the form - I don't think these are "conditions" as much as they are trying to find out whcih clubs are at what level. Although, of course, I'm no longer involved with Merit League / RLC organisation in the North West so I may be wrong.

In the Midlands the 13 man rule was introduced by the committee but I didn't want it. It's now been taken out. One of the problems was that at junior level in particular, you could turn up with 9 good players, take on a team with 17 players who would be forced to play 9v9 and beat them. However the junior leagues (at U15 and below) have been removed and replaced by a more development driven programme so league points are irrelevent now.