Here's a slightly bigger picture of the design.







I'm not sure if that is still the plan as that looks to be more than a 1,500 seat expansion.

It is at the Union ground to facilitate the rebuilding of the RL ground as shown above ....



As for boosting the local economy, the first season was supposed to have put around Eur.5 Million in to the locality (around £3million in sterling at the time with exchange rates).

I take it for the whole campaign for the return to terraces in football has completely passed you by, then?

glad they've removed the caged end and made it a square stadium. The atmosphere when I was there was great and that was with only 2 1/2 stands.

not even close...

[urlhttp://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-england-yorkshireandthehumber.php[/url



Hull 243,000

Leeds 443,000

Wigan 81,000

Castleford 37,000



St Helens 102,000 but with a hinterland of 469,000 (scousers)



Perpignan 116,000 (2.5m in the departement (hinterland))



Yours pedantically

Is this supposed to be a critique of the Catalans entrance into SL? If so you've got nothing right.

The Perpignan club and St. Estève who merged to form the Dragons have a long history in RL, going back to just after the end of the second world war. The whole area is a heartland of the game, complete with a semi pro league set up, several amateur clubs and schools, all playing the game. The RFL has nothing to do; the French RL has already done it.



This is where the players will come from. Infinitely better than the previous scenario where young French RL players had to move over to RU if they wanted to play as full time professionals. Not what I'd call "top heavy", on the contrary it's very well founded on a very solid basis.



It's important to remember too how a stronger European set up helps the British game, it's far from being just altruistic. With a strong France there is strong competition for England on the European scene and this will (hopefully) translate into a better prepared England for games against Australia and NZ. All this is one further reason to support them, alongside the fact that it is just the right thing to do.

I`m sorry but that`s just untrue - the period 1963 -1974 was when most damage was done to the sport which co-incidentally happened to be the time of the reign of Bill Fallowfield - the nadir most likely been reached in 1973 when a Test series involving GB ( as World Champions ) playing Australia attracting only 10,000 to the opener at Wembley and a simlar figure to the series decider at Warrington - just prior to that a Test match against NZ got a crowd of 3,500.

On the amateur side the game was little less but dead during the late Sixties early seventies and it was only the work of visionarys like Maurice Oldroyd helping set up BARLA which rescued it .

In relation to the RU parallels they are also questionable -sure some RU clubs have thrived but many have more or less gone to the wall ( London Scottish , Richmond , Bedford etc ) and even at GP level several clubs are either reliant on other clubs facilities such as Saracens or Wasps or living hand to mouth as in Leeds and to a certain extent Newcastle and Sale . RL meanwhile is benefiting from a tight salary cap allowing us to invest in new faciltys such as those at Warrington or planned at St Helens ...

I`m sorry but this game is dying scenario is just wearisome and rather typical of any debate involving RL ...

You misunderstood my post. I am pointing out that it is only in the last few years that RL has woken out of its torpor and is finally starting to look at the big picture ie franchising, Salary cap, infrastructure, youth development, imports etc

I wonder just what would have happened to our domestic game and the "heartland" clubs especially if, in 1941, the government of the day declared the game illegal and sized all its assets?

So you are questioning what would have happened to RL if we had lost the 2 nd world war ?



I doubt we would have cared

Sorry to butt into this but can I just say that Hull has two clubs in its City so any figures mentioned about poplulation has to be halved in this discussion. (well in fact most of the population lives in the east side of the city so even half isn't a true reflection but that would be padantic! lol)

can be manipulated to suit virtually any argument , and as such are not relevant to arguments like this , your one of having 2 clubs can in reality work the other way and actually increase levels of support