Well debated argument there......not one shred of evidence to back up your assertions, but hey, you're a narrow minded idiot, so I wouldn't expect anything from you anyway



Londons home attendances or lack of them are nothing to so with abyone other than the clubs owners and a few interested home fans...


Londons total lack of away fans are of interest to the chairmen and CEO's of the other 13 clubs, but if you work on the basis that 1,000 away fans is the norm, then this costs these clubs maybe 20k a year in lost revenue.........not a bad swap for the 1.3 million in TV funding they get every year from a broadcast partner who it is said, wants a team in London


London have never borrowed or received any financial assistance from the RFL......they have no debts to banks or financial institutions and have an owner who swallows all running costs......we don't even have an overdraft.




Yes....I did. For too long, w$nk3rs like you have been allowed to post unsubstantiated crap on here with the conduit, "I'm not having a go at london..really" added.....it's trolling of the worst kind


You were having a go at the club I support and with no evidence to back up your assetions that London is bad for Superleague. By all means debate with facts, but 1,800 or 180 fans at the stoop has no direct effect on any of the other clubs in SL or RL in general.....but SKY taking their money away certainly would.




1,300,000 great british pounds a year because SKY wanted a London team.......by all means have a whine, but a 20k hole for the visit of London is peanuts when you consider the funding the clubs receive from the TV money.

Clubs folding like Blackpool, Prescot, Runcorn, Bramley, Carlisle, Chorley, Huyton etc is really sad, but it has nothing to do with London (of the dirty french).......

RL is a Northern sport.......and well done you for spotting that, but in reality, if it wants to exist in another 10 years time, it will need to attract revenue from sponsors and TV partners and having a team in London opens up a NATIONAL audience.....

No they wouldn't. Why would they? On what grounds? Don't be such a drama queen.

They'd simply pick on someone else - the next crappest club in SL - Wakefield probably.

I really, really cannot see the point in London anymore.

...as a Capital City? As a centre for Government? As a condition of receiving millions in revenue from SKY TV for the rights?

Come on kids everyone's entitled to an opinion...


....they're just wrong

Exactly! And that is how clubs survive, even super league clubs. By having fans that actually care about the club. If Bradford didn't have deep roots within the community they wouldn't be a club at the end of this month.

Survival isn't all about having a rich backer. They come and go and can leave a club in a real mess. A loyal fan base is more important. Long term unless Broncos settle somewhere fast, I see more of a future in London with the Skolars.

As i said in the Catalans match report, they lack in numbers but boy do they get behind their team... I want to give London fans some praise for that rather than knock the volume of them.

I can't see any point in Castleford, hopefully they fold soon.

Come on, I'm a Broncos fan but by absolutely no means are we deserving of a SL franchise in our current state. Kick us out and bring in another French club. Until we or someone else can put in a decent business plan for a club into capital.

Shame the Cumbrians are so narrow minded, that place is ripe for a SL franchise.

So here's the scenario....

Your team's next home match is against London, Catalans, Northampton, etc.
Do you:
a) Sit on your hands and accept that you'll get a poor turnout and then bitch about it?
b) Realise that you have a prime opportunity to go out and sell yourself to the local population?

Any club that is reliant on visiting fans - customers who'll only buy from them once a year (or twice if depending on cup / play-off draws) - has absolutely no place in the elite league. If you know that your opponents won't bring much support, you know that you have plenty of space to sell to natives.

The whole "away fans" argument is absolutely ridiculous.

I don't know where is stand with London Broncos.

One side of me says that they are a shambles of a club watched by a few hundred people, nobody cares about them, and they are a blight on RL, without a filthy rich benefactor they would have gone to the wall by now.

The other side says that a London presence is vital (I'm not sure about this sponsorship/advertisements business) but a presence in the capital seems important.

How much longer will Hugh's flog the dead horse/bronco? . It's a shame really that nobody goes to watch them any more, really sticky situation. Feel sorry for the owner and the true fans that have stuck with them.

Could not disagree more with this point. Your view seems very narrow minded, and only thinks about the one time financial benefit of away fans.

To get more home fans at games you have to provide a product that they are want to be involved in. That involves both a good on the field product, and an atmosphere in the stands that captures the imagination of the newcomers. In my opinion, it is hard to create a great atmosphere with no away support whatsoever.

If SuperLeague is to move forward I think we need to have 14 (if we are going to stick with this format, although personally i would have 10) clubs that bring the full package.

now that is going to be difficult with catalans, who will never bring a solid away support (and no one expects them to). I understand the local promotion at games that bring little away support, and wigan have done this very well over the past few seasons, but if your are having to give away tickets 3 times a season then people are not going to buy tickets for regular games, just wait for these special (free) tickets.

also, if anyone truly believes sky would drop rugby league because we don't have a london club, then I am sorry to say you are wrong. The amount of viewers for the money they pay is the best they get for a sport. It may be there preference for a london club, but they are not going to pull out if we drop them, it would be financial madness, as another corporation would pick it up, and take sky's second (according to viewing figures) sport for a price that is insanely low for the value it offers.

Agree. You should plan to fill your stadium with your own fans, not rely on those with large away followings to keep you going.

Spot on. This is why Wigan do so well crowd wiser.

While I can't agree with your prediction that we will soon see the demise of RL, I can agree with pretty much everything else. I can tell that you and many other fans care deeply about the fortunes of both clubs, but considering some of the posts on this thread and others on similar ones (such as laughing at attendances), it's hard to see past the view that many fans will criticise anything outside of the M62 corridor.

Care to expand on that point, what is it they do that has such a detrimental affect on other clubs or the sport in general?

You might well ask.



Because you get teased at work?





They already have done. It was a full house at Wembley that day. As is entirely the norm on such a day.



A very good post altogether.

This reminds me, though, of my first experience in Perpignan, when we were on a Catalans Sports Tours day trip to the nearby coast. Cas were that weekend's opposition and tb and I were in a minibus with about half a dozen Cas fans.

One part of the conversation went as follows: "Well, it's very nice, but it isn't a [iproper[/i Rugby League town". In other words, it's not a run-down, former industrial stronghold in the north of England.

To an extent, I think that encapsulates part of the problem. It's not vindictiveness, but the game as a while – as opposed to just individual teams – is (for some at least) so utterly and inextricably linked to a general sense of northern identity and culture. That sense of identity/culture is hat's perceived by some outside – to the sport's detriment, I would suggest – but positively by many within.

And as the north continues to struggle (in general) in this post-industrial world, I suspect that can become even more defensive.



Well, we are all Europeans.

And wow – what a fantastic place to go and watch a game.



There is no NEED for any RL club anywhere. Just as there is no NEED for any sports club anywhere.

End of.

Nice selective quote there.

Okay then, whilst many other Super League clubs are doing all they can to get a Super League franchise, London are seen by non RL fans as a gimmick, when they are on TV and there is less than 2,000 there, with no shirt sponsor it makes the sport look bad. They are spending a lot of money on players and never have any success, the fact that their name has changed so many times, and they have moved stadiums so many times just portrays a bad image.

As a RL fan I can see past these issues, but the facts are that anyone with a passing interest in the sport (anyone that I have met anyway) just see London as a gimmick.

I am in no doubt that we WOULD all love to see London RL flourish in Super League, but it hasn't and the signs aren't positive going forward. Like I said before, it's a sticky situation, the cash cow only has so much milk.

leave earlier then



it takes me SIX hours to drive to every Catalans home game FFS !

They are averaging about 5k more than London. Even your own fans are saying you dont deserve a franchise on this thread "Dave" stop getting so defensive.

From a Wakefield fan!!!!! Your as bad as London!!

To anyone who knows anything about travel in London and the south east, this gate should be no surprise. If Sky really do want an SL team in London they have to realise;
WEEKDAY GAMES IN LONDON ARE A WASTE OF TIME.

The roads are gridlocked by mid afternoon until well into the evening.
The public transport system is entirely geared up for travel to and from the central area, travelling between suburbs is ridiculously time consuming.

The crowd on Friday consisted of hardcore fans who are fortunate enough to live round the corner, or have jobs where they can knock off early.

And as for away fans, not many come from the heartland clubs on a weekday night, so how many did anyone think would travel from another country?

We have enough issues with crowd numbers (as done to death elsewhere on here) without Sky compounding the issue by insisting on weekday games.

Sorry Listy, but you're reinforcing prejudices with comments like that. You know full well that if you worked in parts of London like Croyden or Docklands, you would not have been in the pub for 18:30, unless your employer is prepared to let you knock off early. I'm with Tre Cool on this one, weekday games are just a waste of time.

sanjunien, you clearly have no job, or a very understanding boss who lets you leave work early when you need to. Not everyone is so fortunate.

the game (London v Cats ) wasn't shown on SKY, was it ? so what's it to do with SKY ?

shouldn't you be blaming the RFL for scheduling such a game at a ridiculous time ?