that's the ironic thing,RL is really taking off in the southeast (and East Anglia !) which is great but makes it even more baffling why people aren't turning out to see top flight RL !

it's a great sport / spectacle so what's the problem ?

It's so frustrating. Today - i switch on the telly and see blanket coverage of a frikkin' boat race, with the banks of The Thames packed with spectators. Tried Rugby Uinion on Sky Sports: and i mean really tried - to see the qualities in this game. You can see the difference in skills and fitness compared to RL. it's a total bore-athon. Yet, this game is head and shoulders over ours in terms of presentation and take-up and media coverage. I feel like doing this ........

join the club mate !

beats me too !

Terribly run club in just about every way. I wholeheartedly believe a SL club could thrive in the S.E. Just not run by these people and not within the M25.

Dont worry about it, mass popularity isn't everything. RU is unwatchable, half of the best selling music is terrible and so are the most watched TV progs.

I see. So, i should consider myself one of the lucky few who get to see the greatest game of all in splendid isolation from the masses? I like it. Makes me feel special

Well first of all, yes, honestly I can. Explain to me how they do not meet your 'definition' of being worthy to be in the comp that has applied to all other teams before?
Actually it seems you missed the point, I didn't say give me a definitiion, I said define it, this would of course be in relation to the topic discussion. However as another poster has mentioned one could easily apply that to other clubs previously and yet they were not forced out.
The only let down for quins is the attendances, but this in itself is not a measure solely enough to run a club out of business or the competition,. E very other aspect is acceptable accept the playing level for their own fans. They are competitive and have beaten an in form Catalans.
So, again please show me how the London team are not 'worthy' to be in the comp, be honest you can't can you?

yes, honestly I have missed the point

I really thought the criteria for being worthy of an SL place would be to be able boast a fairly healthy fan base and produce a reasonably competitive team without having to rely 100% on the generosity of a business tycoon

sorry for not understanding the concept of Super League affiliation - silly me

Worst run business I can think of.

Yes very silly, you're trying to apply rules to one club and one club only though so you obviously don;t understand the rules at all & therefore have nothing to back up your arguement then?
Healthy fan base I'll give you as mentioned but it isn't the be all and end all by any stretch.
Competetive team, so you don't class beating Catalans as competitive then because Cats are obviously the wooden spooners this season of course

How about the other teams that have finished in the bottom 3 or 4 in SL and getting pasted week in week out, some almost every year it seems yet Quins come in for special mention because you have something against them personally maybe like it appears many other RL 'fans'???
As for your last point re their financial backer, you've now debunked any credibility to your arguement, so according to you every single outgoing the quins/Broncos club is paid for by their backer? After all you did say they rely on their backer 100% did you not? By definition that is everything, no ommisions, he pays for the lot.

Somehow in the middle of your muddle I think you forget the SKY money, the SL competition money, sponsor monies, merchandise, admission sales, food/drink sales etc etc or was your 100% figure just another spiteful flight of fancy that you didn't actually think about like your whole concocted arguement???
C'mon, if you're going to start this you might as well put some effort in to show EXACTLY how the London club are NOT WORTHY to be in the comp....Please show workings out

no mate,seriously - you win

It's a pointless operation trying to convince someone with such inflexible ideas that the Broncos or whatver the latest product name will be is anything other than a great success !

you win,hands down - I have no argument

just to say about SKY money - that is a constant,along with salary caps and the number of tackles allowed in a set etc etc which,by definition applies to ALL clubs - all my perceived failings with the Broncos are just pie in the sky

no really,I apologise,you are quite correct - my best wishes for the success story which is the eerrghh Broncos



I would just like to repeat and earlier line which passed without comment - my nephew who lives just down the road fromp the Stoop at Strawberry Hill (about half an hours walk) attended the Catalans game (he's from catalunya and went to support the french) and he reckons there were [uless[/u than a thousand speccies present (certainly not 1869 or whatever) which means absolutely nowt as of course crowd numbers aren't an important factor it seems.

The usual the crowd was lower than stated Broncos are lying post. Why would the club lie? In any event Broncos and a London Superleague presence will be gone come the next franchise round so I don't know why so many feel the need to waste so much emotional energy on this done to death topic!

just going by what my nephew said mate - no hidden agenda,honestly - if you believe the figure quoted was accurate then that's ok with me.

my nephew has no axe to grind against the Broncos or any other team - he was very 'surprised' to hear the official figure that's all

regarding a club 'milking' (or lying in you words) about crowd numbers - well, just HOW naiive are you fella ?

it happens all the time - always has done and always will when circumstances dictate....

I've seen it and done it first hand at one particular club in an effort to impress the RFL not to mention local businesses or potential investors

I really don't care if you believe me or not but I have no reason to state something that isn't true for the fun of it.

As I said what a waste of emotional energy. But please don't state that you haven't said something that isn't true. Clearly without being there to physically count the numbers present or conduct an audit on the ticket office sales or season ticket vouchers received at the turnstile your nephew is expressing no more than opinion. Because you have an anti London agenda you have decided to take this opinion as the truth and nothing but the truth. Seriously it will all be over by the end of the 2014 season start looking for another crusade.

On the wider issue, you state that you have seen it done at first hand. Which club? Were you complicit? When was it? What are your sources that the overstatement of crowd numbers happens all the time.

please stop being so naiive

i'm certainly NOT anti London or anti anything - i'm very much pro expansionist and am often lambasted by the traditionalists who seem intent on maintaining RL as an exclusive M62 sport I but feel the present London set up has a serious problem - maybe a change of ground would help increase crowds ? maybe the club needs to be allowed to rebuild from the Championship and try SL again at a later date ? I wish I had a solution.
The RL development signs in the south east are very encouraging so maybe a serious London SL bid would be more realistic in a few years time when the game has had more time to develop - at the moment,for whatever reason the venture isn't working
having watched all the Catalan games in 2010 under Walters when the team was bottom of the league and morale on the terraces as well as in the dressing room was at an all time low and with a successful RU club half a mile down the road the Gilbert Brutus still managed 6K crowds in the last couple of home games
Problem I see with London is that even with a successful SL team the people still would be reluctant to turn out - why the apathy ?

if people are saying that crowd numbers are unimportant then so be it and good luck to London


regarding my personal affaires - if you 'pm' me I will gladly provide the info you require assuming that such information will remain confidential - it's a sensitive subject,especially at the moment.

It's so frustrating. Today - i switch on the telly and see blanket coverage of a frikkin' boat race, with the banks of The Thames packed with spectators. Tried Rugby Uinion on Sky Sports: and i mean really tried - to see the qualities in this game. You can see the difference in skills and fitness compared to RL. it's a total bore-athon. Yet, this game is head and shoulders over ours in terms of presentation and take-up and media coverage. I feel like doing this ........

It is incredibly frustrating. I don't know if its been covered on these boards before but what I find particularly baffling is that there have to be at least 100,000 people within 90min to 2 hours of the Stoop who are ex pat heartland club supporters / followers or who watch the game regularly on Sky. I can't back this figure up with demographic or census survey information so its very much a guesstimate. If correct and if these people just attended one game a year they, coupled with the hardcore support, casual support and away support would take the attendance average to over 10,000 for each of the seasons Superleague home ties, if they bought one friend or family member then we would sell the Stoop out every week! However it would appear that they are just not interested in watching live Super League if London are involved. Poor London team, aside I have still seen some terrific rugby played there and the odd upset makes for a fantastic day. Cost cannot be an issue £15 for a ticket, £8.50 for a travel card if coming from within London and no more than £20 by train even if travelling from the sussex south coast. Strange.

It is because of my flexibility in thought and my understanding of how rules work that I can see that you are wrong, you're being inflexible by continuing with your arguement that the London team are not worthy of the spot yet have failed to point out any credible arguement to back it up that could then not be applied to other teams both past & present.
I always knew sarcasm was the lowest form of wit and I'm glad youi've upheld that for me, it shows even further that you cannot hold a debate properly, I see little benefit in going forward as you've clearly got some sort of an agenda & will not be swayed one iota despite the fact you're so clearly wrong.
thanks though because it's been an enjoyable few posts clearing up matters with regarding the Broncos 'worthyness' maybe next time you should pick your arguements better when you actually have something solid to put forward otherwise I'm not sure I see the point of making yourself look 'silly' (your words not mine)
And in case you didn't know I'm a Hull FC fan, I've never supported Broncos/Quins though they are my closest club geographically.

As far as attendance figures are concerned, on Friday the gate given out for Saints - Wigan was 17980, 20 short of the official capacity of Langtree Park. To my eyes there were a damn sight more than 20 empty seats in the stand opposite the cameras alone and yet, funnily enough, I haven't read any comments about this.

is it important that you are a Hull fan ? what's the relevance ?

it does explain your inability to be able to spell correctly though ! (worthYness ? arguEment ?)

keep up the good work and maybe actually try to read my posts and come to tangible conclusions without trying to guess what my thoughts are

thanks for the entertainment - now I understand why you have no idea of how the real world works - do you spend a lot of time around Springbank maybe ?

The day that David Hughes figures out that INCREASED FAN NUMBERS= INCREASED REVENUE STREAM = INCREASED INTEREST FROM INVESTORS = MORE INCREASED REVENUE = NEARER FINANCIAL STABILITY, then London Broncos can start the process of becoming self sufficient.
CC Final 1999.....Play-offs in 2003 and 2005 and cockney players in the England team are all well and good, but when David Hughes walks away and if the RFL/SKY don't step in, then that will be that........

Alas, since I first met the then Marketing Manager ( a players wife IIRC) in a port-a-cabin at the Stoop in 1999, the club have always maintained that they couldn't afford to market themselves...that there was no money available.......and this consistant denial of funds to the one area that could have helped the club build towards self sufficiency is now resulting in the situation they have now.

Rugby League is not a mainstream sport, especially in the eyes of the Southern based Public and this is where the various owners of the London team have gone wrong. You need to market the game to attract fans...you can't expect ex-pat Northerners to adopt us as a team or Aussies here for a year to fork out money they'd rather spend in Prague on a weekend away.......you need to build an identity with a community and then invite people to come and watch.....

Whatever the club try now they are pretty much damned to failure.....after Dewsbury in the cup, it's nearly 2 months until they are back at the Stoop.....if they continue to get spanked on the park, does anyone realistically expect their gates to get better?

2012 could well be the last year for the club in ESL.......and like the fans of Bradford, it is only the fans of London who will deserve any sympathy.

GF no offence but you might as well quit calling it ESL - in reality it's not been the European Super League since 1997, and 13 British teams + 1 French is hardly a 'European' league. Expansion will never take off like some hoped, time to face the truth I'm afraid.







Keighley or York for SL 2013.

That was down to health and safety restrictions or whatever as tickets were like gold dust having been sold out 2/3 weeks in advance.

the same at Gilbert Brutus there was a full house though there were about 200 empty seats in the main stand - this is due to the new hospitality lounge now being open in the new stand and all the sponsors & invited visitors etc spending the game in the lounge rather than in the stand - very nice work if you can get it !

As the gaps were dotted about the place, you're probably nearer the truth - being RL that didn't occur to me. I was talking to a Stoke supporter at Wrexham yesterday (!) who said that when it's a televised game there some supporters watch it on the TVs in the concourse as you're not allowed to take alcohol back to the seats.

well,before the hospitality lounge was open this season the seats were always occupied by the sponsors, visiting club members and the like ,players & WAGS etc but now it's completely empty - the players not taking part in the game (injured or dropped etc) are usually seconded to the hospitality lounge to look after the sponsors etc - it's good business for the club but strange to see so many empty seats !