Quote ="Hillbilly_Red"Ignoring the obvious catch for a troll ,
please explain why, with the exception of Leeds, RL has not grabbed the attention of thouousands of fans in the big cities: London, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Bristol, Birmingham?
Bradford I am missing out as there is a lot of tradition here.'"
I assume much of the reason dates back to the late 1800's. Members of local sports clubs at the time would play a number of forms of 'football', and some would gradually become rugby clubs, some football. Those clubs in the cities you mentioned stuck to football, others to rugby (then the eventual split in 1985).
If you think about it too, there isn't a top level Union presence in those cities either, but if you look at the footprint of RL and RU combined, it isn't too dissimilar to football.
All this isn't an excuse as to why we as a sport haven't in that time managed to do more to penetrate these areas by the way.
