I do have a job but don't work weekends nowadays (after 35 odd years of weekends/no holidays etc) which allows me to travel the six hours to Perpignan or the three hours to Toulouse or five hours to Carcassonne etc
the last Toulouse game was on a wednesday evening at Villeneuve with a 2000 KO so I started work an hour early,worked through my dinner break and left at 1600 and drove down the three hours to get to the game - I left at 2130 and got home,managed a few hours kip then up at six as usual for work

I love the game and am prepared to make the effort to see as many games as possible...

I arrange days off around some games like monday evening I stayed in Perpignan and drove back the tuesday and took a days holiday

it's not rocket science but it helps to have a missus who is as RL daft as me !

So what were Wiggy, Stevo, and Wellsy doing there, along with umpteen cameras and a big screen then?
Of course I could be confusing this with the Wakey game. All these evening games are confusing me. You'd think I'd remember when we won, it's not like it happens every week.

Which rather confirms my point, you are fortunate enough to have a job that lets you work flexibly. Some people are still expected to work fixed hours, don't judge them too harshly.

yes,you're right

tolerance never was my strong point i'm afraid .....

Not sure if you missed what I meant. I was agreeing, clubs shouldn't whinge about small away supports coming to their grounds and work on filling them with their own. Smarter business.

He was agreeing with you. Doh!!!!!!!!!

Strangely my boss isn't mad keen on me leaving work before 6.00. If you drive 6 hrs each way to watch Les Cats then you are mental. Is there no Elite team nearer?

nah - my nearest LER team is either Toulouse or Villeneuve both about three hours away

Brive is about an hour away to see Top 14 RU which is ok if i'm desperate.....

Not getting defensive, just highlighting the ignorance of some posts and how people, usually flat cappers, are unable to base their opinions on anything other than attendances, a factor which as pointed out, has no adverse effect on other clubs.

Wigan are probably averaging 10k more than Castleford, therefore there really must be little point in Cas existing.

Dumb isn't it?

It takes 20 minutes to get to Twickenham Station from Waterloo. Even if you were coming from Docklands you would struggle to miss kick off. My mate works in the City and managed to catch a train at 6.20 and joined us in the pub at 7.

The idea behind that game, although poorly executed, is to attract those that work in London and head out after work. Someone on our forum posted saying he was bringing 10 mates from work to the match. I imagine these live all over the South and you wouldn't get them to a match on a weekend. I live in Kent, I do not expect the club to cater for me as I live miles away. Bleating because the club have tried to do something different is incredibly short sighted and selfish.


Organise your life better if this impacts you so much. Just imagine if teams played on a Friday night and away fans had to take a half day minimum to make the 250 mile journey.

Oh, wait...

I don't think the majority of RL fans are anti Broncos or even anti excpansionist

I think they,well me anyway are surprised that with such a large catchment area the game at SL level hasn't caught the imagination of Joe Public

before the Broncos initial SL foray I honestly believed the thousands of ex pat northerners down sarf plus a fair smattering of southerners would have flocked to whichever ground in the London area to watch top flight RL but obviously not !


I just find it sad to see a venture like that going down the pan...

True, and it's dead handy if you're near Waterloo. Trouble is most of London isn't. And a lot of London isn't near a transport link that will get you to Waterloo quickly.
That rather depends on when you're allowed to leave work. Some people in this world work fixed hours.

I hope he did bring them and that they enjoyed themselves. My worry is that they saw a poor team performance, a small lack lustre home crowd, no away support, no banter, no atmosphere. Not a great advert for the game.

Given that they've played weeknight games in every year I've followed them, how does this constitute 'something different'?

I was at the match, heard you gobbing off, east stand block FD I'd estimate. This isn't about me, I'd rather you didn't make it personal.

Like I say, some people work fixed hours, they simply cannot 'organise their life better' without compromising their employment.

This is surely another reason why we should avoid Friday night games.

This is the 17th year I've followed them and I've worked in London all that time.
There are many seasons where the only way I could make a Friday night game would have been to take a days holiday, and in some jobs I didn't have many of those to start with. So my assertion that travel time / logistics are an issue for some people is learned from personal experience.
I am struggling to think of a weekday match I've been to where the crowd wasn't well below the season average.

How many times do we try this before admitting that Friday night games do us no favours?

It was a Thursday night for starters, and IIRC that has only been attempted once. Yes, it didn't work this time, but nothing works at the moment and that is down to the shambolic running of our club. I doubt many people would have enjoyed themselves on a Sunday, as per the Huddersfield game where the crowd was nearly identical to the Catalans match, impressive considering Catalans bought 0 away supporters and Huddersfield a couple of hundred. So the Catalans match on a Thursday night was in fact better attended than the Huddersfield match, explain that?

The majority of people work 9-5, allowing up to 3 hours for the trek to TW2. Waterloo is a grand total of 13 minutes from Canary Wharf. I can't think of anywhere in Central London that represents a difficult journey to Waterloo considering it is so well connected.

Oh and ironic at you complaining "making it personal", I make a general comment that could be about anyone and in a stalker-like fashion, you identify where I was sitting on Thursday, even though you have never met me.

I think part of the problem here is that the catchment area isn't as big as some might think. London's public transport system is the biggest in the country and great for getting into the central area. Trouble is Twickenham is stuck out in the south west, and unless live near a station on a line that runs through Twickenham, you're journey can often be a long one.

A fast train from Waterloo takes 20 mins, then you need 10-15 mins to walk to the ground, a total of 30-35 mins. Most people in London has a whole load more traveling to get to Waterloo in the first place.
When we talk to away fans most of them say 35 mins is their total traveling time door-door for a home game.
I suspect if you defined 35 mins traveling time as your catchment area, it wouldn't have a huge number of people in it.

I was pointing out that we were both there, and backing it up. Identifying you the block right next to the one to the one I was in is hardly stalker like.
If I'd offered row and seat number you might have a point, although given that I sometimes a struggle to find time for home games I can't see me having time for any of that.

Considering there were only 5 of us in there, I'm still a little worried

That many?

we haven't tried Tuesdays yet IIRC......could be the way to go

ok, another silly idea maybe (and i'm ready to be shot down) but why not follow the Wasps example and utilise somewhere like Adams Park in Wycombe ? it's easy to get to by car,just a short drive down the motorway with a good P & R system (free) and a decent rail connection from London
would this not be easier for home fans and more practical than being in London itself what with the travelling problems etc ?

I recall when I lived in Normandy watching my local football team (Caen FC) was bedlam at the old stadium in a northern suburb a mile from the centre of the city especially with 20000 fans trying to get around the streets etc - the club built a new stadium about 10 miles out of town on the motorway,next to the airport with good bus links & good car parking etc and it's now a brilliant place to watch football and so easy for all concerned.

I've noticed that Wasps are booming at the moments aren't they...

attendances for all the London sides playing outside of London (wasps, saracens and london irish) are pretty mediocre at best. i don't think it's the right way to go

dunno ?

I reckon a 7K home average (10K capacity) for a bottom of the table side is excellent - just shows the committment of the Wasps faithful even when the team is on it's knees



I bet the Broncos would cream themselves to get anywhere near that average !



bit worried about signing Stephen Jones though - watched him at Brive a few days ago and he seemed clueless....

I'm just loading some ammo clips on the 2-pounder pom-pom




It's fair to say that the 'out-of-town' experience for British sports clubs has been mixed at best. If you have really good road and public transport links (and you need both) it can work well, but there are several instances where it was near disasterous.

I've always thought it a mistake for London to try and appeal to the whole metropolis and surrounding area, precisely because the transport system isn't well geared to anything other than travel toward the centre. The supreme irony is that having moved around so much what few supporters we do have come from all over! So wherever we play is going to be difficult for most of our current fans.

Also the "don't rely on away fans" argument shouldn't mean that you ignore them or treat them as unimportant. I doubt the smaller clubs in the heartlands don't welcome the bigger teams boosting the gate when they visit.

In short, there's no magic location, but I'm not convinced out of town is the way forward unless it's to the north of London.

Brentford 2002. Average attendance 3,803
Brentford 2005. Average attendance 3,918

The Stoop 2006. Average 4,238
The Stoop 2012, Average 2,642.

The only time in the clubs 17 year ESL history that it left a "home" with more fans than it arrived with was at Griffin Park. This was down to Play-offs in '03 and '05, as well as a sense of community that was starting to build. The only football stadium in England with a pub on every corner, fans mixing in all of them before and after games, players as well..... and despite the whining of some, only a short hop off the M4, a 10 minute walk from the Train station and served by 5 bus routes (10 mins from Ealing Broadway, 5 mins from South Ealing), the ground lacked the "corporate sheen" of some of the new stadiums or even the Stoop, but it was starting to feel more like home after a couple of years than The Valley or the Stoop ever could IMO.

If London move again (and let's face it, the current regime will try everything to attract fans except F()(kING MARKETING) then I believe a move back to GP or a similar ground would be the best way forward......

guuterfax, that's probably the best researched post on here, and you have some points.

The downside of GP was having to go 'on-the-road' for 8 weeks (although we don't seem to get regular home games at the Stoop) and the fact that all the profit from beer sales before the game went to the publican/pubco/brewery.

But as we aren't getting the numbers that last point is moot.