Did the Rah Rah's get the chance to stay in for nowt, if they did it proves that the level of interest is not there.

My friends from down south have no interest in watching "London" whatsoever as they quite rightly believe it would:
1. Be a waste of time
2. Be a waste of money

They have nothing to play for, like most league clubs thesedays

I don't see any way out of this other than yet another reboot. Organic growth doesn't seem to be acheiving anything for the SL team. Sure, amateur RL in London has done well and all that, but there's seemingly no benefit to London in the SL. Not sure why that is, and its hard to understand, but hard to ignore the evidence.

Don't get me wrong, I don't particular think a reboot stands a great chance either, but other than "do nothing" I don't know what you can do. Its all very well saying "better marketing", but market what? As a poster suggests, as they stand, they've nothing to play for. The only hope ( and not guaranteed to work either ) is for the sport, or investors, to stuff a load of money in, with salary cap exemptions, and essentially 'buy' a title contending team of stars to get London off it's a££ and up and running. You may think that's a really bad idea, and I'd have plenty sympathy with you, but if we can't live with ( or find the funds ) for that, we should kick them out of SL, because there's no sense in plodding along like this.

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.

The Union game finished 4 hours before the League kicked off - if supporters wanted to take in the League match, then they were not allowed to leave the ground. Someone on our forum suggested that there was 1 person who took advantage of this offer but I suspect he is exaggerating.

14800 at the Rah-Rah game.

Not at the Quins game ! -6000 ish

when London got to wembley why did the crowds not go up for the league games I know they got hammered but why did they not take advantage of it

Quite simply, Branson and the owners since have totaly neglected any form of marketing and promotion.....we have currently been at the stoop for 7 full seasons this time around, yet I would be amazed if the residents of the borough knew we existed.

The best example I can give you of the ineptitude displayed at the club is the re-brand in November 2011.........firstly, there was no need for it. The only confusion I ever heard regarding the Harlequins RL name was that some school kids thought RL stood for Rugby Lessons.........our new website is LondonbroncosRL.com


Then the timing.......November 1st? over 3 months until the season started and they launch the "new" name with a dozen cabs liveried and a mention at the 4 Nations Double Header....nearly 100 days away from the season launch?
When it came to it, they ignored any major marketing in the build up to the season and 4,924 show up for the first game as Broncos.v2 v Saints........followed by 1,907 for the next home game v Hudds. The average attendance for Saints v Harlequins RL was 5,029 and for Huddersfield was 4,537.....so the first 2 games produced 2,735 LESS fans than we Averaged as Harlequins RL??????

David Hughes currently throws 1.5 million at the club, but refuses to employ people who are remotely qualified to turn things around....the current CEO who has presided over a 35% decline in attendances....he was let go from his previous job because of.....drum roll.......a decline in attendances.

If Central ownership/funding isn't possible, then at the very least the RFL should be prepared to pay the wages of a CEO for the club who would be given specific KPI's to meet.......because as it stands at present, Londons SL club will cease to exist at the end of the 2014 season if not before. The current average attendance at London Broncos RL home games is 2,193 this is down 22%.....at this rate, the London Skolars will soon overtake us as the premiere RL club in the city



Of course, the above is based on a mixture of facts (attendances/lack of marketing) and my opinion and in no way should be seen as the stance taken by the owners of this forum.

I should point out on behalf of Smokey, that average attendance at London Broncos in 1970 was zero. Yep, zero. Not even a straw man. That represents an average increase of infinity. We truly are on the path to success.

Londons average attendances in SL are:
5,691 Valley
5,125 Stoop
3,842 Stoop
2,952 Stoop
3,430 Valley
3,232 Valley
3,803 Brentford
3,545 Brentford
3,460 Brentford
3,918 Brentford
4,917 Stoop
3,428 Stoop
3,909 Stoop
3,436 Stoop
3,380 Stoop
3,124 Stoop
2,807 Stoop
2,193 Stoop

Brentford was the only ground that they managed to increase attendances.....that's basically because they actually invited the neighbours in (leaflet dropped the area).

Marketing isn't complicated unless you want to make it so.......hard work and shoe leather are what was needed back in 2006 and 2007....instead, they simply stuck postsin the ground and expected fans toflock to the games



Under the current set-up, the club will continue to spiral downwards both on and off the field......Hull FC are the next visitors to the Stoop....3,633 is the average gate for them in London......will we see even half of that?

Its so depressing. A team of local lads who quite simply arent big, fit and experienced enough mixed with a bunch of hapless Aussies who couldnt care less. Gower may be talented but he's too grumpy to be a leader. No passion or drive.

Give him a bottle of Vodka, a golf buggy and a hot teenage daughter of one of the clubs backroom staff. That will cheer Gower up.

The fact that the Broncos are such a diabolical team must put southerners off our game more than if they didn't have a club representing them at all

61% less fans than we had 17 years ago. The depressing thing is that we've got 56% less than we had just 7 years ago and nobody at the Club seems to care or want to do anything about it.

The RFL need to step in in some shape.......the recent platitudes from Wood about "improving" strategy means nothing without some actual action by the sports governing body.

In the year 2000, Huddersfield Giants won 4 games, lost by an average of 19 points a game and were watched by 3,392.......fast forward to now and with clever and persistant use of KD's cash, they are challenging again and have doubled their average to over 7,000. They have repeatedly asked the locals to come and watch them....ticket offers, deals for students etc have all been used to coax locals to the club...

London in Y2K finished just above Hudds in front of 3,430 fans.......fast forward now and we are still cellar dwellers with 34% less fans. The club do nothing in the way of local marketing activity other than place an advert in the local free rag....they have never leafleted the locals, but instead have tried to target the entire city.....a pointless excercise.

Someone at the RFL needs to sit down with the club and find out why we are going backwards.....it is plain to see that if left to continue, it's not going to end well for the club or the sport for that matter.

Tbf Huddersfield's renaissance has been remarkable and they've had more their share of luck (like not being relegated when finishing bottom because of events elsewhere). I don't think they are a fair yardstick especially since they have the advantage of playing at the one ground.

Obviously though going backwards as quickly as Broncos have is pretty terrible.

We probably should have gone down in 2005 and nobody made the London Broncos move.....they did so because a series of owners and CEO's couldn't understand why fans weren't flocking to the games.

The WCC in 1997 showed that The Stoop could be filled if marketed correctly......but instead of kicking on, they simply sat back and expected those fans to come back with no encouragement. 9,846 watched the game v the other Broncos......it can be done, but it takes effort.

When Ian Lenegan bought into the club, many of us thought that at last, we had a successful businessman who knew what he was doing at the helm.....the short sightedness of the RFL in making him step away was the begining of the end for the club........it would have been very simple to "police" his ownership and ensure that everything was above board....instead, we have a generous commodities broker bankrolling us as a hobby with no effort in making us self sufficient, so when he walks away at the end of 2014.......well, you can guess what will happen then

We were relegated in 2001 and came straight back up, even in 2008 we finished 3rd from bottom so our rise is pretty recent and has no bearing on what happened in the late 90's.

As for London i think it is quite clear to see that it never has and probably now never will happen down there, a shame cos a decent set up in the South would enable the game to grow down there.

Perhaps the CEO of the London Broncos should read some of the comments here, and perhaps take some on board viewtopic.php?f=2&t=545750&tsmp=1362964652

Perhaps the CEO of the London Broncos should read some of the comments here, and perhaps take some on board viewtopic.php?f=2&t=545750&tsmp=1362964652

Someone at the RFL needs to sit down with Lenegan and tell him its OK to have an interest in two clubs.

The lack of relegation did far more harm than good to Huddersfield, as evidenced by the progress made when we were eventually allowed to go down and rebuild. Can't really think of any other pieces of 'luck' Fartown have had over the past 40 years other than KD marrying a Giants fan!

A very good point.

i think for a couple of the years the favs lost the play off final....didnt dewsbury win it one year in which if they had lost we would have been relegated as the other team were "ready" for sl and dewsbury were not

My fault SKY SPORTS a week behind.

As I remember it the rebuild had already started in the season Huddersfield were relegated. They started the turn around halfway through the season and it was only their dire performances before that that sent them down. I don't think that going down (only confirmed on the last day of the season when Wakefield won to finish just above them) did Huddersfield any good, but it did them no long term harm either.