The new 14-team Super League is working. Why not add London too?

Of course, turning local wealth into sporting success is a challenge. As the football clubs in Cambridge and Oxford can attest, playing a working-class sport in a world-famous tourist city is not easy. Few of York’s visitors are in the city for rugby league but, late on a Friday night, the pubs along the winding medieval streets are dotted with fans. When I went, the hotel breakfast room was dotted with red and green Leigh shirts on Saturday morning. The Knights are bringing positivity – and a considerable amount of money – to the city.

Whether the NRL invests or not, the way Super League games look on TV and feel in grounds will be more important than whether a few thousand more fans buy tickets. Just as the city is unique, so is York’s stadium. The Knights share the ground with two successful clubs – York Valkyrie, the outstanding women’s rugby league team, and York City, who recently earned promotion back to the Football League – and it is surely the only rugby league ground with a library in reception, a cinema in one corner and a Hotel Chocolat cafe outside.

York Knights players celebrate during their 38-14 win against Toulouse. Photograph: David Greaves/Focus Images Ltd/Shutterstock

With stands full and hospitality areas rammed, York’s home looks and feels good – and the sums should start to add up. The stadium is a bus ride from the city centre, but York’s community clubs are nearby. The Leigh winger AJ Towse came through down the road at Heworth and could have walked home after he made his Super League debut for Leigh at York last month.

The Knights’ immediate challenge is to build their fanbase. The sport is deep-rooted in the city, but not widespread. The clubs first – and arguably last – golden period was nearly a century ago. They sold their city-centre ground before Super League began and folded soon after. The reborn Knights are a work in progress.

This time last year they began a run of 20 successive wins before being squeezed out of the Grand Final, losing 10-8 at home to Toulouse. A month later both finalists were handed places in the enlarged Super League, but only if they agreed to half the funding, in effect buying a £650,000 expansion franchise with no guaranteed lifespan. Both clubs are tiny compared with Super League’s giants – they are ranked 14th and 15th in social media – but building a profile takes time.

Toulouse, who are hamstrung by having to pay for their opponents’ travel costs, stuck with their Championship-winning side whereas York chose to bring in a swathe of players of varying degrees of experience and pedigree, lodging many of them with sister club Newcastle Thunder in the Championship. The squads train together at York St John’s impressive facilities before dividing on match days, giving administrators a brain-mushing task to comply with the RFL’s loan and salary cap regulations.

The team’s star fullback, David Nofoaluma, for example, is on loan from Newcastle. Their recruitment has been savvy: Xavier Va’a has been a huge hit, and Scott Galeano, Jack Martin and Jesse Dee have all adjusted seamlessly. Signing Wales hooker Denive Balmforth on loan from Hull has also been a masterstroke.

“We’ve got a lot of players stepping up, mixed in with a lot of players who have been there and done that,” said coach Mark Applegarth. “So we have to allow time for them to learn. We’re building from the ground up. We’ve got the ingredients – now we’ve just got to bake the cake.”

Having watched Derek Beaumont transform Leigh from Championship makeweights to Super League contenders, with their attendances and social media followers trebling along the way, York owner Clint Goodchild is not lacking inspiration. “You’ve got to dream and Clint’s got real grand visions for where he wants the club to go,” said Applegarth.

“We look at Leigh and Wakefield for those lessons. York is the No 1 city in the UK for tourism outside London. We’ve got a very noisy bunch of fans, who are very passionate about the city, and a proud heritage in rugby league. Who wouldn’t want to come and visit this iconic city and watch a game of rugby league? We’re bringing loads to the table.”

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