Unconfirmed sources.

[Puja]

This may be the worst of the lot:

The one that most impressed me was about players being handed bills for private medical care and scans, that the club insisted they have, but have since decided they're not going to cover as it's not covered by the CVA.

I have a lot of sympathy for them being in financial trouble, but they can't do that and then go out signing.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

This may be the worst of the lot:

The one that most impressed me was about players being handed bills for private medical care and scans, that the club insisted they have, but have since decided they're not going to cover as it's not covered by the CVA.

I have a lot of sympathy for them being in financial trouble, but they can't do that and then go out signing.

Puja

Agreed. It also looks like they’ve gone on a spending spree mid-season after finding themselves in relegation trouble (this part is fact) without having the money to cover even the existing player salary commitment, let alone the newbies.

[Mellsblue]

As an aside, you’ve got to feel for Richmond. They go down whilst one of their relegation rivals go on a spending spree they can’t afford and the other brings in enough Prem players on loan, including Vellacot for one match, to make up half the 1st XV for the end of season run in.

[Danno]

This may be the worst of the lot:

The one that most impressed me was about players being handed bills for private medical care and scans, that the club insisted they have, but have since decided they're not going to cover as it's not covered by the CVA.

I have a lot of sympathy for them being in financial trouble, but they can't do that and then go out signing.

Puja

Agreed. It also looks like they’ve gone on a spending spree mid-season after finding themselves in relegation trouble (this part is fact) without having the money to cover even the existing player salary commitment, let alone the newbies.

If that's the case and the CVA fails causing the Company to hit liquidation, the directors may well be personally liable

[Banquo]

The one that most impressed me was about players being handed bills for private medical care and scans, that the club insisted they have, but have since decided they're not going to cover as it's not covered by the CVA.

I have a lot of sympathy for them being in financial trouble, but they can't do that and then go out signing.

Puja

Agreed. It also looks like they’ve gone on a spending spree mid-season after finding themselves in relegation trouble (this part is fact) without having the money to cover even the existing player salary commitment, let alone the newbies.

If that's the case and the CVA fails causing the Company to hit liquidation, the directors may well be personally liable

I'd think criminal charges are a possibility too...

[Mellsblue]

Looks like Cov are going down

[Mellsblue]

Great start to the season:

[richy678]

Not good but not unexpected.
Ampthill weren't ready for us yesterday.
We've got your mob next week.

[Mellsblue]

Ealing gave us a bit of kicking at GR. Not a great start to the season but nowhere near as bad as Leeds. I’m hoping it’s a combo of Ealing ££££ and us only having two pre-season matches but I’m worried this season’s squad isn’t as strong as last season’s.

[Mellsblue]

It’s getting, eerm, less worse:

[richy678]

It’s getting, eerm, less worse:

Yeah. Some decent results today.

Couldn't go to the first home game on the new pitch as my Dog is poorly and we took him to the vets, but would have loved to be there.

[Mellsblue]

It’s getting, eerm, less worse:

Yeah. Some decent results today.

Couldn't go to the first home game on the new pitch as my Dog is poorly and we took him to the vets, but would have loved to be there.

Thanks for not rubbing it in. I’m worried we are mid-table at best this season.

New pitch?

[richy678]

It’s getting, eerm, less worse:

Yeah. Some decent results today.

Couldn't go to the first home game on the new pitch as my Dog is poorly and we took him to the vets, but would have loved to be there.

Thanks for not rubbing it in. I’m worried we are mid-table at best this season.

New pitch?

Yes. New pitch.

We had sufficient investment and funds available to take out the existing grass and install a state of the art synthetic grass surface laid on a base of tarmac and errr.... special stuff.

An amateur wendy ball team - Cov United and Coventry Bears RL also play at our stadium. No plans to take in Coventry City FC as were not really set up for that hassle. They can stay up the road at the Blues (Birmingham City).

Our Development side - Coventry Nighthawks, were supposed to play a full curtain-raiser against the British Army but the Army cried off so Apmthilll sent a side over - sounds wonderfully amateur era.

As I mentioned my old Dog is poorly so we hd to get him to the vets yesterday, so that had to come first.

[Mellsblue]

It’s getting, eerm, less worse:

Yeah. Some decent results today.

Couldn't go to the first home game on the new pitch as my Dog is poorly and we took him to the vets, but would have loved to be there.

I’m worried we are mid-table at best this season.

This suddenly seems optimistic.

[richy678]

Yeah. Some decent results today.

Couldn't go to the first home game on the new pitch as my Dog is poorly and we took him to the vets, but would have loved to be there.

I’m worried we are mid-table at best this season.

This suddenly seems optimistic.

Yeah, I would say thats looking a bit worrying for you. Any mitigating circumstances such as playing your developemnt side?

I went on Friday night expecting to see us get shafted by Ealing but in fact it was prity even and we lost 17-22 after a strong defensive performance, and a last 10 minutes hammering away at their line to no avail.
The accepted view is that it was a good performance compared to the shaftings they gave us last year.

It started badly with them scoring 2 tries in the first ten minutes. After that much better.
Thats a cov thing though. The past couple of years we seem to start v.slow and can be run through early doors.
Ealing were a class above us at keeping possession, we played long periods without the ball.

If your going to chat to your mob for the 19th - tell them to have a go at us straight from the whistle, run your 1st phase backs moves and target the outside centre channel - very lace curtain like out there early on. We probably wont have the defence sorted till 15 minutes in.

[Mellsblue]

I’m worried we are mid-table at best this season.

This suddenly seems optimistic.

Yeah, I would say thats looking a bit worrying for you. Any mitigating circumstances such as playing your developemnt side?

I went on Friday night expecting to see us get shafted by Ealing but in fact it was prity even and we lost 17-22 after a strong defensive performance, and a last 10 minutes hammering away at their line to no avail.
The accepted view is that it was a good performance compared to the shaftings they gave us last year.

It started badly with them scoring 2 tries in the first ten minutes. After that much better.
Thats a cov thing though. The past couple of years we seem to start v.slow and can be run through early doors.
Ealing were a class above us at keeping possession, we played long periods without the ball.

If your going to chat to your mob for the 19th - tell them to have a go at us straight from the whistle, run your 1st phase backs moves and target the outside centre channel - very lace curtain like out there early on. We probably wont have the defence sorted till 15 minutes in.

The pre-season schedule was a bit of shambles - one vs a team a long way below us and one a long way above, and one less match than usual - with our DR admitting as much. We’re also bedding in new players at 2, 5, 8, 9 and 10, all of which were key, senior players for us last season - Clare (Saints), Flanagan (retirement), Williams (retirement), Dickson (retirement) and Hooley (World Cup/hospital). I’m also hoping that Rayer is using these cup matches as an extended pre-season and a chance to weigh up the newbies. There has been quite a bit of rotation so I have some hope this is the case.

That’s a decent result against Ealing. I dread to think what their salary budget is. They’ve also trained with Sarries in pre-season so should be primed to hit the ground running.

From what I’ve read in dispatches, your boys should adopt exactly the same tactics with the only difference being we probably won’t have the defence sorted until 15mins from the end.

[Mellsblue]

December 3 2019, 12:01am, the times
Shameful tale of England’s worst club Yorkshire Carnegie

owen slot, chief rugby correspondent



The worst club in the country have lost all their games this season. They have been beaten in ten from ten. It wasn’t until the third weekend of the season that they scored a try and they have conceded 40 or more points in all but two matches. Yet these results are not the reason that Yorkshire Carnegie are the worst club in the country.

Just for clarification, this is the same Yorkshire Carnegie whose name has gone through various iterations. They are the same Leeds Tykes who finished fifth in the Premiership in the 2002-03 season and the same Leeds Carnegie who, for much of the past decade, were regarded as a slumbering force from the north who were bound to awaken.

Reality, however, has been different. This time a year ago they were so far from challenging for promotion from the Championship back to the Premiership that they were bottom of the table with one win from nine.

Their response was to try to spend their way out of trouble. They identified nine new players, most of them New Zealanders, and offered them contracts that were fat by Championship standards: £60,000-£100,000-a-year each. This was a big adventure; the players came and brought their families with them too.

This new squad gelled quickly and soon started winning games. In January, they were told that there were a few issues with their main financial backer, but not to worry. They carried on winning. In April, by which time they had seen off relegation, they were told that those financial issues had never been solved. There was no money. They talked of boycotting fixtures but they were persuaded to play on.

Eventually, the insolvency expert, Begbies Traynor, was brought in to salvage the situation. In its estimated statement of the club’s financial affairs logged on June 7, the list of unsecured creditors includes future player contracts worth £1,031,560.

Begbies Traynor drew up a company voluntary agreement (CVA) — a procedure that allows a company to settle its debts by paying only a proportion of the amount that it owes to creditors — that would pay out 15p to every £1 owed. The players accepted and pretty much the entire playing and coaching staff left the club.


This meant that some of the foreign players could not afford to fly their families home. “I had some on the phone to me almost in tears,” Nic Mayhew, a prop who had come from Auckland, said. “You are abroad; you have no money. It was impacting on players’ mental health.”


The players were therefore forced to take whatever contracts they could find elsewhere. One of the reasons the players are so furious is because the reality of the situation was withheld from them for so long. Most clubs have completed their recruiting for the next season by April, so if you are put on the market then, your value has plummeted. One player took a contract for a quarter of what he was on before.

What happened next? The players started to find they were being sent medical bills that the club had previously covered. Only after the players went public with their situation did they find these bills being paid for them again.

Then the club started recruiting a new team. Here was the real fix.

The RFU’s position was that, because the CVA had been given 100 per cent creditors’ approval, they would not make the same points deduction that had been levied against a number of other clubs in the past who could not pay their debts. And because Yorkshire thus avoided relegation, they therefore stood to receive the annual £540,000 with which the RFU funds all Championships clubs. And because of that, they could start again.

This was rugby’s version of cowboy builders declaring themselves bust one day, washing their hands of their debts and starting up again the next day under a new name.

No, Yorkshire could not afford the same calibre of player. Most of their squad now are part-timers, students or overpromoted academy boys. However, that number includes Tom Varndell, who spent over a decade in the Premiership with Leicester Tigers and Wasps, and the former Sale Sharks and Leicester fly half Joe Ford, brother of England’s George Ford, who came in as a player-coach.

The discarded players from the previous season were gobsmacked. Daniel Temm, now at Bedford, wrote on Twitter: “I find it truly unbelievable that @carnegierugby are able to sign a guy like @_JoeyFord.”

Likewise Joe Buckle, now at Coventry: “You’ve signed for a great club which used to have great people working in its rugby programme. I hope you’re prepared to listen to lie after lie from a board who truly are some of the worst people I’ve encountered.”

By no means does it end there.

On September 10, the Yorkshire chief executive Gary Hetherington posted a start-of-the-season statement on the club website in which he wrote of how the CVA had “achieved 100 per cent support from the trade creditors and nine contracted players”.

It triggered this post from Mayhew: “We haven’t all just been let down, we have been entirely screwed over by the Yorkshire board. You mention that all nine players ‘supported’ the CVA. That is rubbish. Had we known Yorkshire needed 100 per cent support for the CVA, myself and many others would have voted no.”

In other words, Mayhew et al had lost their one bargaining chip. If they had said no to the CVA, the RFU would have penalised Yorkshire and the club might have lost the £540,000. The players could have demanded more than 15p to the £1, Mayhew says, but “we were told it was our only option”.

It still does not end there. The CVA states that the 15p was only the “anticipated” offer. In fact, the total owed to the creditors turned out to be higher than expected. The small pool for the big payoff had to be shared around further. The players say that they haven’t been paid 15p to the £1 but 11p.

What next? Next up is Cornish Pirates on Sunday in the Championship Cup. The Pirates’ director of rugby is Chris Stirling, who was director of rugby at Yorkshire until last summer when he lost his job with everyone else. He brought six Yorkshire players with him to Cornwall. Their motivation will be weird but considerable. In fact, last season’s Yorkshire discards don’t harbour great animosity to the players who replaced them. They understand that money and opportunities are precious in this fragile professional game. They tend to express more their concern for the new, young players being overpromoted to a level that might be dangerous. Yorkshire’s results this season, though, illustrate what a farce it was to keep them in the Championship.

I should declare an interest here. Because Yorkshire stayed up, Richmond, who are my local club, went down. And lost the £540,000.

This is not about Richmond, though. It is about rugby, about the values the game aspires to, about integrity, respect and all the talk of looking after players. Yorkshire Carnegie could not occupy a more polar opposite extreme; it remains astonishing that the RFU allowed them to operate this way. How can English rugby have allowed this to happen and then carry on?

Those players came to Yorkshire with a dream and found themselves at the worst club in England.




On the plus side, they’re the only team keeping Bedford off the bottom of the table.

[Digby]

Worst club, or worst bar Sarries?

[Mr Mwenda]

Who are these mysterious people orchestrating this? How many people are involved?

[Mellsblue]

Phil Davies (re)signs as DoR.

[Puja]

Phil Davies (re)signs as DoR.

Give it 6 months and you'll just be able to remove the brackets.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Davies hasn’t seemed to have helped. Leeds lost 52 v 0 away to Cornish Pirates yesterday. Along with Bedford finally achieving their second win of the season (about farking time) it isn’t looking good for them. Looks like the north will lose another team from the second tier. After Rotherham two years ago, Leeds, should they go down, are almost certain to be replaced with a southern team leaving Doncaster as the only northern team in the Championship. A shame for the game as a whole and annoying for a Bedford fan exiled oop north.

[Mellsblue]

So, they’ve gone back to plain, old Leeds and are looking for a new home. York is being discussed according to the times......which would mean another name change... Perhaps a link up with West Park RUFC and a joint ticket with their ladies team, who have just missed out on ‘promotion’ to the Tyrells Premier 15s, might be the best way forward.
Rotherham and Hull Ionians we’re relegated from National One and Otley from National Two.

The county with the most rugby clubs in the country now have one professional club in the country and only two in the top three divisions.

Can’t be good for the game at any level.

[OnlyMonikerRemaining]

Hoppers and Scunthorpe down from Nat 2 as well.

[Mellsblue]

Leeds Tykes in the NLD1 fixture list.

Meanwhile the Yorkshire academy has been closed by the RFU. Madness.