‘Bedford is a rugby town’: New Tigers set to enter professional league arena | Rugby league

IAfter this month, professional rugby league will gain another team. One of a shortlist of three amateur clubs, two of which are recent newcomers to the sport. And the favourites to join League 1 come from a county that has yet to host a senior match in the code’s 130-year history.

Given the RFL’s track record with expansion, the general reaction to the latest project has been apathy at best, mockery at worst. Why should this be any different to the string of failed ventures that have come before it, from Southend to Scarborough, Cardiff to Cheltenham? And given that only three clubs have submitted bids, what does that tell us about the challenge that lies ahead?

“It speaks volumes,” says Bedford Tigers stalwart Rob Ashton, who presented their bid at the RFL’s Etihad HQ in late August. “There’s no appetite from amateur clubs in the north to go semi-professional, but there’s talk of promotion and relegation from tier four. That doesn’t provide stability for anyone going into League 1 and could kill them. That’s a concern for us because we don’t know how we’re going to perform on that stage.

“It’s going to be really hard work. In three years’ time we might be like all the other expansion clubs, but we’ve talked to them all about what went wrong, what their problems were.”

Of the 13 newcomers this century, only six have survived, four of whom currently occupy the bottom of League 1. It’s easy to forget the success stories: Toulouse (briefly) and Toronto (very briefly) reached the Super League, while Catalans have become a major force. Both French clubs were built on almost a century of tradition: of this year’s shortlist, Goole Vikings have been in for five years, Anglian Vipers just two (and failed to complete their fifth-tier campaigns this summer). Bedford Tigers, at least, have 20 years of missionary work under their belt.

“We’re ahead of the game in some areas,” says Ashton, who also coaches Cambridge University’s men’s and women’s teams. “We’ve got a women’s team in Division Two, we’ve started a wheelchair team, partnerships with universities, juniors and local leagues, even a netball team. That’s already there.” They also have a former Super League club chairman joining their board.

Unlike the series of pop-up operations that have come and gone from the lower echelons of the RFL ranks over the past 40 years, such as League 1 expansion clubs Coventry, Skolars and Hemel before them, Bedford are an established amateur club. Skolars stepped up and held on with honour for 20 years before collapsing; Coventry moved to Birmingham and were rebranded as Midlands Hurricanes, reaching the L1 play-offs this year; Hemel, on the other hand, had a miserable time in League 1, undoing almost 30 years of fine work establishing the code in the city. Why would Bedford risk that?

“We have to be very careful about maintaining a division between what is professional and what is amateur at our club,” says Ashton. “If you cut away the League 1 club, does the community club exist? You don’t want 20 years of building a club to disappear because you make the wrong decision. That’s why I think a new entity works better. Coventry did the right thing: they moved to a regional league, which is much more sustainable for local players, and they renamed the professional team.”

Bedford would at least make geographical sense if it were to gain the go-ahead. With no semi-professional club between Birmingham and the south coast, there is a gaping void between London Broncos and the top flight of the Southern Conference League, the quality of which Ashton describes as “underrated – 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 route for the capital’s players and potential converts from nearby union strongholds. It would also provide a professional rugby league presence for southern audiences for whom Wimbledon is too far away.

Ashton insists that Bedford will not repeat the satellite training model of other ‘outpost’ clubs (Hemel’s squad was based in Yorkshire, Oxford was split between Abingdon and Castleford, while North Wales trained at St Helens), but will instead adopt the approach of Cornwall RLFC to make the club attractive enough for players to move to the region.

“Putting your training base all over the country is clearly not sustainable,” said Ashton, a local boy. “If they’re not prepared to travel down to train, then they’re not for us. There’s a lot of hard work to be done to build a culture where reserve players from the north or talented union players are prepared to move to the area where we can help them find housing and jobs and they commit to Bedford.”

The Tigers plan to recruit from a variety of sources: dual registration agreements with professional clubs, London Broncos reserves and released academy players from Northampton Saints and Saracens. “We would be foolish not to look at those high-calibre performance areas.”

Ashton is wary of the mantra of “never be the third code in the town”, insisting that despite its two ambitious non-league football clubs, Bedford remains a rugby town with five union clubs. The Tigers, currently based at Bedford Athletic, hope to stage League 1 action at Goldington Road, home of Championship union club Bedford Blues and the sporting and social heartbeat of a city the size of Wakefield and a wider borough resembling St Helens.

“Bedford is a rugby town and we try to capitalise on that,” says Ashton, who has managed 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 up the network so I have relationships with those clubs. It’s not going to die. I’m not going to just come in and destroy what’s there. They’re the foundation of the pyramid in this area.”

If it helps their neighbouring clubs, Bedford may consider following Coventry’s lead and giving the club’s professional wing a new image. Given their main sponsor is the Brewpoint beer and entertainment venue, and the city’s industrial heritage, don’t be surprised to see them become Bedford Brewers or Brickmakers.

Bedford have a former Super League chairman joining their board and they are committed to learning from the experiences of others. But with an RFL grant of just £25,000 they need support from the wider commercial community.

“Finance is always going to be the biggest challenge. To be semi-competitive you might need £150,000 or more. We’re going to do it with a number of different pots, from big sponsors to individuals. We’re talking to a lot of interested people and trying to put a consortium together.”

It all takes time, something the RFL is strangely reluctant to provide. The governing body’s stated aim is for three divisions of 12 by 2026, but it insists the new club will join next year, creating a 12-13-11 split, simply because League 1 clubs want 10 home games. Is that setting the newcomers up for failure?

“It doesn’t make sense,” says a bewildered Ashton. “Give the new team a year to really build a strong foundation, not chase the 8-ball and waste their energy, instead of struggling because we had our legs tied from day one. Are we willing to throw away $100,000 on a careless decision? It’s just a different challenge.”