Initially granted a Licence for 3 years (2009/10/11) back in July 2008, the club were informed that the RFL felt this about the club and its application:

[url=http://www.webcitation.org/5mT4v2z2Ufrom here[/url

In 2008, the year the club were awarded their licence, the club averaged 3,909 fans per game, but by the end of the first years licence period, this had dropped by nearly 14%. This drop alarmed the RFL enough for Lewis to take Blanchard to task over this and assurances were given that 2010 would be better.


2010, second year of the licence and Cally Hocknell, interestingly a Ladies Harlequins Union Player comes on board as Marketing Manager, promises in League Express that she will give 100%, she [size=150orders 5,000 travel card holders, creates a video seen by 2,000 people, offers free tickets for facebook likes [/size([url=http://twitter.com/callyhocknell/status/10560966748here[/url and then buggers off (not long followed by the useless cricketing CEO).....by the end of 2010, the original 3,909 has now dropped to a lowly 3,380.

The third year of licencing (2011) is greeted with a new CEO who had recently been made redundant from Surrey County Cricket, who then employs 2 key staff, also with cricketing backgrounds and brags of 10,000 gates and owning our own stadium, but by June, with crowds alarmingly down, he decides that a name change would sort out the imaginary confusion surrounding the difference in the games played by ourselves and our landlords and would result in increased crowds.....this utterly unfounded bollox, combined with the RFL's preoccupation with shiny new stadia, somehow saw London granted another 3 years, even though by the end of 2011, they had shed 20% of their fans compared with when they were granted their original licence with a mandate to grow crowds and warned after year 1.

Given 2012, 13 and 14 to sort this out, the CEO decides that the underperforming coach should stay and with the nice shiny new rebrand in place and rugby gear manufactured by another cricketing buddy, ploughs into the season full of hope......[size=15012 London Taxis are liveried, a video produced to be played in Aussie bars and a quarter page advert placed in the METRO,[/sizeonly for the average to further fall so that by the time Catalans have gone home on April 5th, the club are averaging 2,674....32% down on the 2008 number. Thankfully, draw cards like Leeds and Wigan are still to come, but by the time HKR visit the stoop on the last day of the season, it seems that the CEO has decided that even though we had an average of 4,917 in 2006 and about 4k on 08 as well as gates of over 9k on other occasions, it is the stadiums fault that crowds won't attend games and the club looks to move. Only the interjection of the new coach and assurances that he would walk if we moved to Gillingham prevented the death of Londons Super league Club.

The start of 2013 is greeted with the news that London Broncos are starting their last season at the Stoop....the CEO is actively looking for a new home for us, probably in the East of London in 2014, so don't expect any great increase in crowds this year and by the time the 3rd round of licencing is due to be judged, the London Broncos will be able to cite "teething issues at a new home' as an excuse for poor crowds.

Sorry, but the RFL would be insane to let this continue. London needs some form of central investment now...if SKY want the London team then let them bankroll it....their management wouldn't put up with any of the flannel of the last 4 seasons.

The Broncos Chairman has gone on record that he can't continue to bankroll the club, but he insists on employing people with no pedigree to manage his "investment" which in reality, he will never see again. If London do move and are granted a third term, despite continued poor attendances, then teams such as Halifax and Leigh may as well give up now.

By the way, the stuff above in the [size=150large lettering[/size is the only noticeable marketing done by the club in 4 full seasons of Licencing......in that time, the Chairman has pumped 6 million quid into the club, the team have finished 11th, 13th, 12th and 12th and they have shed close to 30% of their fans......6 million quid and not a brass farthing spent on the one area that would have made the club securer (sic).....god that's a depressing thought

What's your thoughts on the Melbourne Storm? Sometimes things have to be stuck with for the long term good of the game. I agree Broncos,Quins and back to Broncos have been a failure in terms of brand,pr and fanbase but one can only hope somewhere down the line they will be run by people who know what they are doing and can turn it around. A 6k avg and decent brand exposure in london for the game should be the ultimate goal within the next 10 years. The RFL need to help them out though if they want to achieve that. the Storm get 4.5mill a year more than any other NRL club to help them survive in hostile territory.

I agree 100% with the way the Storm are funded...very few (I've never met any) NRL fans complain about the extras that the Storm receive......having an expansion club in Victoria is akey partof the NRL's bigger picture...as argghhh your pirates (see what I did there), the Central Bears, Brisbane II and NZ II.

London should have been bankrolled the same way from the start.....if the RFL were puming in the extra 1.5 a year, then youcan be damn sure the other 13 CEO's would be watching and ensuring the club was being run properly!

I'm prepared to be shot down here but when did London ever get gates of over 9k ? I certainly cannot remember.

at the stoop?
2 in 1997 and
one in 2006....
also had a couple of 8k's there too in 2006 and again in 2008.....

They alsoaveraged just shy of 5k in 2006.....sat on their s and watched the crowds shrink by 44% in 7 years.

Time for central funding for the expansion club or time to quit expansion, because crowds in 2013 will break records....lowest records that is!

Only problem with central funding would be where the money is coming from. Unlike the NRL, the game over here as you know is on its harris. All the other 13 clubs would have to vote for it also. I could see my club (Tigers) voting to keep London in and with some sort of additional funding but only if we had asurances over our own licence in the elite comp.

Central funding would probably get voted in because it gives the smaller clubs yet more excuses not to do anything and let the likes of Wigan, Warrington, Leeds and St Helens do everything for them.

The RFL should have given London the extra funding from the start.
Is rugby league being played a lot in the london schools and are there many amatuer clubs?
If the development is looking promising, then it maybe worth while sticking with a London team

Hi Gutterfax, that post is one of the most depressing statements i've read concerning pro RL in the capital and it shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with how the game is "expanding".

When one considers that the southern "experiment", which began in 1980, has had over 30 years to progress, it becomes even more depressing.

I know that you have posted previously on the subject but, how do you think that a London club could become a viable/sustainable SL
outfit.

Whilst a centrally funded set up may help, surely these things come down to good management and clever marketing.

It's true to say there has been a club in London for 30 years. However, it's also true to say that the club has never had money to spend on marketing - the only time it was cashed up was when Virgin were around and they assumed (like a lot of people connected to the club to this day) that if you put a decent team together then people will turn up. Not if they don't know you exist they won't!

It really is 'make your ind up time' for the game as a whole. Either we go all out for London or we forget about it and stop wasting everyone's time.

I'm of the opinion (many I know will disagree) that RL in London is of strategic importance, so I would be happy for some Central funding - under the proviso that the RFL have a say in how the club is ran. Have the RFL offered non financial support in the past with regards marketing etc?

But with clubs already on the edge of financial ruin, does the sport have the funds available to divert to it?

They should enter a partnership with their owner. He pays for general running of the playing side and the RFL pay for the promotion, marketing, Jnr development, media manager etc.
750k a year should be enough to cover off on those things and get someone decent who knows the London market. It's as much about raising the profile of the game as it is the profile of the Broncos.

This

Don't worry. We gave up on joining the little boys' club when they let Crusaders in

Your on my radar as another know nothing windbag - stop talking crap, it's not too late.

Maybe Wigan, Warrington, Leeds and Saints should go it alone ? Or even join in with the NRL ? They could play each other 9 times a season to make the fixture list up if the NRL wasn't welcoming to them.

The other 10 SL clubs could break away and form "Rugby League 1" with Fev, Sheffield, Leigh and Halifax.

It's a crying shame. It really is. A properly-marketed London club in the mix, getting good crowds and being successful on the pitch, would have been a godsend for this sport.

Now that I live down south I'll have to go there more often and do my bit...

I think London could help themselves a little bit by conceding that playing home games on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm, and competing for crowds with London's 14 or so professional football clubs for the majority of the season, is a bad idea! I'm convinced that ticketing offers which don't clash with Saturday football fixtures would increase attendances.