That wasn't the suggestion. The suggestion from you was that it was popular. Which it seems confirmed, it isn't.
Used to play it as a kid and watch it a bit but I find it so boring now. Mind you I bloody love the NFL and Baseball so what do I know.
Read 'The Forbidden Game' by Mike Rylance before making ignorant comments, you might actually learn something.
I've not read that book, but a good friend is heavily into the history of rugby league and in particular the conflicts between the codes and social classes. He talks to me at length about it and it's very interesting. None of which proves RL is currently popular in France. If anything, it explains why it isn't. It seems it's you and your suggestion I might learn something that is the ignorant element in this.
Fair play if you know the history of the game in France, I take the implication of ignorance back. The sport is still in recovery in France, it is popular and was for many years but the infrastructure just isn't there due to years of oppression. It will never recover fully due to the finance and professionalism that dominates the modern game. It's a really interesting topic and although I know your not a rugby league fan the book is a great read.
Fair play. Yes, I probably would enjoy the book. Unfortunately, by reading list of books I've downloaded but not yet read is huge and growing. I don't have any particular issue with rl as a sport. My issue is largely (and it's mainly fc fans) people making bizarre comparisons, that effectively drag down football in order to support their choice of sport. In the same way with a football team, it shouldn't matter how many others choose it. If you like it, just be comfortable with that. In some ways, I preferred City when it was more exclusive.
I referred to this earlier. I assume you didn't compliment me on my knowledge of this as you assumed I would. As usual, be well informed. Of course some people could have read my remarks, googled the subject and ten claimed knowledge of this. Just saying like...
Funny moment in Morrisons, bumped into my Hull FC supporting mate and he was sniggering about Rovers, I could see a big knucklehead eggchaser wearing a Rovers shirt listening intently behind him and I'm sure he was going to kick off, at the moment some old Granny spilt a bottle of wine nearby and distracted him otherwise would have started the day with a nice ruck in the fruit and veg section I'm sure!
Sorry, I didn't read your post, it's certainly an interesting aspect the sport. In all likelihood rugby union would still be bigger in France regardless but it's an interesting topic nonetheless.
Little kid? FFS I knew they were early starters over that way, but he's just said she was 7. I was surprised she had high heels & hot pants but to have shot out a sprog, fair play to her.
then to get beat out of sight in one the most one sided boring finals in living history by a record score does nothing for the city or the game itself. After the first 10 minutes Wembley was like a morgue, and it only sprang into life during the last 10 when Leeds fans realised a record score was on the cards. FFS both teams are in the same league and the salary cap is supposed to make all clubs equal. Tomorrows civic reception at City Hall should be a enthralling affair, with a 50 nil embarrassing defeat to sweep under the carpet, coupled with the torrential rain that is forecast. Terry Geraghty will be full of it.
Recognised international sport? It's a regional sport in England, has no professional clubs in Scotland, Ireland or Wales but laughingly field teams in the 'World Cup' to make the numbers up with other RL strongholds like the, erm, Cook Islands, New Zealand, a region of France and Australia who always win it. #mickeymousegame.
That is unfair. New Zealand, a country with only one club, has won it as well. Remember that team from the rugby league stronghold of Lebanon?
I've read the book. Its crap. The myth that rugby league was somehow discouraged in favour of Union is rubbish. You might as well say the same about football in Hull if you go back far enough. When FC kicked City off the Boulevard because they were attracting bigger crowds then them. That is covered superbly in Nicholas Turner's excellent 'Now Tigers'. That is a book worth reading.
Weren't they playing the reigning World Champions? The same day about 9,000 watched us play Mansfield in the bottom division. Guess which city had the two lowest gates in the last RL World Cup?
Correct. We attracted 9,000 paying customers in this 'rugby mad city' for a lower league game. Whilst they couldn't give tickets away to see Russia playing the reigning champions of the world ( probably Oz or the Kiwi's) in the World Cup. Wrexham were chosen as a venue for the last WC semi finals over Hull. Says it all.
To be fair here, as I mentioned elsewhere, it was the RFL who were the ones who forced FC's hand. They were worried about the growth of football in a stronghold of rugby league. The year before City started up the first ever rugby league champions, Manningham, switched to association football and became Bradford City. FC weren't anti-football, they had discussed dropping their reserve team and replacing it with a football one. Anyway, what forced FC's hand was the RFL banned ground sharing. Ironic as their most successful ever club shares with a football club nowadays as does the underachieving Giants in Hull. And, of course, any majotbfinals have to be played at a hired football stadium as,unlike football and union, they don't have a large stadium of their own. Gollum was burbling on about Wembley being the home of rugby. That would be the Wembley built with £750 million of FA money? And how much RFL money?
