Exactly!! We're 1 or 2 games into the season and we're already the worst team in the competition??? I don't think so! Look at the stadium Quins play at - one of the top 3/4 in the league. Go somewhere like St Helens and you don't even have a roof or sink in the toilet! Then you add the mass development of numerous junior teams in the Capital and surrounding areas...Quins are up there with the top few teams on their community work.

So Quins have lost (with 70% of their first choice team missing) the first couple of games and sit at the bottom of the league. I don't really think this constitutes Quins being the worst team overall if you're looking at Licence renewals in Super League.

In fact, only crowd numbers are the main issue.....that and Ian Lenegan doing sweet FA to sell his shares in the club. Other clubs have large crowds but face equal problems elsewhere in their Licence renewal bid...

Its the fastest growing sport in the South East of England. More local and junior teams are being set up than anywhere else in England. Maybe this guy needs to actually LOOK for a team instead of just saying there isn't one....I mean, there are sure loads nearer than "up north"!

You can set up all the clubs you want , but that does not mean those players/officials/coaches will go down to watch Quins , Leigh have two of the top amatuer clubs in the country less than half a mile from the LSV , but very few players and officials from those clubs follow Leigh Centurions to any great degree

Playing and watching sport are two entirely different situations , and getting people to watch proffessional sport is a totally different problem to getting people playing it

Do you really think it is the best chance? A proper London club in its own stadium and with proper finances could be massive, Harlequins don't really have the potential to be any bigger than they currently are IMO.

Lewis is a pleb.

"Once we get people there, they will come back because it's a great sport."

Well they have had some big crowds and the people haven't returned. Why? Because the ground setup/atmosphere and more importantly the quality of rugby on the pitch is dire.

The proof is in the pudding, people have been to quins and not returned it is going to take huge effort to get people back.

Yet moronball is even worse and they attract loads!!!

So your point is........

Isn't "development" a different thing to "recruitment"?

I named 3 reasons, if you still can't understand my point then you are a pleb

You still have to recruit the 12/13 year olds to the scholarships, with the way the rules are going this side is going to become ever more competative. Wakefield and Cas are doing fine jobs but if they weren't around Leeds would pick up the pieces, although I agree with the point that the fertile area of the WMDC and the West Yorkshire region does need a good amount of clubs to service the supply.

one outpost club with little money, they do well to survive.

crowds are poor and arent growing.

still if they ever really do kick on, imagine the media they could get for RL.

for a london RL club to work i feel you need a RL club in the midlands because they are too far on their own.

having a succesful welsh club helps.

would be masive for the game.

Correct. Hackney Marshes is full of amateur soccer clubs on Saturday and Sunday and these players are on the park when the local professional clubs are playing....
Quins (I am getting very tired of saying this) need to market the game properly, something that has NEVER happened in my opinion.
Australians are an odd bunch. They think nothing of travelling 12,000 miles to pull pints in London or spending £400 on a weekend in Prague, but the whinging that went on after last years game v Manly, about Twickenham being tough to get to was ridiculous. F*)k'em...if they can't be bothered, then forget them.
The trick is to market to the audience on the doorstep....250,000 + residents of the borough and the 1,000,000+ of the surrounding boroughs (Ealing/Hounslow etc) and not the Population of Greater London.
Quins need to bite the bullet financially........£10 for seats, £100 ST's, £250 family ST's, free seats for local residents on production of a power bill/proof of address, adoption of a pub on Twickenham High Street (not 2 miles away).....sponsorship of the Railway Station........50,000+ people a day use it....
Crowds are worth 2 points in the licence application (3 if you count financial viability) and these are the points that Quins need to address more than any community/development issues.......
I have said it elsewhere...quins will get 1 more chance and if they are still getting sub 4k crowds in 4 years then they will be booted out of SL. Moving the team again between now and then would be stupid....IMO that is.

That's all well and good but there is already a massive brand that have been marketing the area for years, I would have thought that pretty much all the interested locals will already be Quins RU fans and the rest will not want to watch rugby. This does seem to be the case seeing as there have been no real increases or decreases in support over the last 10 years - give or take it's just the same people. I know that financially there isn't much choice, but being affiliated with Harlequins is absolutely ludicrous in pretty much every respect other than youth development, and the club should move as soon as possible.

The best thing for the game in London would be a new club with a permanent home in an area with fewer sporting alternatives. This could be massive and easily average 10,000 or more. Obviously the issue is finding a home and a backer. If we could have got a Russian billionaire or something to apply for a SL licence out of the Olympic Stadium, that would have been ideal. There's no reason that RL can't be massive in London, but the professional club have been so poorly run for so many years, and are now in a situation where they have little hope of ever expanding. It's no wonder really that people don't go and watch them, I would not watch them if I lived in London.

i would,but then i'm a flatcapper and its in my blood.

Not going to disagree with most of that but let's be honest, the Harlequins tie in was a pretty positive move until IL bought Wigan. Not having a go at IL, I mean who wouldn't buy their home team if they got the chance, but his having to "let go" has pretty much left us as we were in 2005....just with no debt to the Inland Revenue.
David Hughes, who currently bankrolls us is the only reason we exist and again, I am not having a go at that, but what is needed is a realisation that while [uwe[/u believe RL is the Greatest Game, there has been little or know marketing of the game since 2000.

Branson and then various other managemet figures have all had a "field of dreams" attitude to marketing and as a result, the average last season is almost identical to the average in 2000.

This attitude is underlined by Lewis's comment "the RFL believe that Harlequins DESERVE better crowds"......BOLLOX......we need to market the game/matchday experience. Coca Cola are a massive brand, but they still need to Market the product.

It's all well and good saying we should move again/reform again, but take it from me, another move or namechange may well be the final straw for the 2,500 fans the club currently have.....

Agreed, hence I stated that a new club would be ideal, and would probably be able to outgrow Harlequins RL within 2 seasons.

the problem with expansion is that it is not done properly. simply awarding a team a SL franchise does not constitute expansion.

the recent case of celtic proves this beyond a doubt to me.

in the previous few years the club had been steadily growing in south wales. putting the structures and personnel in place.

last season they were rushed into SL long before they were ready to take such a big step. the rest as they say is history and all the real expansion work carried out in south wales is lost!

as for harlequins, youth development should not be impossible as there are loads of kids playing RU they could be bringing into the game. the raw talent at there disposal from this source is greater than any other team in SL.

The Superleague London clubs have all been managed terribly........but the community and development work done is second to none. That's half the problem......the people who count would rather see more community/development work than any marketing activity.....so RL will continue to grow in London, but only as long as Quins RL continue to assist it......and all the time, the club continues to get a 3,500 average gate.
Something has gotta give and if not next year, then in 4 years time. IMO that is.

Very good point

Why do we as clubs do community based inititives ? , most if not all clubs from the top of SL to the bottom of the Championships do run community depts and run programs in local shools

Going back a few years it was a way of paying 2/3 players extra money , usually overseas player in the case of non SL clubs meaning they could be employed on a full time basis

Some very high profile RL people have been involved in these depts and perhaps the less said on how things were done at that time the better



But the bottom line is , community work and development work is mainly done by the clubs to bring in new junior fans , does it work ? , the answer is no it doesn't

Why doesn't it work in most cases ? , because it is only a point of sale , it isn't THE sale , quite often it is wasted money and work , because most clubs dont follow it up with realistic marketing , why doesn't that follow up marketing happen , because it costs money , whereas most community development work is now funded from outside sources , therfore cluba are happy to do it

RL as a sport and the clubs individually are clueless when it comes to marketing the game , people wonder why I argue so much about how the money available to Championship clubs is allocated , because it isn't used in the correct way , i take a lot of interest in the problems that the Quins have trying to increase crowds , this is because most clubs especially the Championship clubs have the same problem , they like Quins are a small fish in a big pond with no high profile to help them sell themselves

A total re think is needed on how and where the sport is going to grow itself at all levels , fine though it is having hundreds of schools playing the sport a few times a year , but that will not pay the bills

You are aware that Harlequins probably have some of the best community structures in the league? That is the one thing they have got right and the one thing that merits their inclusion in SL at the moment. Also, South Wales development work is not lost at all, South Wales RLFC are launching this year with one non-Welsh player in their squad. Development work is never 'lost', it is just sometimes not capitalised on properly.

seriously a london SL club isnt far off being viable.

if crowds rose by 3000 which isnt a lot in absolute terms, the club would be much more viable

quins should be left alone. if they fail they fail, if they go along as they are thats good enough for me.

as the game grows in the next decade clubs like quins will be dragged along for the ride

whether it takes 10 or 100 years its a good project

It is more likely that crowds of 8-10,000 are actually what's needed to give a club the 3million+ quid income most need to survive on. Quins are light years away and currently have a foundation like a pack of cards. Community work is great but as mentioned that should be the job and the money of the RFL, Quins need to spend their time and money getting bums on seats, not balls in hand.

I am interested why Lewis has felt the need to come out with this article. I wonder if the debate around 12 clubs had the other clubs targetting Quins for relegation?

i still think a link up with a lower division soccer club would be better.

the tie in with fulham was fantastic until they got promoted.

if it doesnt work with quins, perhaps a move to a soccer club with their colours again?

3000 is a basis for a club. it needs to rise to 5000 or so and then with away fans you have some kind of reasonable club

Charlton Athletic/Brentford.....both tried and pretty much failed, so there is no basis to try it again unless there is real (long term) money behind it.

Harlequins is really the last stop for this version of Pro RL in London. As has been pointed out, the failure to put bums on seats over the last 15 years has caused this and the clubs failure to realise that it was important to raise the PROFILE of the game in the media is the single biggest disappointment.

A perfect example of this was when the Club played at Brentford and actually had a champion in a senior position at METRO......this relationship (they were once shirt sponsors) was simply left to die........I mean OK, Advertising costs can be high, but when you have someone in a position to get you coverage in a 1,000,000 circulation daily paper you look after them.......as it is, Metro in London hardly touches on League.

All the investment over the years and the revenue from jerseys/beer/food etc may as well have been p1ssed up against the wall, because if Quins aren't over a minimum average of 5k by the second half of this season then they will be on very thin ice.