In fairness, I don't think that London are moving to breed fans, they have always moved for other reasons.
You are absolutely right about the London thing though, they would be better off becoming the Barnet Broncos and try and create a stronger identity.
In the pats, whilst speaking to London fans, we found that many of them are displaced Northerners, who already enjoy the game, plus a good number of Aussie, the locals were actually in the minority and this is the issue that they need to overcome.
I'm not sure about the work that The Broncos do in the community but, surely they need to draw fans form the junior and amateur game down there ?

This is partly down to the RFL wanting the London signature so that they can say we have expanded the game down to the Capital.
I still say we should have invested and developed the game into the Midlands area not too far away from the North of England stronghold, instead of this persistent lost cause of creating a professional team in such an isolated area rugby league wise. Trying to compete fan wise against Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham etc under a London banner will never work.
In saying that the Union clubs London Harlequins and London Irish have that banner but they are not nomadic in nature.

Has Reading always been there home? What about London wasps and Saracens



Does it not? Have a look at a number of clubs that have moved grounds, Wire, Hull.....



What's the difference between the Midlands and London other than London has more people, is the media capital of England as it is the financial capital. If Football clubs are the threat have you forgotten about, Wolves, Aston Villa, WBA, Walsall, B'ham.....

The bottom line is London has been poorly managed. No investment in Marketing etc

I thought that what with you being from London and us being thick northern monkeys you had a mind immeasurably superior to ours?

I agree the best thing to happen is for them to stay were they are.

If that is the long term plan then i think they need guarantees that the stadium can and will be developed if or when needed

Like I say Barnet have long term goals of improving the stadium into a 10k stadium, obviously that will be hard especially as the locals are constantly fighting against them currently, but the ambition is there.

I think that's right.

Commonsense suggests that resident rugby league fans are going to be spread all over the capital so it shouldn't make much difference where they re-locate, though I guess near the tube would be handy. They really do need to stay in an area long term and use the area's name as part of the club's name. Building a local following is essential if the club is to grow its fan support, and encourage local companies to support the club financially imo.

I wish them well, whatever.

I think your response speaks for itself. Read into that what you will.

Ok I suspect fishing, but I'll give it a bite.

Firstly I did say moves where bad in themselves. My point was about the suggestion that London should be looking to move again, before they have even stepped in their dressing room at their new home.

Secondly i made a whole point about the number of moves in 20 years, compared to others who have moved once or twice in that time, but actually we are talking once or twice in closer to half a century, compared to 6 or 7 moves in 20 years (depending on if you count the stoop as 2 moves as they moved inbetween). So suggesting and 8th is clearly not going to grow a base.

Also there is the difference in locality and distance. Yes Wire moved 1.3 miles.
Hull moved 0.8 miles
etc etc.

I can't be sure that all the addresses are 100% accurate, but if discount craven cottage and the first spell at Crystal palace and all the on the road games and times that grounds where being used temporarily just to return back. So starting from Chiswick Polytechnic Sports Ground, the shortest distance the London club have had to move is 4 miles between twickenham and brentford.

Other moves are more significant in terms of an impact on being a home team. Certainly as a Saints fan, we only moved a short distance to Widnes for a temporary 1 year move and the impact on the crowds was massive , far in excess of what the club had predicted. If Saints had moved as far and as often as London, we would have been playing games not just out of the town, but out of the county. That would not ender us to the historical fan base or any new base, with the expectation being we would always move on. Our crowds too would have dwindled into the low 1000's.

As I say, I suspect fishing given the tatic of quoting out of context. But there is your bite.

What is it that you fear? If there is someone willing to pump money into a professional club in London then we should embrace it.

Talk of London being a RU base is so far wide of the mark it’s untrue. The population of London is very much a magic mix of every nationality in the world. Many of whom really don't care for sport of any kind, let alone Rugby League.
If you take a look at Rugby Union in London since professionalism you may well appreciate where I am coming from. With the exception of Quinns I believe ALL have had money problems and in most cases they have moved out of London. Wasps, Irish and Welsh are classic examples, let alone the nomadic Saracens club. Rosslyn Park and London Scottish have had mighty falls from grace.

The HQ is in Twickenham which yes is within the M25 but that believe it or not attracts people from all over the country not just London.
What this does raise though is the question of why someone would feel that RL will work in London. A question which many of us would probably feel hard pressed to answer with a positive slant.

I guess it all comes down to cutting your cloth accordingly and looking towards a community and not a pan London club. That means you don’t look at London and say its got a population of 8m people so we must be able to attract bigger crowds than Wigan. It simply does not work like that.
Providing they get settled into the Hive with its capacity of 5000 they can build solid foundations from there as a community club. It’s relatively close to the tube which will assist. It’s also close to the M1 / M25 / A1 for travelling support to dip into London and straight out again. As I know some of you have an aversion to all things southern this should address your problems.
In time the capacity may well grow which gives reason to be ambitious. A smaller ground may well also generate a better atmosphere which will help the faithful.

Some of the problems over the past 3 years for the Broncos have been that it has tried to appeal to the whole of London. Their biggest crowds came when the Evening Standard were giving tickets away. It got people through the gates, but ultimately despite the product there was no follow up and people failed to return. If they had given 2000 tickets to residents of Twickenham and Richmond (the immediate locality) it may well have assisted in building crowds, especially if it was to 1000 local kids and their parents. But I am not a marketing expert so may well be wrong there. What I do know though is that people from east London should not have been enticed to The Stoop in the hope of returning regularly. It was never going to happen. Give them a freebie though and they would be there every week or at least until the club went bust.

I wish the Broncos well. They are what the SE needs at a time when participation is up. (This is a fact. It’s the only team sport to show increase in participation over the past 12 months) Without a London club / SE club the youngsters in the SE have no team to aim for “locally”. That team has to be top flight in my opinion. I just hope they manage to attract some good players who will fight for the cause and avoid relegation next year and then develop from there.

Are season tickets on sale yet?

Barnet FC don't have Season Tickets per say, but a membership scheme that enables you to reserve your seat on a monthly basis. Not sure as to the mechanics of the deal struck for 2014 with the Landlord, but there is nothing official on the club site (nothing at all actually)
I believe that the figure for ST's was 600 last year and 80% of those will renew regardless of who we are, where we play or even how much they are.....the trick will be getting walk-ups.

I agree with Richards, if they can get buy in from the local community in Barnet then they can start to develop. If they keep with the we are London for everyone in London, then they will let another opportunity slip by.

I do want a successful London club ( and by that I don't mean league topping, trophy winning or 10's of thousands), I just mean middle of the road being successful for now (top 8, 5-6k regular).

What I don't want is further arguments that any London club is better than none.

What we need is a decent team that wins regularly, and competes 95% of the time. Then the crowds will come up, as they have in the past. No matter where we are.

Let's see if they even let the locals know we are in residence this time. If they are letting Barnet FC do the marketing, then I would think we are buggered given they average 1,800 to soccer games and soccer is the national sport, whilst RL is for northern egg chasers.

I for one hope to get down to the Broncos this coming season. After leaving Brentford and calling themselves Quins RL I stopped going as I simply did not want to be associated with the Harlequins "brand".

Brace yourself for the diatribe from NZ ! I think I mentioned my dislike of the H********s brand once but I think I got away with it!

It's not that I am particularly fond of the Harlequins (I played for London Irish in the 80's), the myth of the woes of London being down in any way shape or form to them is laughable.
The Stoop as Harlequins RL (including 2 double headers) delivered 293,255 fans over 79 home games at an average of 3,712 over 6 seasons. The other 12 seasons (10 before/2 afterwards) delivered 567,069 to 157 games at an average of 3,612 per game.
The return to the name London Broncos, designed to clear up any confusion as to what we were and what we played has delivered an average of 2,510 fans per game.....the last season as Quins RL delivered 3,124.

I find it amazing that RL fans will refuse to attend a game because it is played in a stadium where Union is played or deny support a team because they are connected with a Union side........I suppose the 15k Leeds fans are simply unaware

I don't believe RL fans feel that way (maybe the odd one) But I do know of people who follow RU who also enjoy RL who would not go to Quins RL as they dislike everything about the Quins club. I guess it would be like Wigan getting a RU team and then hoping people from St Helens buy into it as well. I wouldn't happen.
Not the ground but the branding that goes with the association.

RU has a team called Leeds Rhinos?

I would have disavowed them the day they took on the Quins brand if they had been my club.

I thought they were the "Leeds Tykes"

Gutterfax - I don't think the Broncos "woes" are down to playing at The Stoop or the Quins thing, just that it put me off. It wasn't the ground - I used to watch them there first time round it was just branding thing as the final straw.

The Broncos "woes" are down to two things - potential support widely dispersed and people not being inclined to travel 3 hours plus match time on a Sunday when they have other things to do, especially in summer / family commitments / etc and the fact that the modern game is too predictible - 5 drives and a kick - which the uninitiated find boring and so do not return.

That is a complete load of rubbish, get a grip of yourself. I've taken loads of people to their first games of RL at Broncos and elsewhere and universally they are impressed with the speed, power and openness of the sport.

.... and I've lost count of the number of people who say "Why do they just run into each other? Why don't they try to avoid the tacklers?" Although one can explain why, most people just don't get it.

That name went years ago. Leeds Carnegie now.