I picked this article up on Facebook last night, you will need to scroll down to the heaqding of Capital Concerns. The article quotes all of the concerns about the Broncos which have been mentioned on this forum which I think proves we are not posting bad remarks agaist the club and we are not a lot of old moaners. The best bit about the ariticle is the Monkey will not be able to delete it or ban the person who wrote it. https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ed ... -concerns/

I picked this article up on Facebook last night, you will need to scroll down to the heaqding of Capital Concerns. The article quotes all of the concerns about the Broncos which have been mentioned on this forum which I think proves we are not posting bad remarks agaist the club and we are not a lot of old moaners. The best bit about the ariticle is the Monkey will not be able to delete it or ban the person who wrote it. https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ed ... -concerns/

Expect James Gordon to be banned anytime soon if not already.

Yes I read the article too. It’s a bit unusual for there to be a negative spin on anything RL related so clearly they were irritated.
Sadly I don’t think it’s proof we aren’t a bunch of moaners, old or otherwise just that sometimes we aren’t entirely wrong!

Everything fans of years standing have said has been said in this article. Why didn't DH, The Lobster and the monkey listen and learn instead of removing posts and banning hardcore fans. The club is in serious decline and far from pleasing the banned and missing fed up fans it breaks their heart. People spoke out through concern not any other reason. Sad the above couldn't understand it and invite them to discuss their severe concerns but suppose it was easier for the monkey to ban than listen to those who know better

And yet they still continue to delete posts from their twitter feed!

Spot on.
Hughes refusal to listen to anyone is the #1 reason that the club he got lumped with the Lenegan left is now worth about 10% of it's value back in 2007
When you sell a business as a going concern you get paid for the assets and the "goodwill".......in 2007 we had a full time SL squad under contract, a rental agreement to play in a purpose built Rugby Stadium with no disruption to the regular season and 4,500 paying fans. Hughes was throwing about 1 million on top of the 1.8 million funding and fans were delivering about 80 grand on the gate

This coming sunday, a part time squad of kids and journeymen will play 2nd tier rugby in a football stadium for a similar rent with maybe 1,200 fans delivering maybe 20k on the gate.......
and the single reason that we have ended up here, is David Hughes.

It won't, but it should rankle him that us old whingers were right all the time and he was assuredly stubbornly wrong!

Still no details of the first team squad on the website.

Do remember the year we started the season without a home kit!

Was that the year at The Stoop when we played Wigan - we were disguised as Wycombe Wanderers?

And yet they still continue to delete posts from their twitter feed!

and from the club site

Another article - https://thecritic.co.uk/southern-discomfort/

Another article - https://thecritic.co.uk/southern-discomfort/

Quote ="Ornery Optimist"Another article - https://thecritic.co.uk/southern-discomfort/'" Decent article but I doubt we can get to 5,000 fans through being a community minded club alone. A competitive team will be required.

Quote ="Ornery Optimist"Another article - https://thecritic.co.uk/southern-discomfort/'" Decent article but I doubt we can get to 5,000 fans through being a community minded club alone. A competitive team will be required.

Broncos wouldn't. What the community engagement offers is a way of building links with the local community. This builds interest in the club and some of those people will then try out a game. If they enjoy it, they tell others. It also builds a stronger tie to the club in not so good times. It's not a miracle cure.

Dulwich Hamlet don't sell out Saturday fixtures because they run social campaigns etc. They sell out because they get the offering right, for their market place, both on and off the field.

It was also a slow burn, taking over a decade from the start of the transformation. Do Broncos have the luxury of that sort of timescale?

Wherever Broncos have moved to they have been good at getting out to the schools and setting up RL training and teams, the problem is this has not really encouraged parents to bring the school children along to games.

Can this be done with a part time squad ?

Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up.

The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others.

Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.

No, we don't.
Could have done this with any of our moves really couldn't we? We apparently even turned down help from one of the blokes behind the whole DHFC project a few years ago.

Quote ="Halfdan of t'wide embrace"Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up. The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others. Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.'" Not only that but they did it against the backdrop of losing and then fighting to get their ground back in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... on-it-back

Quote ="Halfdan of t'wide embrace"Not surprised. Most amateur / semi pro sports clubs with youth sections report it doesn't add many on the first team gate. I know a non league club - not Hamlet - that offer free admission to parents with kids registered to their juniors and the junior players, with the exception of organised days few turn up. The reason it was a slow burn at Hamlet was initially the local community weren't interested. Hamlet had to grow interest. Gates then grew a bit but most didn't want to pay to watch "rubbish" football. A Pay what you want game, with profits to a local charity, attracted a lot. Many enjoyed it and told others. Every time Broncos move they drop back to the starting point. Hamlet are widely held up as an exemplar at this and it took them over a decade to transform.'" Not only that but they did it against the backdrop of losing and then fighting to get their ground back in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... on-it-back

Sort of. Both men who drew up the Hamlet revitalisation strategy were Broncos fans, one a long standing season ticket holder and regular away fan for years, one a few times a season. They offered to meet the club and brief / advise them on what had / hadn't worked at Hamlet for free. No meeting ever occurred

They weren't directly offering to help as they were a bit busy at the Hamlet and, crucially, were South East Londoners so did not have the necessary community contacts around Ealing - as it was then. A thread on here suggested it may have fallen through as key people at the club may have thought they were after jobs, which was total rubbish if it is the reason.

Sadly one has since died. It's only fair to report I am aware of contact between the other one and Broncos recently. I don't know to what extent.

Maybe this time the club might actually take some advice from a bloke who knows how to build a club up? Maybe advice was the word I should have used rather than help in my original post.
While the DHFC guys might not have local contacts for Wimbledon ( or previously for Ealing) they'd surely have been able to show how they'd developed things in their area and how they went about things?
Safe to say that in the end a lot of what they did must have been successful in terms of building the supporter base. DHFC have crowds , as a 7th level football club, that we would now love to have.

Surely we are a lot larger, even potentially with SL just one league above us, not to need to deal with some level 7 (or whatever they are) football team.

They attract fantastic crowds (several over 3,000 this season). Something we fail at so plenty to learn.

They need all the help they can get. It's not about the level the advice comes from but the ideas themselves that are important. Anything that can drag this basket case of a club in the right direction has to be welcomed.

At the moment Hamlet are the bigger club in terms of fan base, match day revenue etc by far. Broncos are potentially far far larger in fan base, revenues etc. They were far bigger in both when Hamlet commenced revitalisation.

The basic principles of fan attraction cross sports - see Peter Deakin's achievements at Saracens using a blueprint developed in RL. Hamlet have won two major national awards for this sort of stuff. They certainly aren't the only information source the club could approach however they are strong candidates to pick their brains, especially as they were offering their knowledge for free.

Enfield Town did a similar deal and I went with my son a few times. I have to say one of the key reasons I haven’t gone back as a paying customer, although, I don’t discount it from happening was the on field product was not what it was when I was a child watching Enfield FC, on field product is a real driver of attendance especially if you have little in built generational support. Not easy but is something for Broncos to think about.