So your idea for RL expansion is to ditch one London team completely and focus on a smaller London team which are as you say running quite successfully as they are? I fail to see how going from 2 teams to 1 can be seen as expansion.

For the last time, Twickenham is no more a Rugby Union heartland than Wembley is a soccer one...




The vast majority of the Skolars top players have come through the London Broncos/Harlequins RL pipeline.....


Are you for real? The RFL gives London Broncos nothing over and above what it gives the other 13 SL clubs......the players visit schools around the area...you'll see one of these local schools competing for a national trophy at Wembley in a few days......as for the working class quip, you're 'avin' a larf mate......we spent 4 years in Brentford...across the road from an 'orrible council estate.......RL is a northern sport and it's the 1 million + ex-pat northerners that the club need to attract.....not a bunch of kids from a high rise estate in north London.
Skolars are to be applauded for all that they have achieved and they will get where they want to be under their own steam........Superleague in maybe another 10 or 15 years maybe.

In your opinion GF, how do they attract those 1m people and where is the best place for the club to setup home?

I presume that the people living around the Twickenham area are Quins RU fans?

How long have you got? First up, about 22k of the 44k people at the double header were from London/SE...or so the RFL tell us. Mail every single one of them with 2 free tickets that can be redeemed for any game of the season.....simply by going on-line and entering the ticket number and what game they'd like to attend.
Once thay have done this, write to them again the week before their game, offering another 2 tickets for the price of 1, giving them some tips on visiting the stadium and a couple of money off vouchers for the shop/bar.

After they've been, CALL THEM and ask what they thought...ask them if they'd like to come back......it's not brain surgery and neither is it cheap, but EVERYTHING else they have tried (which in reality is nothing) has failed miserably....
I've written war and Peace on this topic.....the club say they want to attract fans, but then try silly gimmicks like travel card holders handed out at Canary wharf...or viral videos in Aussie bars......money down the drain. When that fails, they call grab one or Group on and finally give tickets away to anyone who wants them, which is normally away fans

.....they don't have a friggin clue


You presume wrong then...Quins are considerd the flash harry's of the Aviva...the club draws a great deal of its fan base from the City............although I am sure they have picked up some locals.

Ah right.

Some good ideas there with the free tickets though.

Sickening for the fans if true.

If we do, it'll be the death of the club for a lot of the previously unwavering support.

No consultation, no survey, just up sticks and move to somewhere completely impractical for the hardcore majority.

All over for me if true, will go to Skolars.

Not at all. The London club was started in 1981 and I was referring to crowds prior to the move to The Stoop. I agree that swopping grounds for the sake of it won't necessarily help, but some fans on here would have you believe that London have had crowds of 2k forever, which is simply untrue.

Gillingham's chairman and BBC reporter Ian Ramsdale appear to be pouring cold water on Skytext's report of a move to Kent. The Sporting Life website report is just a straight lift off Skytext.

[url=http://www.loverugbyleague.com/news_9973-skolars-chief-wants--rugby-league-mecca--in-london.htmlThis[/url makes interesting reading, particularly with the mentions of Skolars on this thread. Would be a great site to develop although better without the athletics track if possible so that the pitch could be made bigger.

You could not class Gillingham as London. If Super League "needs" a London club / presence then Gillingham would be farcical.

Agree wholeheartedly.

It amuses me that those "in the north" constantly berate the attendances at London whilst choosing to ignore the fact that nearly all SL teams struggle to get consistent 5 figure attendances.

It amuses me that those "in the north" constantly berate the attendances at London whilst choosing to ignore the fact that nearly all SL teams struggle to get consistent 5 figure attendances.

renamed: Gillingham Gladiators........makes sense.

That makes no sense. How does clubs not getting 10000 crowds make a 2000 crowd acceptable?

I would like to think that long established clubs in the heartlands should attract a much higher consistent level of attendance than they do compared to a realitively new club in a developing area.

32 years isn't relatively new. And newness of club doesn't pay the bills.

You are failing to understand the definition of relative i.e. in comparison to the long history of most other clubs in SL then London is "new".

You are failing to understand the definition of relative i.e. in comparison to the long history of most other clubs in SL then London is "new".

I guess London/Harlequins/whatever etc probably always have the lowest SL average attendance, but some other club's are not much higher. I mean averaging 3,000 (with a long way for away fans to travel) compared to say a northern club doing just under 4K, is nowt (flat cap speak) to brag about.
Was it Fulham's 1st ever game at home to W**an (I'm a Leigh fan) there were over 10,000 speccys on !!

Pfft. Bradford are only 48 years old...

It works both way budgie, other clubs have competition for RL fans, London dont, the bottom line as our good friend GF points out, if nobody knows who or where you are, nobody will turn up, you have to find them, get them into the stadium and then make them want to come back

And Widnes just five...