All this means is that its difficult for Harlequins to attract players because the cost of living is so high in London and they cant afford to pay the wages to make it worth moving to London and hence, have to fill the squad with academy players who probably arent of the required standard

Some academy players have already proven themselves to be rather good. I'm sure they'd rather sign up top notch Aussies but credit where it is due, these days they are rather good at finding young Londoners playing grassroots RL and bringing them on.

Quote ="PHIPPS"Of course yes I forgot that approximately 3,000,000 school kids play RL in London. '" How can you roll your eyes at your own made up fact. This is from Sport England, and provides a robust breakdown of the game outside the professional ranks. www.cwsportspartnership.org/file ... _facts.pdf And the breakdown of schoolkids who regularly play the game in London and the suburbs is around 20,000. www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... -gospel.do The game at youth level in London in terms of numbers is second only to Leeds, although I haven't been able to find the article again to back that one up. But London and the South East providing more 16+ rugby league players than the North West

Quote ="PHIPPS"Of course yes I forgot that approximately 3,000,000 school kids play RL in London. '" How can you roll your eyes at your own made up fact. This is from Sport England, and provides a robust breakdown of the game outside the professional ranks. www.cwsportspartnership.org/file ... _facts.pdf And the breakdown of schoolkids who regularly play the game in London and the suburbs is around 20,000. www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... -gospel.do The game at youth level in London in terms of numbers is second only to Leeds, although I haven't been able to find the article again to back that one up. But London and the South East providing more 16+ rugby league players than the North West

Never really threw money at it and proper gone for it though. Look how the NRL deal with expansion, thats what the RFL need to look at.



Wow!

Excellent post dude!

Love to see the RL heartland lovers come back to that.

Well that's 3 towns west of the pennines and a couple of cities east of the pennines.

We should demand more newspaper and TV coverage on that basis.

Quote ="Londo06"How can you roll your eyes at your own made up fact. This is from Sport England, and provides a robust breakdown of the game outside the professional ranks. www.cwsportspartnership.org/file ... _facts.pdf And the breakdown of schoolkids who regularly play the game in London and the suburbs is around 20,000. www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... -gospel.do The game at youth level in London in terms of numbers is second only to Leeds, although I haven't been able to find the article again to back that one up. But London and the South East providing more 16+ rugby league players than the North West'" It doesn't say "regularly", it counts participants. Rugby league in London tends to produce b*llocks stats like this and some people swallow them uncritically. With youngsters, a fair number of schools will take part in the Championship Schools tournament but that might pretty much the only rugby league that these kids will play all year. There is a London Junior and London Mini league but we are talking about a handful of clubs. Basically we're talking about infrastructures that are only a few years old and haven't had time to get very many kids playing "regularly" like kids in many M62 towns do. The game is expanding fairly rapidly but it's not nearly as big in London as people are trying to suggest. You could live your whole life in London and remain ignorant of the distinction between union and league.

Quote ="Londo06"How can you roll your eyes at your own made up fact. This is from Sport England, and provides a robust breakdown of the game outside the professional ranks. www.cwsportspartnership.org/file ... _facts.pdf And the breakdown of schoolkids who regularly play the game in London and the suburbs is around 20,000. www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... -gospel.do The game at youth level in London in terms of numbers is second only to Leeds, although I haven't been able to find the article again to back that one up. But London and the South East providing more 16+ rugby league players than the North West'" It doesn't say "regularly", it counts participants. Rugby league in London tends to produce b*llocks stats like this and some people swallow them uncritically. With youngsters, a fair number of schools will take part in the Championship Schools tournament but that might pretty much the only rugby league that these kids will play all year. There is a London Junior and London Mini league but we are talking about a handful of clubs. Basically we're talking about infrastructures that are only a few years old and haven't had time to get very many kids playing "regularly" like kids in many M62 towns do. The game is expanding fairly rapidly but it's not nearly as big in London as people are trying to suggest. You could live your whole life in London and remain ignorant of the distinction between union and league.

The criteria generally used for Sport England participation stats is an average of 1 hour per week. Which is reasonable IMO.

When will you northern Monkeys get it into your thick skulls that it was Thatcher that closed your pits, not us

Erm, yes of course. Because half of the population of London are schoolchildren and every single one of them plays Rugby League of course.

[size=200BBOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have had no more than 4/5 years as Quins in Twickenham. Had no more than 8/9 years (if that) as London Broncos playing in a couple of different towns. Had a few years as Crusaders and a few years as Fulham. Pretty much played all over London....so where are you getting this 30 years non-sense from?

Only when the club settle (name etc) and make a decision to plant permenant roots (in ONE town/stadium) and THEN go 30 years can you make your comments about them failing and actual get some credit for your dribble.

Seems ever Quins/London thread starts with a stab by a blinkered fool and then ends up the same with them shot down and looking like an idiot....yet these threads keep coming....incredible!

Peace Out! [/size

Ps...it's in large font because I'm sick of seeing these threads

I have some bad news for you.....if a team are ejected from SL in 2 months time and if that team isn't QuinsRL, there will be a few more threads like this one.

Pretty common denominator?

Tell me about it! The rlfans.com forum will just crash...there will be outrage!

I could fully back the argument for London failing if the club had been in one place and had one name for 30 plus years....but non of the guises have had a chance to develop for multiple reasons.

Just stop responding to the pillock then, he's an idiot, nothing we do here will cure him of that.

No one reason only: not enough people in London are interested.

One thing that I find striking is that the hierarchy of Quins RL are quite open about their desire to go it alone, drop the Quins tag and become London in their own ground. Surely this is only worsening things, from the board room to potential new fans walking through the gates?

the problem's not it won't work, it's that it's being played in the wrong place. Richmond is strong Union territory. Richmond, Quins & London Welsh RU all in about a miles radius.

Rebrand them London, move them to East London (move in with Leyton Orient?) & have a big community push there. We have a lot more in common with soccer in terms of who watches RL than we have with Yawnion.

To be fair I've often thought the location and taking on a union club's name and colours was a lot like making a near-impossible situation impossible. Having said that I don't believe there were many other options at the time, so potentially it saved the club. I still think they'll always be p155ing in the wind whilst it is how it is though.

I honestly don't know what that means.

richmond is strong union territory granted, but st.mary's uni have won BUCS, or BUSA as it was three times, and gotten to the semi's on other occassions. the sharks have also done well in the national conference, so there is scope for success in the area.

Simply close them down.

RL in London won't work.


Ever.

You want St Marys University closed down, just because they had the temerity to play rugby league in London. The is a new low for the contractionist argument, almost puts it on a level with the rugby union officials who gave players life bans, just for playing a game of rugby league.

If we put Phipps in it and then close it down would it be a price worth paying?

Nope. The day you remove his right to voice his opinion is the day free speech dies. He is a wind up merchant and will pour petrol on this thread (and the countless others) so long as we respond to him.

So, here we go (again)



He is like many people on here, who try to look clever (and fail) by inflaming the debate with off the cuff comments with nothing to really add top the topic.....he jokes about 3,000,000 schoolkids playing League, when in fact, London is second to only Leeds I believe when it comes to kids playing the game. He points at the terrible crowds and says that is the reason they should go......although we are not a loss making club......he looks at our results as another reason we should go, but we have never finished bottom of the leage and we tick more franchise boxes than some....he adds nothing other than a post that takes him one step nearer to becoming a bad impersination of The GLF......and we all know how that ended.

,......But, as I said, he is entitled to his opinion, as narrow minded and wrong as it is