The Times Orrell Special today...

[ancientnloyal]

I read The Times, being sophosticated n'all... and came across a whopping 1 and a half pages worth all dedicated to Orrell RU.

I found a link from the online version... it worth a read: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 11,00.html

Or read it here:


The Times January 27, 2007

A club indecline


Orrell give graphic illustration of how far the mighty can fall
Patrick Kidd

Once a force to be reckoned with, the famous old club are set to complete their slide into oblivion


It was once dismissed as “a lay-by on the M6”, but for a spell Orrell RFC had the more snobbish southern clubs eating their words. Fifteen years ago, Orrell drew crowds of 6,000 to Edge Hall Road in Wigan as they led the top division until almost the end of the 1991-92 season. Now they get 300 spectators, at most, to home matches and must face the might of Hull Ionians today.

Orrell are 29 points adrift at the bottom of National League Three North, the lowest tier of national rugby, and relegation for a third successive year is all but secured. The once flourishing lay-by has become cracked and overgrown, such is the effect of professional rugby union in a region where rugby league and football rule.


It did not help Orrell’s chances when they were hit with a six-point penalty near the start of this season for fielding unregistered players. It took a 10-10 draw against Cleckheaton two weeks ago to bring Orrell’s points tally above zero

Yet they sometimes play before stellar spectators. Last month, the crowd away to Fylde for Orrell’s match against their local rivals included Jerry Collins, the All Blacks flanker, and Brian Ashton, who played at scrum half for both teams in the 1970s and was about to be appointed England’s new head coach.

Orrell were founded in 1927 and gained a feared reputation, but in the days before formal fixture lists they struggled to attract big names to the North West. In 1971-72, however, Orrell won the Lancashire Cup without conceding a point, a result that gave them entry to the national knock-out competition the next year, when they produced the giant-killing feat of beating Harlequins in the second round.

They reached the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the cup on several occasions and produced a trickle of England players, such as John Carleton, the wing who played in the 1980 grand slam-winning team and toured with the Lions, Nigel Heslop, the wing, and Dewi Morris, the scrum half. Their peak came in 1991-92, when they led the Courage Clubs Championship with three matches to go before a last-minute dropped goal by Huw Davies for Wasps inflicted on Orrell the defeat that ultimately lost them the title to Bath.

The advent of professionalism a few years later proved costly, as it was for so many other famous club names, such as Richmond and London Scottish. Greed and ambition ran ahead of sense and the club fell into debt.

Simon Mason played three times at full back for Ireland in 1996 and had joined Orrell from Benetton Treviso the year before, one of the first professional signings the club made, but he admits that Orrell were not ready for the changes happening to rugby. “It caught them cold,” he said. “They saw other clubs start to throw money around, offer players cars and the like, and they thought they could compete.”

Mason left for Richmond the next year but returned to Orrell as director of rugby in 2004, by which stage the club were in freefall.

Many Orrell supporters blame Dave Whelan, the chairman of JJB Sports and Wigan Athletic FC, and Maurice Lindsay, the chairman of the Wigan Warriors rugby league club, for their perilous position. The pair invested heavily in the club between 2001, when they were in League Two, and 2004, but pulled out when Orrell narrowly failed to regain their Premiership place.

Some say that Whelan and Lindsay had let the club wither, concentrating their money solely on the first team and the quest for the Premiership and allowing other sections of the club to drift. Lindsay, naturally, begs to differ, blaming the lack of local interest for their decision to pull out.

He has pointed out that when he and Whelan got involved, the club had sold much of the Edge Hall Road ground to a property development company and yet were again in financial trouble. He feels aggrieved that, after putting £3 million into the club over three years, fans who never showed up to watch blame him and Whelan for putting business interests before sentiment.

“The club had 500 registered members, so we offered £1,000 to each one so that the club could have the right to play rugby,” Lindsay said. “We even threw them a buffet to say thank you.”

If £1,000 each was not enough to get fans out on a damp Saturday afternoon, sausage rolls and tuna sandwiches did not do it, either. “The week after they took our money, only 242 people showed up to watch Orrell,” Lindsay said. “That showed the lack of appetite for rugby union round here.”

On the field, things were going quite well for a change. Orrell were promoted from League Two in the first season of the Whelan/Lindsay regime and came fourth in League One the next year, as well as beating Exeter in the final of the Powergen Shield

But all was not rosy. The clubhouse burnt down in August 2002 and there was little hurry to rebuild it. Whelan’s eyes were focused on his football club, with Wigan making progress up the leagues, and when they were promoted to the second tier in 2003, it was clear that they were his only priority, even though Orrell came second in League One the next season, Whelan’s last, losing out on promotion to Worcester.

Again, Lindsay blames the fans. “For that crucial home game against Worcester [which Worcester won 15-7], there were 2,900 at the game and 1,800 were away fans,” he said. The club point out that a local bylaw limited the numbers who could attend, but Lindsay replies that the average gate that season was only 400. “We tried to rescue them but the support wasn’t there,” he said.

The club are now tenants, paying £1,000 a match for the right to use their ground on match days. They are not even allowed into the new clubhouse, which is being converted by Lindsay into a gym for Wigan Warriors. Next season, Orrell are to end their 57-year association with Edge Hall Road and play their North One matches at a nearby school.

Mason is now a teacher at St Anselm’s College, on The Wirral, which he attended as a pupil with Austin Healey, the former England back and another Orrell alumnus. “The club has withered as the heart of the community,” Mason said. “It is difficult to see a way back.”

He plays for Caldy, who are top of North One and are set to enter the national leagues as Orrell drop out. “We are thriving at Caldy,” he said. “We get traffic jams on a Sunday because of parents taking their children to games. Orrell was once like that.”

[DaveO]

ancientnloyal posted:
.....the new clubhouse, which is being converted by Lindsay into a gym for Wigan Warriors.

Well done Mo!

Mason is now a teacher at St Anselm’s College, on The Wirral, which he attended as a pupil with Austin Healey, the former England back and another Orrell alumnus. “The club has withered as the heart of the community,” Mason said. “It is difficult to see a way back.”

He plays for Caldy, who are top of North One and are set to enter the national leagues as Orrell drop out. “We are thriving at Caldy,” he said. “We get traffic jams on a Sunday because of parents taking their children to games. Orrell was once like that.”

That is the difference. My son plays for Chester RUFC U13's and we play Caldy quite often. Caldy run two U13 teams and have young players queueing up to join. Caldy are not a professional club. They are a typical RU club run by the people that chose to get involved. It is a momentum thing in a way - people recognise it for what it is, get involved and so it goes on. Sounds like the exact opposite happened at Orrell.

Dave

[Cruncher]

It must be galling beyond imagining for diehard Orrell fans to look back on all this, but those statistics don't lie.

With crowds as pathetic as that, there was no way they could even pretend that they belonged with the top clubs. In fact, I've often found it interesting that their 'decent crowd' period coincided with our 'decent crowd' period. More than a few RL fans I knew were so besotted with match action in those days, that they'd go and watch Orrell on a Saturday if there was nothing else to do. That must have helped up the numbers a bit.

Interesting that the column didn't do more than briefly hint that Orrell (and presumably other clubs of their stature) might be going to the wall because the RU powers have decided there's no room for them in the professional age. I don't mean someone's at RU HQ sat down and ruled this, but once the big changes came in it was obvious that many traditional old names wouldn't be able to compete, yet clearly this wasn't regarded as an issue.

The Orrell story's a sad one, but from this article it doesn't look like the blame can entirely be laid at the doorsteps of Messrs. Whelan and Lindsay.

[DaveO]

Cruncher posted:
Interesting that the column didn't do more than briefly hint that Orrell (and presumably other clubs of their stature) might be going to the wall because the RU powers have decided there's no room for them in the professional age. I don't mean someone's at RU HQ sat down and ruled this, but once the big changes came in it was obvious that many traditional old names wouldn't be able to compete, yet clearly this wasn't regarded as an issue.

True and even in London clubs like Richmond failed the same way as Orrell. We seem to be trying to prop up clubs who can't complete.

The Orrell story's a sad one, but from this article it doesn't look like the blame can entirely be laid at the doorsteps of Messrs. Whelan and Lindsay.

It is sad and shows how hard you land when you fall from what appears to be a great height. People spend their efforts trying to preserve what they had whereas in Orrell's case they would have been better re-inventing themselves as a community club like the Caldy club mentioned in the article.

As you say it must be sad for the die hard fans. I used to go out with a girl from Orrell years ago who's Dad was a big fan. He used to really enjoy his rugby. Passed away a couple of years back and I bet he is turning in his grave over this mess.

Dave