Now that there is some clarity in terms of the 2020 season not restarting the Board of Directors have moved in to planning mode and for the next few weeks we will be concentrating on producing our 2021 Development Plan and Budget setting.

For the last couple of years, since I have been involved, in terms of setting a budget we have estimated income from the usual sources such as gate receipts, sponsorship, bar and catering sales, RFL distribution etc and then calculated our fixed costs expenditure like the mortgage, insurance, utilities and staff wages.

There will be a budget for ground maintenance and whatever remains we can afford to put together a squad.

For me this seems a little backward thinking. Perhaps we need to focus on what sort of team we want and where we want that team to end up.

So, for next year if we hope to achieve promotion then perhaps we need to understand the budget required to achieve this and then set about creating the income.

Throughout all the frustration of 2020 we have proven to ourselves that we can diversify and create those income streams. Clearly, we need to be realistic; we cannot jump from a club that turns over £800,000 to a club that has Super League income streams of a few million, but I truly believe that £1 million and more is achievable.

If we can increase income, then we can start to make steady progression as a club on the field but also improving facilities and infrastructure off the field. I can tell you we are a well thought of club in the upper echelons of the RFL and we have received a lot of admiration from other clubs in terms of how we are progressing.

I don’t believe that those good vibes have quite hit the wider rugby league community. I saw a poll in the last couple of weeks around which team should replace Toronto in Super League if they do not get approval to return. The obvious clubs like Featherstone, Leigh, Bradford, Toulouse and London were mentioned but also progressive clubs like York and Newcastle.

When our club starts to get mentioned in the same breath as those mentioned then we can begin to feel that our progress has achieved the plaudits we deserve. Those clubs would be mentioned ahead of us for a variety of reasons.

Clearly facilities are better at all those clubs, bar perhaps Bradford who are sharing, and we simply cannot focus on strengthening the team at the expense of progress in other areas such as ground improvements.

Fan-base may be another reason why some of the teams would be mentioned but again we are working so hard to address this. Getting children, the new generation of supporters, into the ground remains one of our priorities and our development plan is likely to repeat the initiatives we had in place for 2020.

Hopefully, during the next few weeks the plans we have will develop and we can go public with a strong sense of purpose and direction that all our fan base can buy in to.