You're right Col, but I seem to remember a thread on the Leigh board getting on for ten years ago when RL Fans was on Rivals.net in which a couple of factories in Liverpool closing down was the subject of great humour. We'll have to just face up to the fact that some people are just booty holes and unfortunately booty holes are found everywhere.

Chill dude

We are all in the same rugby league family and its not nice when something like this happens.

nothing you can do but pick your head up and carry on .

Us Widnes fans are always in situations where we have to do this in the past

Bloody hell Doc you're going back a bit there! Boards were shifted over here in 2002 IIRC.

Gutted for the girls in the shop, real unsung heroes (heroines) and I hope they're back on their feet soon.

I'd echo the sentiments above.

There are human costs of all these circumstances.

Also, I doubt very much that the Widnes Shop is "cleaning up" profit wise so they could easily be in the same situation very soon.

As an aside, I remember one of the the RFL's excuses for scrapping relegation was that peoples livelihoods were at stake. Yet the consequences of their decisions are costing jobs too. Doesn't seem to bothering them too much.

If you go into the shop at Widnes, there's loads of stock, I just cant see the club selling half the stuff in there.

Think its a very sad situation that Leigh cannot keep their shop on, i think we will probably end up in the same situation sooner rather than later. Two clubs that are doing all they can to get back to where they feel they belong, and what for??. To be shafted next time the frachises are announced!!!

It is just another situation where moving into a rented stadium just doesn't work , even if we were in SL I doubt the shop would be sustainable

At Hilton Park the shop was rent free and therefore only needed staff as a cost , originally this was done by lottery staff on an unpaid basis

Then when we got into SL we put F/T staff in which of course was not sustainable when we were relegated

Then into the LSV were we ' sold ' our merchandising rights to O' Neils , but unless they can make it at least break even they will close it down

Apparently we are now looking at selling on line and having a mobile shop on match days , but it seems the LSV management are not happy about that and may well refuse to allow us to park this ' shop ' on the LSV site

Large modern rented stadiums do not work outside the top tier of RL

Especially when they are council run , the staffing levels at the LSV are ridiculous