If It Can Be Done In Lancashire - Why Not In Scotland

WE ARE NOW FOUR DAYS PAST MID-SEPTEMBER:

WHERE IS YOUR PROMISED REVIEW LESLEY THOMSON?

AS IF Scottish Rugby didn't have enough problems of its own, not least with Stupid-6, I hear some of the minor clubs have been casting envious eyes southward, and a little local difficulty which has come up in the red rose county of Lancashire.

To be fair to our southern neighbours, it looks as if, for once, the Old Farts at Twickenham have had their sensible heads on in how they dealt with the matter, perhaps the fact the Supreme Leader himself, World Rugby High Heid Yin Bill Beaumont is a Lancastrian, has played its part.

 The Most-Important Lancastrian in World Rugby - Bill Beaumont

Any way, 24 Lancashire clubs have this season resigned from the RFU English Clubs Championship pyramid, to form their own league. These clubs are:

Aldwinians, Ashton under Lyne, Birchfield, Bury, Burnley, Clitheroe, Didsbury Toc H, Eagle, Eccles, Garstang, Heaton Moor, Littleborough, Liverpool Collegiate, Liverpool St. Helens, Manchester Medics, North Manchester, Oldham, Ormskirk, Thornton Cleveleys (joining from the NW Intermediate Leagues), Trafford MV, Tyldesley, West Park St. Helens, Widnes and Wigan.

The “revolt” was greeted with admirable restraint by the Lancashire County RFU, who issued the following statement:

“A meeting held at Wigan RUFC on 2nd May has resulted in 24 Lancashire Clubs proposing to resign from the RFU English Clubs Championship.

At the behest of several clubs a two-league structure has been developed to accommodate these clubs and assist them in playing more local rugby against clubs within Lancashire RFU.

Lancashire RFU have not coerced clubs, we have only provided a conduit to what clubs asked us to help with.

The clubs who intend to resign are all either level 7, 8 & 9. There will be promotion/relegation between these two leagues but not out of them as they lie outside the RFU structure.

These ‘Lancashire Leagues’ for club First XVs will be deemed by the RFU to be of Merit table format and therefore clubs will:

• Retain either their voting or none voting membership of the Union.
  
  
• Be held accountable to the Rules & Regulations of the RFU
  
  
• Covered by insurance policies put in place for all clubs in the Union.
  
  
• Be eligible to apply for any funding streams available to all clubs within the Union without prejudice
  .
• Be eligible for assistance from area & local RFU staff.

An organising committee of five members from the clubs involved has been formed and they will set down regulations for the league going forwards. Clubs will also be Subject To the same disciplinary regulations as for all clubs in the Union, locally under the jurisdiction of the Lancashire Disciplinary Committee.

As a Constituent Body of the RFU Lancashire will continue to support all our clubs whether in the Lancashire leagues or remaining in the RFU English Clubs Championship in the same equitable manner.

David Herriman Chairman; Mark Downs Hon. Secretary”

All very amicable, restrained - “English” somehow. Of course, to the Old Farts down there in TW2 in South-West London, places such as Bury, Burnley and Garstang must seem an awfully long way away. After all, beyond the Watford Gap: there be dragons, well, maybe not, but Fran Cotton, the aforementioned Beaumont and PC Wade Dooley are frightening enough for anyone.

A large Blackpool policeman and a Weegie hooligan have a difference of opinion

They might not advertise it in the same way, but, Lancastrians can be every bit as thrawn as Yorkshiremen, and some, mentioning no names but we call him The Fat Controller, can be bloody awkward in the extreme.

What, one wonders, might happen if revolt broke out in Scotland? Let's just say, and I am flying my own particular kite here – some clubs in the wilder parts of the sprawling West Region, perhaps clubs whose SRU Councillor had shown himself to be over-fond of the posh seats at Murrayfield and Scotstoun, and somewhat less-enthusiastic when it came to liaising with his member clubs, or keeping them aware of what was happening in EH12, decided, the new Lancashire League initiative might work in the West of Scotland.

On Monday I posted Brian McMillan's tale of Birkmyre's away game at Lochaber, a 200-miles plus round trip, and not even the longest journey in that league. They travelled with just 14 players, but, they got the game played.

How much easier would it be for clubs at that level, if they didn't have to make that lengthy journey, for a bread and butter league game? Well, with a Scottish version of the Lancashire Leagues, meeting one of the principal motivating factors for the red rose boys breaking free of Twickenham to do their own thing – more local fixtures – we might see a regeneration of ordinary club rugby.

In the West, we have 16 National League clubs:

Ayr and Glasgow Hawks in the Tennent's Premiership: Cartha-Queen's Park, GHA, Hamilton and Marr are in National 1; Biggar, Dumfries Saints, GHK and Glasgow Accies in National 2; Ardrossan Accies, Carrick, Hillhead-Jordanhill, Newton Stewart and West of Scotland are in National 3.

West Division 1 is this season populated by Allan Glen's, Annan, Cambuslang, Cumnock, Dalziel, East Kilbride, Garnock, Greenock Wanderers, Irvine, Kilmarnock, Stewartry and Strathendrick.

In West Division 2 we find: Bishopton, Clydebank, Cumbernauld, Helensburgh, Lenzie, Loch Lomond, Millbrae, Oban Lorne, Paisley, Strathaven, Uddingston and Wigtownshire; while In West Division 3 we find: Birkmyre, Cowal, Hyndland, Isle of Mull, Lochaber, Moffat, Police Scotland Glasgow, Shawlands and Waysiders-Drumpellier.

That comes to 48 clubs, to which you could add Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian, Strathclyde and the University of the West of Scotland teams (Scottish rugby has disgracefully side lined university rugby for far too long), the likes of GUM – the Glasgow University Medics team, Lanark, Isle of Arran and Mid-Argyll and you have a really viable block of clubs, which, I am certain could thrive better if the league set-up was to be rearranged along more geographic lines.

I would also scrap National League 3 – I think a Championship and two National Leagues, below Stupid-6, would suffice.

Along the lower reaches of West Region, going from East to West across Dumfries and Galloway, you have Annan, Moffat, Dumfries Saints, Stewartry, Newton Stewart and Wigtownshire. Persuade Langholm to at last acknowledge they are a D&G club and bring in Lanark from the northern border of D&G, and you the basis of an eight-club South West League. OK, for this to work, Dumfries Saints being a National League club, would probably need to enter their 2^nd XV into this hypothetical competition,

In Ayrshire: Ardrossan Accies, Carrick, Cumnock, Garnock, Irvine, Kilmarnock, Millbrae and UWOS (Ayr) would I am certain form a highly-competitive and very-entertaining league.

I admit, around Glasgow, we might have to get creative and ignore old boundaries.

A Lanarkshire League comprising: Cambuslang, Cumbernauld, Dalziel, East Kilbride, Lenzie, Strathaven, Uddingston and Waysiders-Drumpellier would work.

Similarly, the possible league clubs North of the Clyde could work with something like: Allan Glen's, Clydebank, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow University, Hillhead-Jordanhill, Hyndland, Strathclyde University and West of Scotland.

South of the Clyde and Renfrewshire, there are: Birkmyre, Bishopton, Greenock Wanderers, Paisley, Police Scotland Glasgow, Shawlands, University of West of Scotland (Paisley) and........I feel I have missed somebody.

This leaves us with the clubs on the Northern extremities of the Region, plus the islands: Cowal, Helensburgh, Isle of Mull, Lochaber, Loch Lomond, Oban Lorne, Strathendrick and, perhaps knowing they would not have so far to travel clubs currently not in the league set-up such as Isle of Arran and Mid-Argyll might find a new lease of life.

Add in second and hopefully lower teams from the West's National League clubs and the basis of a great local league system is there.

At the end of each league campaign, the winners of each of the localised leagues could play-off to find the West Regional League Champion – and that club could go up into the bottom National League – if it wished.

And, by going to smaller, eight-club leagues, room would be left in the calendar for those very-popular county cups, and even a return of the great Glasgow & District Knock-Out Cup, played as short, sharp, start or end of season events.

Or, as “Cleggie” from the Last of the Summer Wine cast in the Scottish Rugby Union Writers Co-operative suggested when we discussed this: “We might even have time and space for cross-border rugby at Regional Level – the four Regional League Champions in Scotland against their English Level 7 rivals in Cumbria, Northumberland and Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire.”

Let's try things, let's be different – we have nothing to lose.