I don't agree with dropping the London moniker. We're talking about the world's most famous city and people are wanting to drop it in favour of one of its dull suburbs half the country will probably have never heard of. Madness.

I've always been in favour of going all guns blazing with the branding and calling them London Rugby League.

I just don't think trying to appeal to the whole city will work. Especially with them being relegated and having no home. I think their best bet is to find a permanent home and rename as whatever area that's in. Try to build by getting the locals interested.

Trying to appeal to the whole city is like Hull KR when they were in the Championship trying appeal to an area stretching from Hull to Leeds and with approx 3 times the population.
Then add in the relatively low level of RL awareness in the area, the current weakness of the club & the dominance of football & Union in that area, I can't see how it could work.

What your saying is that basically they should have small ambitions.

This version of london are clearly dead, the last rights were given a couple of years ago. They are and have been winding back and it is virtually impossible for an expansion side to get promoted in a salary capped P+R league

Whatever new club comes through (if any) will be a London side. Calling them Barnet or Twickenham or Charlton or whatever would be like the Rhinos renaming themselves Headingley Rhinos.

Not the same in the slightest. As the chap or chappess above says, London are more recognizable to the rest of the country. However, when looking for paying fans the rest of the country is irrelevant.

They need to attract a community first before going for any wider appeal.

London is that same as saying West Yorkshire. No one will follow that team ahead of Leeds.

No one will follow team Lancashire ahead of Saints , Wire, Widnes, Pies.

It's not the major flaw, but it does add a limitations. Once you are big enough, like Arsenal, West Ham, Chelsea, then you will pick up fans outside of your direct locality. But you need that solid base first. The London FC would never work as they could never reach a mass big enough.

Add to that, moving around every few years.

Internal management issues.

And stuff that those closer to London are more qualified to answer, it does not help breed a stable team.

No it wouldn't and it's not about them having small ambitions. It's about them having appropriate ambitions and appropriate marketing. Nothing stops them going beyond and appealing to people beyond their "home town". In the same way every football club in London does.
But when they've had a nomadic existence, have pretty much no current support and have no roots at all, I don't think it a bad idea to put some down.

By the way Leeds weren't originally called Leeds RLFC. They had a name that most certainly wasn't aiming to appeal to the entire city at the time. As it grew it did and changed its name.
But anyway the comparison is daft as Leeds is a city with a high degree of RL awareness and a lot of interest and participation in the city. In London there isn't.

Thats right, the name London has no association with anywhere. Its like calling Rochdale Manchester North, Oldham called Manchester East and Salford called Manchester West.
Being Nomadic is destroying any fan base, probably at Brentford was there best period, was it the RFL that wanted the title London to prove that expansion was in full gear.

a quid'll get you a tenner that the majority of London sports fans would ask who was in this London Rugby League?

Harlequins, Wasps, Saracens......?????

Harlequins RL on our shirts was mistaken for Harlequins Rugby Lessons

.......it was one of the lame excuses MacKay/Hughes rolled out to explain why they changes us back to the Broncos.



What we have been called has not one jot of influence over the demise of the club.......bad management with a massive dollop of megalomania from Hughes, together with "lip service" from the RFL and SKY has done that.

Nobody thinks it is a bad idea for them to put down roots. And yes their support is small. Identifying as a club for a smaller area isnt going to change that.

And lets not beat around the bush, by appropriate you mean smaller.

Every London football club would love to be THE London club. The reasons they arent are historic and not really beneficial to them.


The degree of RL awareness in Leeds is nothing to do with why the Leeds Rhinos are the Leeds Rhinos and not the Headingley Rhinos.

There is a reason why Leeds are much bigger than Hunslet, Why Bramley arent a pro club.

There is a reason why Otley and Roundhay became Leeds Carnegie and now Yorkshire Carnegie.

The reason why people argue London shouldnt be London but some smaller area of it is the same reason people argue against a rise in cap, against marquee exemptions. If only the clubs spent a bit less, it would be easier for everyone to compete. The unavoidable consequence is the game is smaller.

Why? Would you think Leeds should call themselves England Rhinos then? Missing out on all those Cornish supporters.


No I mean exactly what I said. Appropriate. And there is a difference between having ambitions and being able to fulfill them.


Dear god smokey. Honestly, one of these days you'll actually admit that black is in fact black and not actually white.


Just the one? Seriously?


What were Leeds called before they built a decent following Smokey? You seem to have missed that part. Come on, time for a quick Wikipedia check.




once again there's more than 1 reason.

and the main one is the areas where Union support is stronger. You need to stop now Smokey, because you haven't got a clue with this one.




Where did I say that, oh wait I didn't. It's just another of your attempts to divert the argument away from its origins.

The reason why I argue that London shouldn't call themselves London is that London is entirely different to any other city or area in the UK. It's not the same as Manchester or Hull or Leeds.
London is sort of like an area stretching from Hull to Leeds and from Doncaster to York but with around 3 times the population. Then add in the massive cultural differences & the lack of any meaningful RL interest across the City why would you try to market to the entire place BEFORE you've appealed to and built interest in a smaller area first.

You know, like Leeds did.

But try and tell me it's about ambition instead, go on. It's hilarious.

I repeat...it has nothing to do with the name of the club. Nor has it got anything to do with the public not knowing what game it was we played, or mistakes about us and the other code.
It is 100% down to some really bad administration at Club and game level combined with not the slightest clue how to market the game/club, or even who to market it to.
The result?
19 years of SKY cash, combined with a bunch of creditors out of pocket in 2005 and god only knows how many Millions of private investment wasted, just to placate a few SL chairmen bereft of ideas of how to boost their own clubs attendances and finances, whilst pulling the wool over the eyes of a couple of ambitious Championship club owners with the "hope" of promotion.

London Broncos will be gone before the start of the 2016 season and the "expansion" of the game in London will be passed to the Skolars....who I seem to recall had trouble winning even just 1 game a season before London academy players started to trickle down.

Yeah, except the population of Headingley is 20,000 and the population of Barnet is around 360,000. Barnet alone is bigger than St Helens, Wigan and Leigh combined and has 23x the population of Featherstone.

There's absolutely no conceivable way that a club in a sport the size of RL could attempt to effectively market itself to the entirety of a place the size of London, it's just stupidity to even try.

Spot on, before the Sky,RFL, SLE backed Brisbanne's hi-jack of the club, we were so close to promotion anyways, we finished 4th in 91/92, 5th in 92/93 and 3rd in 93/94. The "election" to SL robbed us of our credibility and why exactly did Brisbane just suddenly decide to buy a tiny club with just 500 fans 12,000 odd km away, eh?

You can imagine the scene "Oh, what a suprise, your going to GIVE us promotion to SL, we didn't expect that".

lmao!

As for London disapearing, they said that when Fulham pulled the plug, but a hardcore kept them going, when the club became London Crusaders, it was recognising the fact that a) the club wasn't based in Fulham anymore, b) most of the fans weren't from Fulham either and c) we had no permanant base, hence "London" Crusaders and not Crystal Palace, Barnet Coptal or Chiswick Crusaders.

We will still be London RL, we will not disappear, and when we eventually EARN top flight status, I will wear the self-satisfied grin of a smug b'stud with pride!

Only if the mortician likes you.......because it ain't font happen in either of our lifetimes!

because they play other teams in England. If we were playing a load of teams in a different country then we possibly would.

Hence instead of representing Perpignan we get a club representing Catalonia.

So smaller then. Dress it up in whatever you language you like, its not fooling anyone.

you think its self evident fact that Leeds Rhinos are called Leeds Rhinos because people know what RL is in Leeds? What a very odd argument.
They have only been called Leeds RLFC and leeds Rhinos as rugby league clubs. They were Leeds St Johns up until 1890 but even the Victorians could see that limiting the appeal to one area of the city was a silly idea.

well whether i have a clue or not is pretty irrelevant. Fortunately Mr Hetherington has told us [iClearly, by leveraging talent and support across Yorkshire that gives us the best chance possible of succeeding.[/i. Hmm. Clearly.
Well of course you didnt say it. I did. Thats why it appeared next to my name and not yours.
Why are you pretending London is some sort of mysterious place no-one knows about or what it is like. There isnt massive cultural differences between Leeds and London, there are massive cultural differences between Tierra Del Fuego and Islamabad. London has some specific challenges but its not the moon. Bring yourself back to the real world. Your point that Leeds were originally Leeds St Johns 145 years ago before changing their name 125 years ago is a very strange attempt at scoring points. Especially considering they were strictly an amateur club at that point. Even prior to becoming a semi-pro entity they saw the benefits of appealing to as many people as they could.

The simple answer is that if you only aim for a small part of the city you will only get a small part of the city especially if you include it in your name. If you then want to appeal to the whole city. You would need to build everything all over again. Including changing your name. Which is pretty obviously not 'putting down roots'.

All at once your probably wouldnt try to reach 8m people. There is nothing to stop marketing in some areas more than others. Of course you would start where your stadium is.

However a club called barnet marketing itself as the Barnet club is limiting its fanbase to only Barnet and excluding other fans in London.

London RL fans are London RL fans, not barnet or brentford or anyone else. London.

I dont have a problem with targetted marketing, but scaling down their ambition to being the Barnet side instead of the London side is entirely counterproductive.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, QPR, West Ham etc etc. Not to mention Fulham!

Yet you support Carnegies name change. How strange. Or is it just you don't really know what the hell you're on about.




smaller than what? What do you think my ambitions for London would be?




you can't do it can you! Leeds changed their name after building up from the local area, with a localised name even in a much smaller city.


So you've finally had a quick wiki check I see!

disappointing that you didn't know the history of your own club Smokey. Especially when you profess to know about it.
If the Victorians thought that then why weren't they called Leeds from the start? Why did they "limit their appeal" as you strangely put it? Why did every football club in London limit their appeal?
Why did the other rugby clubs in Leeds limit their appeal?
While you were on wiki did you see what crowds Leeds St John were getting before they changed their name?
I assume you approved of Leeds St John changing name to Leeds despite playing against other teams in Leeds? So why not England or at least Yorkshire Rhinos?

Oh and can you tell us what the reason is for Leeds being much bigger than Hunslet and Bramley? Please, please, please say it's because they called themselves Leeds!




Oh dear Smokey!


Do you know why they changed to Yorkshire? 2 big reasons. 1 - Union support is low in Leeds itself but fairly good in the small towns and areas around Leeds and in Yorkshire. 2 - so that they can legitimately take games away from Headingley to other grounds without annoying season ticket holders.

Now tell us all how any of that applies to London!

Stick to what you actually know about Smokey!



What's wrong with you?


Oh Smokey. There are big cultural differences between Leeds & London. Especially in a sporting context but even not in that context it is an entirely different place and doesn't work in anything like the same way.
Why are you trying to pretend London and Leeds are the same?



Nobody has said it's the moon. People have stated which way they think is the best to overcome those challenges.


it was you that brought Leeds up as supposedly some example of a team appealing to a larger area and succeeding. It was you that attempted to score points from that. But you didn't know about your own teams history. Where they had built from a smaller base and then attempted to expand. They didn't attempt to appeal to the entire city straight away, and that City was a Leeds with a population roughly the same size as York now. They wouldn't have dreamt of trying to market to 8 million people straight away. They would build toward that goal. If they were trying to they would've called themselves Yorkshire.
See there with that last sentence of yours is EXACTLY the point. "appealing to as many people as they could". Ie what was a reasonable objective with the resources available and the state of the club at the time.


That's a very strange argument considering where Leeds pull a decent proportion of fans from and every Premier League football team. I didn't know 65,000 people currently live at the Royal Arsenal.
You mean what Leeds did? And Man Utd?
So do you agree with Carnegie's name change or not?

The village mindest from some posters is amazing.

If you are a 'new' sport trying to gain a foothold in London you are going to do sfa by naming the side after a suburb/sub-region. You're automatically alienating a huge amount of possible fans before a game is played.
The British US sport leagues all have 'London' teams for this reason. It's the reason why the Melbourne Storm are not the Knox Storm and the reason why the West Coast Pirates won't be the Highgate Pirates, etc, etc.

It all means nothing anyway if the RFL will not or cannot properly support them though. They need to be able to attract the marketable/big name players either through RFL encouragement or by financial incentives to help win over fans.

I think ambivalent would be an overstatement of my feelings towards Carnegies name change. They are however a good, recent example of what I am talking about.

Smaller than they otherwise would be.

You do realise at this point they were an amateur RU side representing a Parish, yes? Im not arguing that Amateur sides would need to cast such a large net and you do understand the differences between an amateur RU side in 1870 and a professional RL side in 2014 yes?


Leeds St Johns were an amateur RU side in 1870. They were set up as an RU side, they were playing in a strictly amateur game. They didn’t need to earn money and didn’t. That’s the fairly obvious reason that a Parish side set up for a bit of fun was, unsurprisingly named after the Parish and its marketability was pretty secondary. When that changed, so did their name. Hence there being no Leeds St Johns in the RFL.

As for the other clubs, well they are clearly suffering for their mistake aren’t they.


Hunslet is geographically closer to where I was brought up. I wouldn’t go watch Hunslet, I have no affinity of affiliation with them. Hunslet was a town a couple of miles down the road. That’s it. I was born in Leeds, lived in Leeds, when people asked me where I was from, I was from Leeds. I supported Leeds United. The only team I would ever have supported would have been the ‘Leeds’ team. I wouldn’t support some town down the road that I still don’t think I have ever actually been to just because it was nearer, I wouldn’t support Headingley or Bramley.

You do realise it was Gary Hetherington that said that right? i didnt say it. It wasnt just me. The guy who runs them said that.
Rugby side which has fairly low support expanding its catchment area to amalgamate support from bigger area. Hmmm



Because they largely are. Having lived in both the differences arent that massive. As i said there are specific challenges to London. It isnt home to aliens. It is just a bigger city. Its culture is largely the same. How could it not be. London's culture dominates the whole country.

You are arguing that it is some vastly different place. Like London is completely alien to Leeds. For the most part you take a picture of a normal street anywhere in London and one in Leeds or Manchester it wouldnt be easy to tell the difference. You act as if you are comparing Delhi and Minnesota.
i just didnt think that an amateur RU club in 1870 was all that relevant now. Im still not sure why you think it is. as a professional entity they did. As a professional entity they have always been Leeds RLFC. If we were setting up an amateur club in London then I wouldnt call them London but thats not what we are talking about is it.Yes 1870 was a different time to now and Amateur RU clubs didnt try and market themselves as RL clubs to 8million people in Yorkshire (because there isnt 8m people in Yorkshire now, never mind what was apparently your halcyon days of sports marketing 145 years ago) i still dont think what RU clubs did 145 years ago, when there were no cars, or TV and life wasnt really much like it is now, is all that relevant to now

Your last sentence here. Are you still wanting to try and argue you dont mean 'smaller'?

I do find it funny though that you think Leeds and London have massive 'culture differences' but are perfectly happy to compare now with 145 years ago.

Leeds utd have been Leeds Utd for 95 years, Leeds Rhinos have been Leeds Rhinos for 125 years, Man Utd have been Man Utd for 112years they were called Newton Heath because they were a works team and changed it precisely because Newton Heath couldnt attract fans. A problem which for some reason you want to put in place and leave in store for a london RL side.

Arsenal were also a works team and an absolutely crazy example of your argument that London sides should be named after an area of london rather than trying to attract fans from the whole place.


I think the Carnegie name change is a sensible idea. If you dont have enough people coming in, expanding your target market seems like a sensible idea. Certainly more sensible than them going back to being Otley and Roundhay.

No, it isn't. I know a guy from Hackney who supports Leyton Orient. Not everyone who supports Chelsea lives in Chelsea. 'Marketing in some areas' would be the equivalent of having a team called 'Northern Raiders' based in Bradford, doing a bit of marketing in Leeds, some in Manchester, some in Liverpool and then expecting it to be a success. It isn't about limiting anything, it's about developing a realistic target market and stable foundations on which to build. By your logic, Super League should have 12 teams all called 'England Rhinos', 'England Warriors' etc, all trying to market themselves to the whole of England.

If anything, we're limiting ambition by only aiming to have one club in London, called London. The alternative is that we end up with 5 or 6 clubs all called London, all trying to market themselves to the whole of London and the whole thing becomes a total cluster.

London have in reality been promoted. They alone of all this season's SL teams will start the season with the benefit of potential fixtures against the mighty Bulls.

And? Would he not support them if they were called London? Does he support them specifically because he identifies with the Borough? No it wouldnt. That wouldnt be marketing in some areas, it would just be a shi1t marketing plan.

Why would they? Thats not my logic at all.

Somebody best get on to New York and Manchester and let them know what a cluster they have made then, those world renowned clubs must be so disappointed in their short sighted thinking.

Don't bother. It's not worth the effort. Smokey will continue to insist that every Premier League club in London is wrong and are restricting their marketing. That London is the same as Leeds. That Leeds are bigger than Hunslet because they're called Leeds. That the Carnegie situation is exactly the same as the Broncos. I wouldn't mind if he came from a knowledgable position but he doesn't as evidenced by his not knowing of his own clubs history and of the Carnegie situation. He then just disputes the facts over and over again until everyone gives up.
Then he'll tell you you're just limiting London's ambitions.
Smokey is the debating equivalent of an 8 year old sticking his fingers in his ears and sticking his tongue out.

The only one resorting to personal and ad hominem attacks is you. The only one who was trying to score points, was you. I of course knew Leeds Rhinos havent been Leeds Rhinos always, I still do not know what the relevance of an 19th century amateur RU club has to professional London RL in 2014.

But you stick to you ad hominem insults and pretend you have the moral high ground, There is probably someone somewhere who isnt smart enough to see the fact you have realised the irrelevancy of your examples and are now trying to get out of it.