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>>>>> LIST OF THE WEEK <<<<<

The Big Ones: your club’s chance of a shot at glory and a whole new holiday audience (current ground capacity in brackets).

Bath (10,600) - It’s a tough call for Bath. We know that they have a colossal latent support, as they sell out the tiny Rec at the drop of a hat. It is probably too emotive to go to Bristol City’s Ashton Gate so that leaves only Swindon FC, which is over 30 miles away, albeit all motorway, but which holds only 16,000. Hard for Bath to be grandiose there, admittedly.
Christmas cracker potential: 5/10

Bristol (11,976) - Easy. Ashton Gate has already been used successfully as a rugby arena (some think it should be the rugby club’s regular home in partnership with Bristol City). No-one can quite work out why the hopeless Bristol Rovers managed to purloin the Memorial Ground. Ashton Gate takes just under 22,000, so it’s not Twickenham, but it’s almost double the normal gate.
Christmas cracker potential: 6/10

Gloucester (16,500) - Nothing doing. There could be a stadium taking 150,000 next door to Kingsholm, with a moving walkway to convey the fans and naked models lining the route handing out free hot pies and pints. But The Shed would not move for love nor money. Good old diehards that they are.
Christmas cracker potential: 0/10

Harlequins (12,638) - Easy. Walk over the road, sign a three-year deal with the RFU (which Quins have done) stage a grand match, multiply your normal crowd by a factor of four and still complain that the useless rail company robbed you of 20,000 more by not running trains. You have 80,000 lovely seats all waiting for backsides. Marketing, in a word.
Christmas cracker potential: 10/10

Leicester Tigers (17,498) - The Tigers fans can be a staid old lot. They would moan and bicker. But the Walkers Stadium is a wonderful arena, it’s a few minutes walk from Welford Road, it takes 32,500. It’s got to be done, you old Leicester groaners. Quins used you to bump up the confrontation and the crowd. You do the same to them at the Walkers next time.
Christmas cracker potential: 7/10

London Irish (24,000) - The Madejski is a lovely stadium: great viewing lines, airy, atmospheric, decent car parking. The Irish could be left alone to happily fill their own place.
Christmas cracker potential: 0/10

Wasps (10,000) – Problem: where to go? The answer would be to alternate with Harlequins so that they each get a go at staging the London Big Match, though how that squares with the fact that Quins have a three-year deal is hard to say. Adams Park is hemmed in and tiny, but Wasps fans will travel. There was a healthy crowd miles up into the Midlands last season when Wasps played Munster at Ricoh Arena, a brilliant stadium in Coventry that takes 32,000. A nearer option, unloved by old Wasps fans when it was their home, would be Loftus Road, 45 minutes down the M40 and holding 19,148, though with minimal creature comforts around the stadium.
Christmas cracker potential: 6/10

Saracens (18,214) - Vicarage Road will be nice when it is finished, if ever. But who cares? Just 18 miles down the road into London and in the direction of the homes of many fans lies White Hart Lane, home of ‘Arry and the mighty Spurs (though not of that useless, whinging Berbatov). The grand ground takes 36,000 and would be a grand venue. Once you get off the mark and the Christmas cracker is established, you could try the unthinkable … the Emirates. You’d p*** off every Tottenham fan by leaving for the Arsenal and 60,000 seats - but what a thought.
Christmas cracker potential: 8/10

Sale Sharks (10,641) - Grandest possibilities. Sale are Manchester’s team. They could cause a major stir by storming the city. Cut their teeth at the City of Manchester Stadium with its 47,000 seats and if that proves pathetically small, take over Old Trafford - all 76,212 seats of it. Imagine Kingsley Jones, the new director of rugby, sitting in the dugout seat where the old gum-chewing, miserable, sour guts Fergie plies his trade. Go for it, Mr Kennedy and your merry men. What are you waiting for?
Christmas cracker potential: 10/10

Northampton Saints (13,500) - Where could they go marching? They have a terrific stadium, but where for the grand gesture? Milton Keynes is around 25 minutes up the M1 and the MK Stadium takes 22,000, a significant extra capacity. Coventry is a good deal further, but that brilliant Ricoh Arena can take 32,000 and Wasps, with much further to go, used it last season.
Christmas cracker potential: 7/10