Look to the future.......please I implore you : Sat Jul 17, 2010 12:34 pm
I posted the below comments in bold in April 2010 and I feel that having read the 30 odd pages on the stadium statement thread it is more relevant than ever.All I ask is that people take off the spectacles of bias (hard for everyone, myself included) and look at the situation as it truly is. Neither club deserves any help from the council, whether it be financial loans or pushing through planning, that is not what they are there for.
Both BoD's have proved themselves incapable of progressing their club since the conception of SL. The buck stops with them in my opinion. They are the guardians of their respective club and they have failed. The need to regcognise this before both clubs are consigned to the scrap heap should not be under-estimated. History counts for nothing in SL, never has and never will.
There are a great number of passionate people involved with both clubs, but none more so than the fans. We know RL, we breath RL and we can dominate RL if we only learn to work together. Both clubs feel that the RFL and the rest of RL is against them....I agree. So lets do the un-expected and embrace their efforts to destroy us and unite. This is extremely hard for me to say and concede, but we had the chance years ago, but the timing was out; and we, the fans were wrong. I can hold my hand up now and see that.
The bigger picture is what is important and I don't want RL to wither and die in my/our district.
The RFL and it's dream of SL has created a false hatred between our fans, shown by the blinkered venom spouted by some on the various stadium threads. I enjoy the rivalry, experiencing my share more than most with the whole of my in-laws massive wakey fans, and I'll be sad to see that lost to a merger, but I'd rather that than one or both clubs to die. I'm not prepared to take the risk of losing either club...are you?
I certainly see no success in seeing another proud RL club die just so that one can survive until the RFL move the goalposts again and the "winner" dies to make way for another more fashionable club.
As soon as wakey announced the location of Newmarket Lane I warned both Cas and wakey fans that a merger would come and I still don't see anything to make me think it wont happen. As I have resigned myself to this I have mused over the prospect for quite a while and I think the majority of people, myself included, could follow a merged team under the following conditions:
1. No professional rugby league team henceforth to be allowed to have the following words incorporated into its name; Castleford Tigers and/or Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. The names must die with the merger; it's the only way it could work.
2. The newly merged team must play in completely neutral colours (no black, amber, red, white or blue) difficult though this may be. There aren't many left as I'm sure neither of us wants to play in blue (spit!)
3. The newly formed club must be named independently of the two places. Who says a team has to bear the name of a Town or a City? It has to be something completely synonomous with the area; the only thing I can think of that alienates no-one, but incorporates almost everyone is the moniker "Miners" or some other mining industry name. This, in my opinion, could appease some of the older heads too as well as allowing the heritage and identity of the whole area to blossom and engender a lost sense of pride and community which has otherwise been consigned to the rubbish tip by successive Tory and (more shamefully in my opinion) Labour governments. Apologies I digress!
If these three points were applied, more importantly point 1, then I, as gut wrenching as it would be, could support a merged team with the pride and passion with which I have followed Castleford Tigers.
You may have noticed that I have left Featherstone Rovers out of the equation, this is purely as the thread appears to me to be talking about Cas and wakey only. They could easily be placed into the equation I have outlined above with little or no problem should they choose to.
i do know the chap in question he's got that name on his shirt.
