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...

I think you're being unfair to London there. Warrington didn't look disinterested until their heads dropped, and bear in mind we were behind for a long period. That game was by no means a done deal for the first hour.
From a London perspective we weren't great in defence, but a lot better than we have been. Going forward we were a country mile better than most of the season.
Would a full strength London playing like that have beaten a full strength Warrington? Not necessarily, but it certainly would have been a lot closer result than earlier in the season.

What RU influence is that?
With the sole exeption of Harlequins, none of the RU clubs play in London.
I'm beginning to suspect that most of London isn't interested in rugby of any code.

Taken 7 pages but that's the most pertinent quote. People in London go to RU internationals and club games with lots of cheap tickets. (See Saracens at Wembley). Quins buck the trend but have had problems. The rest went bust or moved out of London. For the record those doing well heavily rely on sugar daddies ploughing wads of cash in for no return.

For me Broncos need a base in a town where they can build on the local community. Pick any number of football clubs just outside the M25 and go for it. It's working for all those London RU clubs.

RU is big in London in the Twickenham/Richmond area and one small outpost that invented the sport (Blackheath) and that's it. The rest of London is pretty much pure soccer bar the 2 county cricket clubs.

1. Saracens cheap tickets attracted 83,000 and a shed load of publicity.....shame on them. They have also just signed a sponsorship deal worth 8 million over 6 years.....of how we larfed at them....


2. London Irish, Waps, Sarries et al all average bigger crowds than the London Broncos EVER have.......and as for going bust and moving around......are you for real? Valley, Stoop, Valley, Brentford, Stoop and now god knows where........and let's discuss 2005 and finances shall we? Londons RU sides have had to adapt to professionalism quickly.....all 4 have now secured their medium futures. London may or may not have the stomach for Rugby of any code, but the Season opening Double header at Twickenham shows that Londoners will turn up to events......the double header at Wembley in 2010's 4 nations speaks volumes about the interest of League fans across the country.

3. As for the Broncos, they played their first game under the new name in a weekend that had a Club Union game either side of it.....
Sat 28th Jan, Harlequins v Leicester att: 13,780
Sat 4th Feb, London Broncos v St Helens att: 4,924
Sat 11th Feb, Harlequins v London Irish att: 13,418

I would suggest the fact that a few vouchers in 898 ST booklets and a half page in the Evening standard maybe...just maybe wasn't enough for the first game back at the Broncos......the next game 3 weeks later got 1,970.....that's the SECOND HOME GAME BACK AS THE BRONCOS.

4. As for needing a town to connect with.........maybe, maybe not, but unless they f**king market themselves, it'll make no difference where they move to and under the current CEO who has no track record of any success, even in cricket where he comes from and the current owner, who decided the first thing to do in the mid season review was to sack the marketing and commercial manager then look for a new ground......it ain't going to happen any time soon.

The move to Gillingham smacks of preperation for Championship Rugby League in the next few years.....let's hope all the work done in West London survives......there a west London school playing at wembley on saturday BTW......it was working in West London, just no fast enough for some.

I'm beginning to reach that conclusion myself. It's noticable that London Irish are showing no signs of wanting to leave Reading. As for Wasps, I believe thay still have a financial interest in Loftus Road and could move back any time they wish, but have chosen to stay in High Wycombe.

Trouble for us is that Gillingham is the wrong small town in the wrong place.
And while I hate to feed the monster that is gutterfax, the fact is that without a major sales and marketing push any move is doomed to failure.

Fat enough as it is thanks......



Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a team there getting 7k gates and making the play-offs......just not the London SL team.....as it won't be anywhere near London.

Just as a point of info, it is only those club's first teams that play outside London. Their lower/amateur grades, training facilities and clubhouses all remain in London.

Hammersmith Hills Hoists play out of Wasps' ground in Ealing.

The BBC website now has a report that suggests that the Broncos are likely to take up the option of staying at The Stoop for a further 2 years.

2 years for Tony Rae, 2 years further at the Stoop, 2 years left on the franchise hmmmm

And David Hughes has apparently intimated that he won't be in a position to bankroll us after the end of this franchise period as he wants to retire. Interesting.

I thought that he deftly avoided the question about his intentions after the end of the franchise. He also said that he still enjoys his work at 67. Many (not me though) go on much longer. The woman at the head of the family running our large local garden centre was still working last year aged 102. May still be for all I know.