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.

Christ almighty it must be rocking at Headingley!

Good luck London, hope you get everything resolved. You'll love it in the championship, great, honest open competition which should be close next years, (plus there'll be no Leeds fans to bore the pants off ya!)

IMHO (for what it is worth) London's problem wasn't so much in the name but where they are based.

London has a massive population but it is also spread out over a wide geographic area, so basing themselves in South West London immediately alienates potential fans from East London, North London, etc. For example, travelling to Twickenham from East London involves two tube trains, an overground train and walking and can take between an hour and a half and two hours.

Travelling to Barnet's ground isn't much better - about the same journey time using three different tube lines and another 15 minute walk. Trying it from South London or West London is worse.

Driving to the grounds are usually a mission too - you either have to drive all the way round the M25 or across London itself (potentially through the Congestion Charge zone) which isn't for the faint-hearted.

To attract a decent level of support they need to be closer to the of London, somewhere close to good transport links that make it easier for all London (and Home Counties) based RL fans to get to and other amenities, e.g. hotels for away fans, etc.

The teams who have fixtures remaining v London are going to have a real boost to their points difference. Could hve a big say in that push for 7th/8th places.

So you've noticed that too? The "I must have the last word" brigade. Must be a hoot to live with!

Ad hominem attacks!


Oh deary me Smokey. You continue to pretend that black is white if you wish, continue to twist every point of every argument you enter into if you wish. It still doesn't mean you're right or you've won in some strange way. It just means people get bored from trying to debate any issue with you.
It was you who brought up Leeds, obviously without realising its history. Then when it doesn't suit you it's suddenly an irrelevant example.
It was you who brought up Leeds/Yorkshire Carnegie, obviously without knowing much about the reasons for its name change. Then when it doesn't suit you it's suddenly an irrelevant example.
It's you who continues to say a club cant appeal beyond its name, whilst ignoring every football club in London.
It's you who says anyone who thinks differently to you is "restricting London's ambitions".

A quick question, see if you'll answer it. Should Leeds call themselves Yorkshire Rhinos or can Leeds Rhinos appeal to the rest of Yorkshire anyway? Staying as Leeds is just restricting their ambition isn't it?

SmokeyTA rendering threads unreadable since Thu May 25, 2006 12:59 am

I did know the history. You have still not explained why the fact that before it was an RL club, 125 years ago, it was called Leeds St Johns was relevant. I didnt include it because it obviously isnt. You decided it was but have yet to explain why. Other than it gave you a chance to try and score a point.

Im not saying it is irrelevant. I havent said it is. You have decided that the reasons for the name change are different from the public statements of those who run it.
Except of course the biggest one, which isnt named after a part of London.

And again you are going back to clubs which were founded over a hundred years ago as amateur past times. Not now as professional businesses.
Leeds arent going to attract people from Wakefield or Hull or Bradford by calling themselves Yorkshire Rhinos. There are other clubs representing those areas. Yorkshire Rhinos would simply be an attempt to appeal to a much more difficult and competitive market. If those clubs didnt exist then yes. I think it would be a good idea.

The same as Les Catalans being a Catalan Club instead of a Perpignan club opens up new markets for them.

Just like pretty much every super rugby club has done.

Like the New England Patriots and Like the Carolina Panthers.

Like the Golden State Warriors

Like North Queensland Cowboys, like the NZ Warriors (should they be Auckland again?)

It shouldnt need pointing out to anyone that one of RL's problems is that its market is so heavily segmented that we have divied up the game in to far too small a markets, there is far too much duplication and cannibalization and as businesses our clubs spend far too much time preoccupied with battling each other for smaller and smaller resources instead of the Game competing in the sports market.

Every other sport in the world is consolidating its clubs in to larger ones in an expanded league, Ours has its fans desperate to atomise it further and contract it.

Beltin thread

lol......

....yeah, let's get them playing out of Oxford Circus




Charlton, Brentford, Harlequins and even Barnet FC in the areshole division of UK soccer don't seem to have propblems attracting a level of support that alluded London Broncos over 19 seasons in the top flight.

As for East/North Londoners being alienated

.......for that to happen, these people needed to know we ing existed, which they never did. Alienated East Londoners





I lived in Brentford for years and never gave Orient or West Ham a second thought, but I despise QPR. The only part of London that is "worrying" is south of the river....and that's really just an old "black cab joke"

The various owners of the London SL team, with maybe the exception of Ian Lenegan shared one common belief. They believed that if you stuck posts in the ground and announced a KO time, then the fans would come. They repeated this season after ing season and the result is there for everyone to see.... they are currently playing out of a stadium that the RFL had to bribe the owner of to take them in and even he's said he wants another bung if we're to stay there next year.

I repeat.....name and now LOCATION are not the reason the club failed.....bad management and lip service from the RFL did that.

If you want to see how to "transplant" a sport into a new territory, look no further than the Melbourne Storm........but you can imagine the outcry in Featherstone and Dewsbury if the RFL/SKY said they were going to bankroll a london club with 3+ times the cash they give everyone else

I think he supports them because they're his local team. Leyton isn't in Hackney. I know a guy from Walthamstow who also supports Orient. People from the North of England support Arsenal and Chelsea. The idea that people wouldn't support a team because it was named after a more specific area than the huge region 'London' is ridiculous.

So they're called London, but not marketing to all of London. But keeping the name London because people from other areas might somehow hear about them and be interested enough to consider going, but if they aren't called 'London' then they wouldn't bother. Yeah, I don't really buy into that TBH. You're treating London as if it's an individual entity like a Leeds or Cardiff, when in reality people from London identify with London about as much as people from Leeds identify with Yorkshire, or people from Cardiff identify with Wales. In fact arguably less so.

You're claiming that marketing to a more specific area is 'limiting ambition'. In that case then why not have all teams trying to market themselves to everyone? You can claim that London is different because it isn't represented by other clubs but it is, London Skolars, Hemel would probably be in the target market and there will hopefully be other pro clubs too in the future. By your reasoning, the Broncos would have been better served calling themselves 'London and The South Broncos'. Or all clubs should have regional names, Warrington should be 'Cheshire Wolves' and Sheffield should be 'South Yorkshire Eagles'.

The city of Manchester itself is smaller than Leeds, and much, much smaller than London. Other places in Greater Manchester like Stockport, Bolton etc have their own teams. Also, Manchester United are supported mostly by people from outside Manchester, which pretty much invalidates the argument you're trying to present here.

You're seriously trying to compare the NFL teams in New York to Super League in London?

Even the NBA team renamed themselves Brooklyn Nets. Come on. If you want to use a relevant example, Sydney, a city with under half the population of London, has 10 NRL teams, only one of them is called 'Sydney' and that's because they are based in the very heart of Sydney (equivalent of a London team based in the City of London). There aren't 10 teams all trying to market themselves to the whole of Sydney, because that would just be totally stupid.

Why would people affiliate themselves to a sport they werent familiar with in a place they arent associated with?

So quite a lot then? Im pretty sure people from Cardiff will say they are Welsh and I'm certain that people from leeds are pretty happy they are Yorkshire.
People don't associate themselves with a direction. People dont think of themselves as 'The south' i dont think that would help them.

Sheffield arent the club for south yorkshire, Doncaster probably wouldnt be all that happy with it. Similarly i doubt Widnes would be too happy with Warrington claiming all of Cheshire. Do i think it is a terrible idea for similarly atomised areas to try and work together and possibly merge together to strengthen? not in principle. If they did would it be far more beneficial for them to be Cheshire and South Yorkshire? Yes.

Man Utd are a world wide brand who would tell you 30% of Korea supports them. The claim 659million fans. Im not surprised they claim more from outside Manchester.

and a fair few of those Sydney clubs are struggling because of the atomisation of Sydney and it is has long be spoken of that they need fewer, bigger clubs there.

Again (bar penrith) these are also very old clubs named from an amateur age.

Im fine with looking at the NRL, but that means looking at the NZ Warriors, The north queensland cowboys, named after larger areas rather than even cities, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Brisbane, Newcastle all city sides. Look at the expansion sides talked of in the NRL, Brisbane, Central Coast, Central Queensland, Southern New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, West Coast, Western Corridor.

They are talking big geographical areas, even countries. We are talking suburbs and boroughs.

He is one tedious mo fo. Destroys virtually every thread he takes a dump on. His dissection of threads and patchwork quoting is comparable to the work of Thomas Harris' character Buffalo Bill.

Complete freak.

Because they want to watch the sport? Why do people support teams other than their home town, or the town that they live? Leeds draw support from Harrogate, York and many other places. They don't need to be called Yorkshire Rhinos to do that.
Of course, but I doubt too many people from Leeds would be interested in watching a team called 'Yorkshire Panthers' playing ice hockey based in Hull, which is the equivalent of what you're suggesting.
People identify themselves as being Southerners or Northerners.
London Broncos aren't the only club for London. Nobody identifies with their home region over their home town/city and it's ridiculous to suggest that they would be more likely to support a club because they've been given an all-encompassing name, particularly in a sport such as RL which doesn't have anything like a huge penetration. You've used NFL examples but the NFL is the biggest sports league in the world, literally everyone in America and a large percentage of sports fans globally know what it is, so having teams named after larger areas is suitable because the whole thing is on a much, much larger scale. It's ridiculous to attempt to compare it to RL. NFL isn't struggling for penetration and recognition like RL is.
Which pretty much invalidates your argument, doesn't it?
But again you're missing the point, none of those regions have huge populations, in fact it's necessary to use regional names in Australia's case because most of those areas are extremely sply populated with no real major population centres in which to base a team. Whereas London's population is two or three times greater than the entire country of New Zealand. Those 'struggling' Sydney teams are still bigger than any British sides.

I'm absolutely not against city clubs, but attempting to have one club representing a city the size of London in a sport the size of RL is nonsensical. You're treating it like a normal city, comparing it to the likes of Newcastle and Brisbane when the reality is that London's population is larger than the whole of New South Wales and Queensland combined.