Comparing Hull with a population of 300,000 with Manchester 2.8million or Liverpool 1.5million is pointless..

Manchester's population is a fraction of that. You are deliberately including Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and Salford, which are part of Greater Manchester, which is a Metropolitan County, not a City. Hull is a City surrounded by nothing.

Like an urban black hole?

Why is it pointless ?

Surely, we are comparing one of the top fixtures in the SL program with one of the top fixtures in the premiership.

Just because the premiership game pulls 70,000 fans and SL pulls 15,000 doesnt make it pointless, unless you are covering your ears in the style of a spoilt 7 year old and not wanting to listen.



Taken in context and given the population of Hull compared with your (inflated) population of Manchester and Liverpool, in percentage terms, there is a greater interest in the RL fixture in Hull(or Wigan (if you go for Wigan v Saints)than there is in the football (Liverpool or Manchester).



There is little point in bemoaning the fact that our sport is less popular than football as this always has been and always will be the case.

However, we can learn from how they promote their game both as clubs and within the media or, are you closed to that as well

NB: I only responded to EastHull's assertion that FC didn't belong in the top tier of clubs in terms of attendances and fiscal ability.....I didn't say HKR weren't worthy, just that they were the 2nd side in the city.

3rd biggest gate i SL this year was the Hull derby at FC,......and HKR sold their shed out for the reverse fixture.....30,000 fans over 2 games we can't afford to ose

I was responding to one our new posters (Joff), who was unable to see the merit in derby games and couldn't grasp the virtues of "selling" the games bigger games.

Along with Wigan - Saint's games, the Hull derby is one of the biggest club fixtures in the RL calendar.

He made some comment about a Hull derby being irrelevant compared to a Man United - Liverpool derby in the round ball game due to the (inflated) population figures that he gave.

As you rightly say, given the "pull" of RL, 15,000 is an excellent attendance figure (many more for the Wigan Saints games) and we need to sell these fixtures to TV viewers, build them up, just as other sports do with their "big" games.

the Hull derby is easily my favourite game that doesnt include Saints



Regards



King james

It is for now, until the mouthwatering Toulouse vs Catalans fixture becomes a regular derby in the not too distant future.

Too right. Thats going to be an absolute pearler



Regards



King james

Don't talk cobblers. Apart from Trafford or Tameside none of those towns/cities consider themselves to be part of the City of Manchester based on the people I have met. Wigan is about 25 miles by car. It's like saying York, Harrogate, Huddersfield are part of Leeds. I couldn't give a hoot if it becomes a city region. There are some distinct advantages to it.

Your talking about Greater Manchester as a Metro County old boy, would you say Liverpool has a population of 1.4 Million ? Or is that the Metro county of Merseyside?



You cannot class; Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan and Salford in the population of Manchester as a city.

As union makes strides across all facets of FTA TV, we debate which pit village has too many teams......sums it up pretty well really

Random fact for everyone; back in the 1800s Manchester was by far a rugby city. There were rugby clubs all over. The football clubs were insignificant, other than maybe Hulme Athenaeum. Sheffield was a football city and there was a train line built between Manchester and Sheffield which saw football team pop up every now and again along that line but eventually into the Manchester conurbation.



Eventually football took over from rugby when City won the city’s first trophy in 1904 (FA Cup) and United won the city’s first league title in 1908.



From there the city’s rugby clubs fell away in popularity but just imagine what rugby might have been like in Manchester had that railway not been built!

Rather than squabble about the population of Manchester perhaps we should focus on the positives and the good ideas:



- we have a more interesting club game the Union (and I say that as a fan of both codes)

- we had a great RLWC last year that we need to build the international game on (though RLIF and NRL seem to be doing their best to sabotage that)

- there is a lot of potential for growth still if it is marketed correctly



Some very valid points made about the incoherence of the strategies around internationals and MW. I like Newcastle but I thought it made far more sense to have MW in Manchester which was at least reasonably easy for the majority of fans to get to whilst still being a good day out (and though it pains me to say it the Council House is a nicer ground than St James's Park).



Go back to having internationals at the larger league grounds.



I'd add far more games on Sat/Sun rather than Thurs/Fri.