I,ve always thought that London in whatever disguise had damaged rugby league by the RFL trying to make it work when they should have looked at developing the game "closer to home" like the midlands for instance.
The only small measure of success is perhaps league is now played in some of the schools down there, Its almost 30 years for London now but the local general public don,t want it, they should have started in the championship leagues to build up progression.

They did, but Hull KR compete in the SL. We've had 70 points put on us in the past, so have Leeds, Wigan, Bradford, etc, but this season London have conceded an average of 37 points per game. Of late (last few seasons) London haven't put up much of a fight and with Gower going, it just condemns their situation. I hope they can come through it, but they can't draw the crowds in to get behind the team. Gower was probably one of the players getting people through the gates, so his departure hasn't helped on and off the field.

has sky ever said that we will receive less money if there isn't a super league team in London?

[size=150=#BF0000Right not having anymore of that. Also I've noticed over the last few weeks the use of the * coming back to hide swear words.

Either post it and let the filter deal with it. Or don't post it, but stop trying to get around the filter.[/size

How long do we give London ?

They get shocking crowds, they ain't stable financially, don't bring much in terms of being competitive these days either.

Catalan have gone very well and they only about 5 years old.

Sky never say anything about anything and nor does the RFL. Nobody knows outside of those in the know whether the presence of London makes any difference whatsoever to the Sky deal. However, if you watch any of their other sports, I can't think of one that is restricted to one region of the country.

In no way would it be a good thing for London to go. However, they continue to do the sport's image some damage by not being competitive. On their website the BBC have opened up comments on the London debacle (can't really call it a match, since London clearly didn't bother playing). The BBC never opens its match reports up for comment. They have done that deliberately to cause trouble and those of us who have contributed to the comments know this.

The Dragons may be only about 5 years old but rugby league has been going in that region of France for almost as long as it has been going in England, so the area was a traditional heartland region for rugby league.

To offer up an accurate comparison in cross channel expansion you would need to look at Paris St Germain which lasted how long exactly?

London has been around in various guises for around 30 years. That's a generation. So what is now happening is that the first generation of players who grew up with rugby league - something we in certain areas of the north have taken for granted for a few generations - are coming through. We need to give it another generation to be able to judge whether it has been successful but the RFL burying its head in the sand and doing nothing to assist - and it never has assisted London (not financially anyway) - is utterly negligent. Take one look at Melbourne, which was centrally funded for years (I think may still be), to see what can be done when expansion is managed properly.

But in all honesty how much do they contribute to super league? I cant imagine that many people from down south watch rugby league to watch London, and i guess what matters the most to sky is viewing figures. Personally I think they should go down for a couple of years till they can get enough finance together with the help of the RFL to come back up and spend above the salary cap with out being scared of going bust for a period of 5 years.

That's my point, they been going 30 years and its not worked in that time.

The south of France is also a union area. I've toured the south of France and it was heavily Rugby union but I agree its more rugby league than Paris was or ever will be.

You could say the same for Salford, given their crowds and competitiveness, but they've been going as a rugby league club since 1896.


The heartland area though was Catalonia, I believe, rather than the South of France per se.

They beat us...

Most teams do, that's nothing out the norm these days.

I just don't see what London bring. Nothing against them and I'd love them to do will but IMO its never going to work. Maybe the money keeping London going could be used in a place like Cumbria

They get the same money as everyone else in Superleague. They shouldn't, since all other organisations pay London weighting, but they do.

Cumbria is a dead duck. You think London's crowds are poor! Ha. Nothing compared to what any Cumbrian team would bring. The towns up there aren't even big enough or RL friendly enough to support lower league teams and haven't been for a few decades now.

The cumbrian teams have very large catchment areas. Barrow - Ulverston, Askam, Dalton and Millom.
Whitehaven - Egremont. Workington - Cleator, Cockermouth, Maryport.
Its London thats the dead duck it has a catchment area of millions but can only raise an average of 2000+

The Cumbrian teams have massive catchment areas full of sheep. Cumbria is supposed to be part of the heartland area of the sport but cannot attract enough enthusiasm in the region to support Championship sides never mind a Superleague side.

London is a massive metropolis of over 6 million people representing every nation under the sun with massive competition from sports of all kinds plus every other leisure activity imaginable. It takes at least an hour to get from one side of the city to another, on a good day. It would take about five minutes to cross Cleator Moor!

Some RL fans need to spend time in London. If they did, they would quickly learn to appreciate the unique challenges of making anything a success in London, never mind the northern sport of rugby league.

Cumbria has a LOT of rugby league fans who do not turn up at matches because of the current system. Whitehaven used to get 2,000 + every week in the Championship before relegation was removed.

Dump London before they go bust again and add another team from Catalonia.

Exactly having been up there for the past 12 years the potential is massive there are probably just as many amateur teams as in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Here we have lots of rugby fans who associate themselves with superleague clubs like Leeds, Bradford, Wigan and St Helens, lots of fans here feel as though the RFL are treating them as a lost cause, when in reality the lost cause is 300 miles south.

Also correct me if I am wrong but if the broncos move to Gillingham FC next year they can,t call themselves London they are just as close to Southend on Sea and Margate in Kent, any London based fans would need to travel 40 miles into another county to watch a "London Superleague Team".

They seem to move back and forth every few years.

You can just imagine how Widnes fans felt over the years playing In lower division while London was playing super league. I imagine the likes of fev, Halifax etc feel the same now.

London was a great idea but its just not worked!

This is where I have problems with licensing. It muddy's the waters over why a team should be in SL. For me it's all about on the field performances. On that measure so far London should not be relegated. Their continued existence is a different matter. That is a business decision which is down to fans and owners.

Fans need to turn up to fund a club and owners cover any shortfall (if there is one).

The cumbria issue is a red herring. Cumbria is a consolidation issue. There is a good amature level and there is a fan base there, but the 3 dominant teams split this support. Merger will never work, so it's either a fight to the death, one team to get promotion, or for all 3 to agree to support some joint team,but I still question whether supporters of whitehaven, barrow and workington would buy into this rather than stick with their own club sides.

I think London being something of a travelling side has not helped them, but also the name London gives no local buy into the team. None of the London Football clubs work on the basis of calling themselves london. You may as well call yourself England RL club. London is as big population wise as some countries and people in London subdivide themselves when it comes to sporting competition.

For me the big error was not sticking by North Wales and the likes of Sheffield. This would expand our base whilst giving those clubs a chance for away fans to bolster the home crowd for a few years.

Hopefully London (or Gillingham) can make it to 2015 and if we get option 3 they will get a chance to get more competitive without having to spend the max every year. They need time to grow. At the moment they are being asked to compete and grow and just do not have the base to do both.

As for the TV deal, they are just bothered about viewers. Veiwers mean advertisers, which means revenue and subscriptions. That's what TV base their valuation of the game on. Whether thats 300k viewers in yorkshire or 300k views spread across the UK makes llittle difference.

A heavy investment in Wrexham would have improved SL.

A heavy investment in another French team would have improved SL

A heavy investment in a complete merger of the whole of Cumbria, to play under a Cumbrian banner would have improved SL.

A heavy investment seems to be a factor you'd think to success?

David Hughes has heavily invested in the Broncos.

All true, but you need fans to buy in and that's what has not occured in London.

What a total tragic sad thread, such bitterness, showing as I have always said the fault of our game How Parochial it is, we all-right Jack! Many clubs in Super League are 130 Years Old and are still only around 10,000 or under! is that progress?

The way the game is going it will be semi-pro within 10 years so it will not matter if there is a London, Sheffield, or North Wales side. At a time when the game is developing so fast in the south at youth, school & amateur level, yes we are struggling without a Chairman that has backed the club 110% we may not have survived until now! People forget the cost of living in London, rents and land, we have players houses many of the young players live together, we still do not own our own ground and we have paid so much in rental to football & union clubs over the years.

When we had to leave Fulham that is when the RFL should have invested in a ground and made it the RFL HQ in London a ground dedicated to nothing but Rugby League, used all the year for school finals, amateur finals etc, but no there was no foresight and people wonder why as a game we have No Sponsor for our Super League and No Sponsor for The Challenge Cup what a complete joke but week in week out people still think it is the Greatest Game ever, people who watched Wrestling on Saturday afternoon's way back on ITV used to think the same! and what has happened to that sport.

"If people think we're bad..." is the thread title, well before yesterday's disaster Saints were 8 Points ahead of us!

Money was put into buying Bradford's Odsal? Allowing Hull to take the Gateshead licence to survive, but what did I say about the game being parochial, do you genuinely think if there was one club in Cumbria they would attract more than 5,000 I seriously doubt they get less than 2,000 for a local derby! in fact Sheffield attract more than many Championship clubs. Without the licence system how does a club like Widnes survive? it takes time to build a club when you get into Super League and there attendances are nothing like in the Cup Glory days! The whole game of Rugby League needs to be looked at but not by a failed Halifax club secretary not acting as a CEO of the RFL!

In my most inbreded Lancashire accent! =#FF0000I will read the rules