Does the Challenge Cup start in a fortnight? Does SL start in a fortnight? Is the Tragic Weekend in a fortnight? There has been plenty of stuff about those. Can’t recall generic articles about football in the close season discussing other clubs. You are lucky if England gets a mention.
Have a visit to Specsavers before scrolling down the page. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/ You may not read them but cannot help but see them.
Has a complete restructure of the professional football just been announced yesterday? Will there be articles about the WC when domestic football is suspended? Does the front page just update based on what been most read as opposed to being manipulated to suppress the football fans in the city? Do they pay a dedicated reporter to cover city unlike anyone else?
More people watch union internationals than league ones. When do they get a mention? Is it the paper or the city that is insular or parochial? A complete restructure has’t been announced. Some proposals have been put forward. A lot of them half-baked in my opinion.
And similar proposals in football would have far more copy written about them than we've seen in the HDM today. Does the area even have an elite level RU club? The whole sport of RL has been half-baked since they ****ed about with the pyramid and tried to to turn it into a lite-version of NFL franchise system. That doesn't mean to say there aren't a lot in Hull who like it and click on the articles generating income for what is essentially a media business. If they didn't, they wouldn't be written. Theres a reason areas tend to have either RL or RU clubs and rarely both at the top level and it's simply down to where the markets for either brand of eggchasing exist.
Doesn’t matter if Hull has an elite RU club. In the area covered by the HDM (and Radio Humberside) there are more playing union and more watching union internationals. But they don’t mention it. As I said, parochial and insular.
Or just there doesn't generally tend to be a market for both codes in the same area. M62 corridor it's predominantly League. Everywhere else the rugby market is mainly Union. If there were as many wishing to shell out for union as league in Hull, then there'd be clubs of similar stature here for both codes as opposed to 2 top flight RL clubs. A shade under 20% of the entire superleague actually Is Hull.
Still more watching the union internationals though. League got a head start in Hull. Only Hull and Leeds had 2 RL clubs before a football one. Hull behind the curve even back then.
Don't disagree with some of what you say - it's a minority sport in the national context and poorly organised to boot., Hull can be insular and at times 'behind the curve' generally. It's a pig of a place to get around and everything shuts as soon as most folk finish work. Doesn't change the fact that there's a market for RL in the area and the HDM simply reflects that to maximise their income.
Don't think when BT floated their company shares some of the proceeds went to building a sports stadium, ahead of the curve there.
Agree, Kingston Communications was unique and proved to be a success, but 1 swallow doesn't make a summer (though might make Vern happy next time he visits the conveniences)
To be honest I don’t think it is that. Reach isn’t based in Hull and I think the brainwashing team of Gollum and Tingle have convinced them it is (that is tongue in cheek but not wholly ). Same on Humberside. City have a game on a weekend and somehow RL comes up first even when there are no games. One of the worst is Pete Smurthwaite, chairman of Brid Town. Still remember some new presenter saying that Hull would remain a rugby city as long as the first thing kids did in Hull when they learnt to walk was to pick up a rugby ball.Obviously no one told him how many junior football teams there were compared to rugby ones. Only in Hull would an open meeting after a take over of the football club would you have rugby fans there asking what was he going to do for their club. Or the presenter saying that Hull is full of Leeds fans and has always been a rugby city. Thanks for buying us and welcome to Hull. I think the rugby thing has held back Hull in more ways than one. Other cities of a similar size, like Derby and Sunderland identify through their football club in a way that will never happen in Hull e cause of the rugby.
It's certainly a different culture up here. I think it's because heavy industry hung on a few decades longer here and supporting the footie followed by a skinful after a half-day Saturday shift became routine, then more of an identity thing when the premier league came about - both NE clubs suffered decline between de-industrialisation and the early 90's until the Prem era though. Both clubs historically had a great deal more success than City also - which probably left the door open in Hull for RL to gain a foothold unlike anywhere else really.
Without the prospect of a new stadium Adam Pearson would never have bought City, and we could still be the biggest city to...
We'd probably have gone under also. Pearson stated specifically the stadium had a lot to do with him buying us.
I can remember when I was very young Sunderland averaging 28,000 for reserve matches when the Saturday half days meant a lot still went to those. RL got quite a foothold in Leeds. For a long time the record crowd at Elland Road was 54,000 for a Leeds RL v Hunslet game. In fact a book about a football club starts it was a struggle for City to establish itself in a city dominated by rugby league. The City in question being Leeds City.
I know. But the motivation of some people was to stop FC going under. Doyle said sport plays no part in my agenda when City were in dire straits. Changed his tune pretty quickly when his beloved FC were up **** creek.