Later this month, professional rugby league will get another new team. One from a shortlist of three amateur clubs, two of whom are recent newcomers to the sport entirely. And the favourites to join League 1 are from a county that hasn’t hosted a senior match in the code’s 130-year history.
Given the RFL’s record with expansion, the overall reaction to the latest project has been one of at best apathy, at worst, mockery. Why should this be any different to the string of failed ventures before it, from Southend to Scarborough, Cardiff to Cheltenham? And as only three clubs bid, what does that tell us about the challenge ahead?
“It speaks volumes,” says the Bedford Tigers stalwart Rob Ashton, who presented their bid at the RFL’s Etihad HQ in late August. “There’s not an appetite from amateur clubs in the north to go semi-pro, yet there’s talk of opening up promotion and relegation from tier four. That provides no stability for anyone entering League 1 and could be the death of them. That’s a concern for us as we don’t know how we’re going to perform on that stage.
“It’s going to be really hard work. Three years down the line we might be like all the other expansion clubs, but we’ve talked to them all about what went wrong, what their struggles were.”
Of the 13 newcomers this century, only six have survived, four currently occupying the bottom spots in League 1. It is easy to forget the success stories: Toulouse (briefly) and Toronto (very briefly) reached Super League while Catalans have become a major force. Both French clubs were based on nearly a century of tradition: of this year’s shortlist, Goole Vikings have been going five years, Anglian Vipers just two (and failed to complete their fixtures in the fifth tier this summer). At least Bedford Tigers have 20 years of missionary work to their name.
“We’re ahead of the curve in some areas,” says Ashton, who also coaches Cambridge University’s men’s and women’s teams. “We have a women’s team in the second tier, we started a wheelchair team, university partnerships, juniors and local competitions, even a netball team. That’s already there.” They also have a former Super League club chairman joining their board.
Unlike the string of pop-up operations that came and went from the lower reaches of the RFL ranks in the last 40 years, like League 1 expansion clubs Coventry, Skolars and Hemel before them, Bedford are a well-established amateur club. Skolars stepped up and lasted an honourable 20 years before meltdown; Coventry moved to Birmingham and rebranded as Midlands Hurricanes and have reached the L1 playoffs this year; Hemel, however, had a miserable time in League 1, which almost obliterated 30 years of wonderful work establishing the code in the town. Why would Bedford risk that?
“We need to be very careful of maintaining a divide between what’s professional and what’s amateur at our club,” says Ashton. “If you chop the League 1 club away, does the community club still exist? You don’t want to see 20 years of building a club disappear because you make a wrong decision. That’s why I think a new entity works better. Coventry did the right thing: they dropped into regional competition which is far more sustainable for local players, and rebranded the professional team.”
Bedford getting the nod would at least have some geographic logic. With no semi-pro club now between Birmingham and the south coast, there is a gaping void between London Broncos and the top of the Southern Conference League whose quality Ashton describes as “underestimated – it’s serious stuff”. As well as being close to Luton airport and 20 minutes from the M1 and A1M, Bedford is 40 minutes by train from central London and by car from Northampton, making it a viable pathway for the capital’s league players and potential converts from nearby union strongholds. It would also provide professional rugby league for southern audiences for whom Wimbledon is too far a schlep.
Ashton insists Bedford would not repeat the satellite training model of other ‘outpost’ clubs (Hemel’s squad was based in Yorkshire, Oxford were split between Abingdon and Castleford while North Wales train in St Helens) but will instead follow Cornwall RLFC’s approach of trying to make the club attractive enough for players to move to the area.
“Hotspotting your training base around the country is clearly not sustainable,” said local lad Ashton. “If they are not willing to travel down to train then they are not for us. A lot of hard work has got to go into building a culture where reserve grade players from up north or talented union players are willing to move to the area where we can help find them accommodation and jobs and they commit to Bedford.”
The Tigers plan to recruit from a variety of sources: dual registration agreements with pro clubs, London Broncos reserves, and released academy players from Northampton Saints and Saracens. “We’d be stupid to not look at those high calibre performance areas.”
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Ashton is wary of the mantra “never be the third code in town”, insisting that despite having two ambitious non-league football clubs, with five union clubs Bedford remains a rugby town. Currently based at Bedford Athletic, the Tigers hope to host League 1 action at Goldington Road, home of Championship union club Bedford Blues and the sporting and social heartbeat of a town the size of Wakefield and a wider borough akin to St Helens.
“Bedford’s a rugby town and we’re trying to capitalise on that,” says Ashton, who has been running the Tigers for 14 years. “And there are five community league clubs in the area. When we lost the regional development officers in 2012, I set up the East Rugby League and built the network so I’ve got relationships with these clubs. That’s not going to die. I’m not going to swoop in and destroy what’s there. They are a foundation for the pyramid in this area.”
If it aids their neighbouring clubs, Bedford will consider following Coventry’s lead and rebranding the professional arm of the club. Given their principal sponsor is beer and fun destination venue Brewpoint, and the town’s industrial heritage, don’t be surprised if they become Bedford Brewers or Brickmakers.
Bedford have a former Super League chairman joining their board and are committed to learning from the experiences of others. But with an RFL grant of only £25,000, they will need backing from the whole commercial community.
“Finance is always going to be the main challenge. To be semi-competitive you need maybe £150,000 upwards. We’re going to do it with a number of different pots, from major sponsors to individuals. We’re talking to lots of interested people and trying to put together a consortium.”
That all takes time, something the RFL is strangely not keen to provide. The governing body’s publicised aim is three divisions of 12 for 2026, yet it is insisting the new club join next year, creating a 12-13-11 split, simply because League 1 clubs want 10 home games. Is that setting the newcomers up to fail?
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” says a bewildered Ashton. “Give the new team a year to build a really strong foundation, not be behind the 8-ball chasing their tails and wasting their energy, instead of struggling because we had our legs tied since day one. Are we willing to throw away 100 grand on a careless decision? It’s just another challenge.”
