A tale of Christmas past

It's championed on plenty of other roar posts and pilloried by a malevolent and blinkered few, but for me the way forward has to be more emphasis on the game internationally, both at club and national team level. I must admit Niall that although the ethos behind the salary cap is a noble thing all it has done in reality is drop the general standard to the lowest common denominator as opposed to setting the bar high and encouraging clubs to reach it. Certainly losing quality players to the NRL or RU doesn't help promote the domestic competition. Regarding your dads connection with the Welsh RU, you may be interested to know that my club holds the Ex-Welsh Rugby League Players Association annual St Davids day and Christmas gathering/booze up. Some of the greats that came north from Welsh RU turned up last Tuesday including; Billy Boston, Jim Mills, John Mantle, David Watkins, Kel Cosslett and the old Warrington favourite Mike Nicholas, there are a few rare tales told once the ale starts to flow! Another Warrington/Welsh connection is Lee Briers who is now on the Wire coaching staff who I'll actually be having a pint with at lunch time tomorrow before demolishing the turkey. Merry Christmas lads.

All the best gents, thanks for reading the article. To answer your questions in reverse order, Wigan share their ground with Wigan Athletic football club and have it on (I'm pretty sure) a 99 year lease. They moved in at the turn of the century, it is a top ground and I always enjoy the away fixture there as Saints pack out the away end and generate a cracking atmosphere. As Rodney says it was originally named the JJB stadium after owner Dave Whelan's sports wear company, he owned both the Warriors and Athletic at the time. The stadium is now called the DW stadium and has been for 4 or 5 years. Whelan sold his share in the Warriors a few years back to Ian Lennigan and it certainly saw their fortunes pick up again, Lennigan is a Wiganer who previously chaired the London Broncos but sold up there and moved back North when the chance to take over at his home town club became possible, as a side note he attended Cowley school in St Helens as a lad where he was taught by former dual code international and the voice of rugby league on the BBC Ray French. The old Central Park site is now, as Rodney mentions, a Tesco supermarket. Saints moved into the excellent Langtree Park for the start of the 2012 season and it is the largest purpose built club rugby stadium of either code in the UK. The big boost for Saints is that they own the stadium outright and it is fully paid off, so all revenue generated goes straight to the club. Our chairman Eamon McManus is, like Lennigan at Wigan, a local lad done good and his contribution to our club over the last 15 years or so cannot be under estimated. To answer your question Jas the old Knowsley Road site (that had been our home from 1890) is now a housing estate development. That 35k plus crowd was a little before my time but I've been on there in the mid 80's for a challenge cup tie against Wigan with over 27,000 packed in. that was amazing and the crowd literally had to breath in and out in sequence! Regarding your point Niall there has to be a spot of sitting on the fence I'm afraid. The onset of the Super League brought full time professionalism to the sport were previously Wigan had been the only full time pro club, minimum standards for how each club was run were put in place and the idea being that crowds would flock to the games as the majority would be played in better weather (ahmm, we are talking about the UK!). Increased TV exposure and the revenue it would bring on Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV was also one of the carrots that had been dangled in front of the RL prior to switching seasons. The main issue with the switching of seasons for me is that previously the big and important games (ie: the start of the season and the league run in, cup final etc) were played in August and then the end of April early May when the weather tends to be better, now we start the season in early February and finish in October when the weather is usually terrible (from reading previous posts I think you may be in the UK now so you can judge the weather situation for yourself). The other big thing for me is I don't buy all the Sky hype. Sticking sport in a compartmentalised box on a specialist channel may be fine for people who already follow the sports but in effect it hides it away from potential supporters. An example I often use when discussing this subject in the ale house is to compare the 1990 Kangaroo ashes tour. The three tests were played in front of packed houses at Wembley, Old Trafford and Elland Road - the smallest of which holds 44,000ish, all broadcast live on Saturday afternoon on BBC, fast forward to 2004 the tests were played at Wigan, Huddersfield and Hull which all hold mid 20,000 on Saturday tea time on Sky. Back in 1990 there were quite a few RL players that were household names throughout the UK, Ellery Hanley, Joe Lydon, Jonathan Davies, Garry Schofield, Martin Offiah, Andy Gregory, I could go on. During the Super League era you would be lucky if anyone outside of a rugby league town could name more than one England player. So perhaps in retrospect the financial support that was the big thing as Super League started has turned into a crutch that encourages the sport to limp!