Post by otleybard on Aug 25, 2008 13:38:33 GMT 1
Our Unibond Premier Rivals...
No. 10a LEIGH GENESIS
The Facts:
Where do they play?
Ah, hard ones first. Officially, Hilton Park, Kirkhall Lane, off Atherleigh Way, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 1RN until November, then at a new stadium at Leigh Sports Village. In practice, a lack of pitch-related input from their fellow residents Leigh Centurions RLFC has meant that Hilton Park is currently fit only for the Horse of the Year show. Last week’s game, a 3-0 win over Ashton, had to be staged at Victory Park, Chorley.
Admission 2008-09: Adults £7.00, OAPs £4.00, U-16s £1.00
When do we play them? Not for a while: Saturday February 21 at Nethermoor and a month later somewhere in Lancashire.
Final league position last season: 22nd and last in Blue Square North, the unfashionable way to be relegated from the BS.
Odds at Coral’s: 11/2 Joint Favourites.
Home Kit: White Shirts with Black Detail, Black Shorts and Socks. Probably designed by Alexander McQueen.
Change Kit: All Blue with White Trim.
Manager: Steve Bleasdale
Highest home / away attendance last season: 553 / 1,780
Lowest home / away attendance last season: 101 / 156
Average home / away attendance last season: 202 / 589
Home gate v Guiseley last season: N/A
Result at Hilton Park: N/A
Result at Guiseley: N/A
Website: www.leighgenesis.com
Manages to be polished, comprehensive, current and very readable, putting a good few Football League sites to shame.
Forum: via the Website, or try www.GenesisLeythers.co.uk
Showing signs that unbridled optimism and enthusiasm can be infectious.
Last few games v Guiseley:
My first - and presumably last - visit to Hilton Park took place some time in the mid-1990s, for a game which I vaguely recall Guiseley won without breaking sweat. The Leigh team was a shambles, spending more time on each other’s cases than providing serious opposition, and the angry shouts of the sparse crowd echoed round the vast (in Unibond terms) stadium. I remember remarking sagely that this was a club that’d be lucky to see out the season. Sure enough, within a decade Leigh RMI were near the top of the Conference and battling seriously for a place in the Football League. If anybody wants my Lottery numbers, let me know.
Since records began (or at least those published on Tony Kempster’s excellent site) we played Leigh six times in the UPL between 1997 and 2000, winning three times and drawing once. The last meetings, in 1999-2000, saw us pinch a 1-0 at Hilton Park, though they turned us over 3-0 at Nethermoor and we left the division in opposite directions.
Who are we likely to recognize?
At the moment, it’s doubtful whether even their own fans will recognize many of their players. The bloke in the sticks might awaken a few memories at Nethermoor, though.
News from the close season/what we do think of them and/or how much do they annoy us/likely prospects this season/lots of irrelevant rubbish
In a display of blind confidence rare in recessionary Britain, owner Dominic Speakman has reacted to relegation with remarkable aggression. Rather than slashing the playing budget and threatening that anyone walking past the ground on matchdays might be pressed into service, he has moved decisively in the opposite direction. Leigh RMI have become, like many of the sides that turned them over last season, A Full-Time Professional Club. That means the lads entrusted with the task of returning the team to the next stratum will have nothing to occupy their minds through the week other than honing their fitness and plotting ways of seeing off the ragbag collections of builders, postmen and car salesmen who cross their paths Saturdays and Tuesdays. To that end, they seem to have hoovered up most of the jettisoned full-time players in the north-west. Oh yes, and Steve Dickinson.
And that’s not all. Wads of cash have presumably been thrown at other Professionals, the marketing kind, who have decided that what for many years has got by being a football club is now a Brand. A shiny new futuristic logo, a representation on the website of what could be a Canary Wharf Conference Centre and, to replace the connotations of pre-Thatcher horny-handed sons of toil, a New Name!
Ah yes, the name. If the idea of the change was to attract publicity it’s certainly worked, even if the response has almost invariably been a barely-suppressed guffaw; in these secular times, a reference to any form of religion unlikely to exact earthly revenge provides an easy laugh. Similarly, its association with a somewhat unfashionable rock group looks like an own goal of David James proportions.
Anyway, the main intention is presumably to attract the attention of the worthy and down-to-earth citizens of Central Lancashire, and how they’ll respond is anyone’s guess (though the Professionals have presumably researched it thoroughly.) Fifteen years ago it would surely have gone down like a lead zeppelin (wonder if they were on the short list) but after a decade of New Labour’s style-above-content soundbites, folk might be more gullible. After all, Superleague has dragged itself into the millennium on the back of a new vocabulary resembling the verbose, semi-literate gibberish designed to brainwash school-leavers on induction courses.
But none of this is that new. Leigh, remember, were one of the early exponents of the franchise principle, upping sticks from their Grundy Hill home in the football town of Horwich several years ago and moving to their more RL-orientated present base, whose name they took. Strangely, they retained the Railway Mechanics’ Institute suffix, in a town containing few Railway Mechanics and indeed lacking a railway station. In an area sandwiched between the Manchester and Liverpool conurbations it seemed an unwise decision, made more so by the recent ascents of Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic to the Premiership, where they continue to hover precariously. And while RMI had their time in the sun, it didn’t last.
So is the latest reinvention likely to do any better? Time will tell. But while researching the above torrent of invective, I discovered a couple of things: in contrast with some of his equivalents at the other wannabe clubs, Mr Speakman really seems to have the fans’ interests and welfare at heart. His apologies and efforts regarding the recent venue changes carried an unspun air of genuine concern. And the Leigh fans seem to be responding with sincere thanks and affection.
There are a number of tales due to unfold in the Unibond Premier this year, only marginally related to kicking a ball about. The Leigh Genesis saga could well prove the most enthralling.
Our own Forum members’ views: add your own views, comments and predictions below...
Next: Nantwich Town
No. 10a LEIGH GENESIS
The Facts:
Where do they play?
Ah, hard ones first. Officially, Hilton Park, Kirkhall Lane, off Atherleigh Way, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 1RN until November, then at a new stadium at Leigh Sports Village. In practice, a lack of pitch-related input from their fellow residents Leigh Centurions RLFC has meant that Hilton Park is currently fit only for the Horse of the Year show. Last week’s game, a 3-0 win over Ashton, had to be staged at Victory Park, Chorley.
Admission 2008-09: Adults £7.00, OAPs £4.00, U-16s £1.00
When do we play them? Not for a while: Saturday February 21 at Nethermoor and a month later somewhere in Lancashire.
Final league position last season: 22nd and last in Blue Square North, the unfashionable way to be relegated from the BS.
Odds at Coral’s: 11/2 Joint Favourites.
Home Kit: White Shirts with Black Detail, Black Shorts and Socks. Probably designed by Alexander McQueen.
Change Kit: All Blue with White Trim.
Manager: Steve Bleasdale
Highest home / away attendance last season: 553 / 1,780
Lowest home / away attendance last season: 101 / 156
Average home / away attendance last season: 202 / 589
Home gate v Guiseley last season: N/A
Result at Hilton Park: N/A
Result at Guiseley: N/A
Website: www.leighgenesis.com
Manages to be polished, comprehensive, current and very readable, putting a good few Football League sites to shame.
Forum: via the Website, or try www.GenesisLeythers.co.uk
Showing signs that unbridled optimism and enthusiasm can be infectious.
Last few games v Guiseley:
My first - and presumably last - visit to Hilton Park took place some time in the mid-1990s, for a game which I vaguely recall Guiseley won without breaking sweat. The Leigh team was a shambles, spending more time on each other’s cases than providing serious opposition, and the angry shouts of the sparse crowd echoed round the vast (in Unibond terms) stadium. I remember remarking sagely that this was a club that’d be lucky to see out the season. Sure enough, within a decade Leigh RMI were near the top of the Conference and battling seriously for a place in the Football League. If anybody wants my Lottery numbers, let me know.
Since records began (or at least those published on Tony Kempster’s excellent site) we played Leigh six times in the UPL between 1997 and 2000, winning three times and drawing once. The last meetings, in 1999-2000, saw us pinch a 1-0 at Hilton Park, though they turned us over 3-0 at Nethermoor and we left the division in opposite directions.
Who are we likely to recognize?
At the moment, it’s doubtful whether even their own fans will recognize many of their players. The bloke in the sticks might awaken a few memories at Nethermoor, though.
News from the close season/what we do think of them and/or how much do they annoy us/likely prospects this season/lots of irrelevant rubbish
In a display of blind confidence rare in recessionary Britain, owner Dominic Speakman has reacted to relegation with remarkable aggression. Rather than slashing the playing budget and threatening that anyone walking past the ground on matchdays might be pressed into service, he has moved decisively in the opposite direction. Leigh RMI have become, like many of the sides that turned them over last season, A Full-Time Professional Club. That means the lads entrusted with the task of returning the team to the next stratum will have nothing to occupy their minds through the week other than honing their fitness and plotting ways of seeing off the ragbag collections of builders, postmen and car salesmen who cross their paths Saturdays and Tuesdays. To that end, they seem to have hoovered up most of the jettisoned full-time players in the north-west. Oh yes, and Steve Dickinson.
And that’s not all. Wads of cash have presumably been thrown at other Professionals, the marketing kind, who have decided that what for many years has got by being a football club is now a Brand. A shiny new futuristic logo, a representation on the website of what could be a Canary Wharf Conference Centre and, to replace the connotations of pre-Thatcher horny-handed sons of toil, a New Name!
Ah yes, the name. If the idea of the change was to attract publicity it’s certainly worked, even if the response has almost invariably been a barely-suppressed guffaw; in these secular times, a reference to any form of religion unlikely to exact earthly revenge provides an easy laugh. Similarly, its association with a somewhat unfashionable rock group looks like an own goal of David James proportions.
Anyway, the main intention is presumably to attract the attention of the worthy and down-to-earth citizens of Central Lancashire, and how they’ll respond is anyone’s guess (though the Professionals have presumably researched it thoroughly.) Fifteen years ago it would surely have gone down like a lead zeppelin (wonder if they were on the short list) but after a decade of New Labour’s style-above-content soundbites, folk might be more gullible. After all, Superleague has dragged itself into the millennium on the back of a new vocabulary resembling the verbose, semi-literate gibberish designed to brainwash school-leavers on induction courses.
But none of this is that new. Leigh, remember, were one of the early exponents of the franchise principle, upping sticks from their Grundy Hill home in the football town of Horwich several years ago and moving to their more RL-orientated present base, whose name they took. Strangely, they retained the Railway Mechanics’ Institute suffix, in a town containing few Railway Mechanics and indeed lacking a railway station. In an area sandwiched between the Manchester and Liverpool conurbations it seemed an unwise decision, made more so by the recent ascents of Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic to the Premiership, where they continue to hover precariously. And while RMI had their time in the sun, it didn’t last.
So is the latest reinvention likely to do any better? Time will tell. But while researching the above torrent of invective, I discovered a couple of things: in contrast with some of his equivalents at the other wannabe clubs, Mr Speakman really seems to have the fans’ interests and welfare at heart. His apologies and efforts regarding the recent venue changes carried an unspun air of genuine concern. And the Leigh fans seem to be responding with sincere thanks and affection.
There are a number of tales due to unfold in the Unibond Premier this year, only marginally related to kicking a ball about. The Leigh Genesis saga could well prove the most enthralling.
Our own Forum members’ views: add your own views, comments and predictions below...
Next: Nantwich Town