ON THE LEVEL (August 07)
When I started playing rugby union for St Helens RUFC in the late 1950s and early ‘60s and coached there – illegally – in the ‘70s, the clubs we played were essentially local. There were occasional trips to Yorkshire, but 80% of the fixture list was in South West Lancashire. When I was invited to return as President of Liverpool St Helens about six years ago, we were then in National League 3 and playing against the likes of Tynedale, Blaydon, Darlington and Darlington Mowden Park in the North East and going as far South as the Leicester Lions in the Midlands. I wondered why a bunch of lads were getting on a coach at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning and travelling for three or four hours – which was costing the club about £700 a trip – when we could be playing closer to home against the likes of Fylde, Preston Grasshoppers and Broughton Park.
At Liverpool St Helens we’ve developed a terrific team spirit and a lot of enthusiasm, having gone back to being a CASC (Community Amateur Sports Club) where people aren’t paid.That’s carried us through this season and enabled us to win promotion back to North 1 from North 2 West, a league in which we’ve been playing the likes of Broughton Park, Wilmslow, Winnington Park and Lymm, all cubs in close proximity and with whom we’ve developed a good relationship. Of course the players and the Liverpool St.Helens club are competitive and want promotion, but there’s the cost factor and the player factor. The higher you go in rugby union, the more you come up against professionalism. In North 1 there are players who are paid, but as a CASC club we can’t and will not pay players. It’s very a difficult situation if we intend to compete as strongly as we do.
Higher up in National League Three, you’re dealing with a part-time professional entity and you have to raise a lot of money. If you have a “sugar daddy” or land you can sell, the money only lasts so long – the only thing that keeps a club alive is its own money raising capability. You’ve got to have the public passing through the turnstiles and around here that can happen at only one club ,Sale Sharks. If you play a club from, say, the North East, there won’t be any away spectators and very little coming through the bar. However, if you play a club that is in close proximity, such as Lymm or Birkenhead Park, there will be. Basically, it’s not an open rugby scene it’s full of handicaps.
In rugby league things are quite different. You have one full-time professional league at the top, which is Super League, two part time national leagues and below that it’s totally amateur – and it has to be otherwise you’re club is penalized with a fine or docked league points. With BARLA (British Amateur Rugby League Association) there are national leagues and area leagues, and you can decide which one you want to be in. Hence quite a lot of the Cumbrian sides choose not to be in the national leagues because they find that their players can’t travel due to work commitments. I think the way forward would be to organize rugby union on similar lines.
You could have the fully professional Guinness Premiership at the top, then National League One and Two could be full or part-time. Beneath that there would be a series of amateur leagues only, based on areas. So you could have, say, North West leagues (taking in Cumbria), North East leagues, Midlands leagues and so on. If you came top of North West 1 and felt your club was capable of adjusting to a professional environment, you could then apply for a national league franchise. There would be certain criteria you would have to fulfil including finance, facilities and infrastructure. Also, if a club were struggling in the national leagues they could opt out, drop down become amateur.
The basic decision for placement in a league would be down to what the club wanted to be – full time, part-time, or amateur.You can’t do that in rugby union at the moment because there’s a mix half way down where you have amateurs battling against semi-professional, and professional clubs against CASC clubs. It’s not a level playing field.
Ray French
When I started playing rugby union for St Helens RUFC in the late 1950s and early ‘60s and coached there – illegally – in the ‘70s, the clubs we played were essentially local. There were occasional trips to Yorkshire, but 80% of the fixture list was in South West Lancashire. When I was invited to return as President of Liverpool St Helens about six years ago, we were then in National League 3 and playing against the likes of Tynedale, Blaydon, Darlington and Darlington Mowden Park in the North East and going as far South as the Leicester Lions in the Midlands. I wondered why a bunch of lads were getting on a coach at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning and travelling for three or four hours – which was costing the club about £700 a trip – when we could be playing closer to home against the likes of Fylde, Preston Grasshoppers and Broughton Park.
At Liverpool St Helens we’ve developed a terrific team spirit and a lot of enthusiasm, having gone back to being a CASC (Community Amateur Sports Club) where people aren’t paid.That’s carried us through this season and enabled us to win promotion back to North 1 from North 2 West, a league in which we’ve been playing the likes of Broughton Park, Wilmslow, Winnington Park and Lymm, all cubs in close proximity and with whom we’ve developed a good relationship. Of course the players and the Liverpool St.Helens club are competitive and want promotion, but there’s the cost factor and the player factor. The higher you go in rugby union, the more you come up against professionalism. In North 1 there are players who are paid, but as a CASC club we can’t and will not pay players. It’s very a difficult situation if we intend to compete as strongly as we do.
Higher up in National League Three, you’re dealing with a part-
In rugby league things are quite different. You have one full-
You could have the fully professional Guinness Premiership at the top, then National League One and Two could be full or part-
The basic decision for placement in a league would be down to what the club wanted to be – full time, part-
Ray French