After nearly 30 years since you started as fulham at craven cottage the game in london as gone from strengh to strengh. Its a shame the support hasn t grown as well. As a Hull fc fan whos watched us at every ground you ve played at, I must be like other fans up in the north who now we play catlans decide which match to attend. This obvously affects your attenance greatly. The sloop is to far out its a pity you don t play at fulham or qpr were the areas got a lot of aussies and kiwis living . Good luck for the season as your full of injuries at the moment like we were last season

Stulea

As a long time Bronco's/London supporter its nice to get some positive comment from a Northern based fan
the choice to make the journey down to London is an expensive one even if its there and back in a day, and i can understand folk making the choice of where they want to go and can afford to go to, thats why we have such a poor away support, not helped by a lot of games up north being on a Fri night
as for the Stoop being our home, its a good stadium, it would be even better if the club had made the decision to open the other stand, rather than the West stand but thats an ongoing discussion within our own fans. Its position, actually I dont think its too bad, its only 10 mins from M25 so traffic permitting easy enough to get to, and having been one of those that made the treck to Charlton when we were there trust me its a heck of a lot better to get to than there

Personally I reckon we need to get London back in to the name of the club

Good luck with the rest of yr season and think we have you lot on easter Monday, hope you bring a fair few fans down but the hope the squad dont travel well and we put some points past you

Its not far out, its 20 mins from Waterloo station.

Get rid of the Harlequins nonsense
Get London back in the name
Get rid of the fifth rate players and coach
Bring in a big name to get the crowds in and some players who are actually vaguely entertaining to watch

Got it

I'm pretty comfortable with all of that apart from your unnecessary denigration of the playing staff. So, let's go for it



I presume you've just won the Lottery rupe?

No, but I would pledge a grand to a new London Super League franchise with the caveat that it had nothing to do with David Hughes/Harlequins RU

A Grand-Comedy gold. Stick to sponsoring the local cub scout football team

How about a grand a season then.

Keep rimming theres a good little soldier.

Seriously what do you think one thousand pound a season will pay for?-Im genuinely not taking the mickey

I will give you a clue-Hughsey paid out £1.6 million last season

GF - I think we have found someone to fund your posters

....yep. Better use Rupe1's £1,000 to employ someone to hold Mr Hughes's had when he crosses the road then because without him the club would disappear. Oh, sorry, there I go again telling the club how to spend their (Mr Hughes) money...my bad.

On this subject.....just how do you lose over 30k a week (or just under 60k a week during the season)? Still, I am sure this is none of my business as well, but I was just curious.

£1.5 million salaries
Travel
Hotels
Renting a ground
Backroom staff- rugby- coaches etc
Backroom staff-admin-CEO etc
Match fees-stewarding etc
Community coaches
Scholarship scheme

verses income

Crowds
Merchandise
Sky Money
Sponsorship

A little crude I suspect

No...probably about right. ..anyway, back to the question in hand.

60k a week during the season.......that is 12k a day leaking out of the club and yet when I post suggesting (shouting/screaming/demanding...call it what you want) that crowds are the answer and the lack of any tangible activity to get people in is shocking, I get told to shut up.

What I will admit is I was wrong about rupe1's £1,000 to employ someone to keep DH safe.....at the rate of loss above we couldn't even afford a full hour

No they don't. Take that chip off your shoulder and remove your head from where it's stuck and realise that people are fed up with you repeating yourself and slagging off the club. You don't have to repeat yourself. We got it. No-one told you to shut up the first few times you came up with marketing suggestions and drew up your plan. It's only been recently really hasn't it? That's the issue for some. Can you not see that's the message. You're fücking so many people off here and then you go and do a snide and slag us off on VT. Your own team!! Like I said before. Rupe does that.

I have agreed...I was OTT in recent weeks and there is no excuse for it. The VT post I do not apologise for though....and I won't either. The Crowd at the game on Saturday...with free tickets to all and sundry, was a disgrace. No amount of finger pointing at me and booing is going to make it any different.....
You use the words snide and slag off......maybe you're right, but all people like you and a cetain other cretin on this forum (who has stepped over the line IMO) can do is continue to have a go at me. Carry on....I am sure it will boost attendances, fix purdos crook shoulder and help DH to find another £1,600,000 for this season......but as others have said to you.....just avoid my posts or ignore them. Really, the amount of finger pointing on here would seem to indicate either the onset of dementia or failure to grasp the point of having a public forum



I started posting today with a contrite feeling about my behaviour over the last few weeks but yet again, a few choice words from a few choice posters on here and the bloods boiling again!

so.....
HKR have an average of 3,776 and Saints 4,725 for visits to London......anyone got any ideas how to make sure we get more than this to these games? I obviously do, but you already know that

Here's a crazy idea rupe. Pledge £300 like the rest of us and buy a season ticket.

To watch Championship standard players wearing that disgusting Jester badge and all it signifies - not a chance.

The only hope for London to have a viable Super League outfit is for there to be a new franchise and Harlequins RL to die.

Jeez....I must have been OTT for people to compare me to you

You stopped supporting your local RL team because they share identity with a Union club? Are you off your f()cking rocker? Get over yourself......it's a professional sporting club we are on about here.......do you fail to realise/remember that WE ALREADY WENT UNDER........after 10 years of sharing SOCCER grounds, NEARER TO LONDON and with LONDON in our name. We also had no redeeming development programme in place and we were instead a pension fund option for a few good Anzac players and fair few more Anzacs that weren't really that good.

I am no fan of the current set up at Quins RL, but to suggest that you actually WANT the team to fail........

You are like a one issue political party.

There is one flaw in your statistics and that is you do not take into account the product. Currently it isn’t a good product. Historically in lots of sports when the team are underperforming the crowd tends to drop. I think it is no coincidence the big crowds in football are Man Utd, Chelsea etc and the big crowds in RL Wigan, Warrington (improved since the CC win), Leeds etc
Huge football clubs like Newcastle and Leeds have see massive drops in crowds in recent years although as they are currently winning have seen improved attendances- Do you see the link/trend

Accepting your stats provide basic figures year on year club on club they are not fully reflective. It’s like comparing health and safety stats between an office complex and a building site-its not apples against apples

Fair point......but your arguement about success generating better gates doesn't hold much water when it comes to London/Quins.

Cataland, Crusaders, Huddersfield, Salford and Wakey are the current SL clubs responsible for the lowest average gates over the last 10 seasons. Regardless of how we were doing on any given season, the main difference in our gates over the 13 or 14 home games has been the number of fans who have come to see the opposition. The club backed this up by classifying teams last year when deciding whether to open the north stand or not.

We have about 2,500 to 2,750 local fans...some of whom don't make every game, some who do, but the factor at the moment that dictates if we get over 3k or even 4k is the quality or big name attraction of the opposition.

Wigan, Saints, Leeds and Bradford are the top 4 draws in London....regardless of how we are doing. Of these, Bradfords figure is showing an alarming drop.......which would point to their fans travelling down here less resulting in a gate of less than 3k in 2008 and just over 3k last year...compared to say 5k+ when they were challenging for honours in 2001. The same applied to Hull FC.....bigger gates in London when the OPPOSITION are doing well.

This is a major problem for the club, because if they continue to only push for crowds in these "big" games, then any newbies have a fair chance of witnessing a massacre.......whilst games v Catalans, Crusaders and Salford offer a better chance of being competitive and seeing a home win.

Just a theory....and one that falls apart when you look at Wigan. They've won SFA for years, but are the biggest draw.......which could be down to curious Union fans only knowing 1 RL team's name and shuffling in to see them?

So following your logic with regards to trending is it fair to say the % attendance drop we have seen in the last few weeks is unprecedented and is solely down to the product being worse than we have seen before?

I believe away support will drop further due to other options for attractive away matches such as Edinburgh, Wembley, and Catalans to name a few. Additionally we have a recession.

Going back to your infamous 20 point plan. If we were to role it out action by action today do you think it would work? Or should the Marketing team be focussing on getting the 1-2000 supporters we have lost recently to return?

The good news is that with Wakey, Salford and the French out of the way, the Welsh should be the last sub 3k gate we get this year. I honestly believe that the nasty weather helped keep people away as much as the dodgy start to the season. Wakey's gate was actually up and the biggest one. They were competitive last year (4th). Hudds was on TV and although they have been travelling in bigger numbers recently, the gate on Saturday was a real disapointment.
As for the other options...like Catalans and Edinburgh....I agree. 4 years ago we were the only game that required a weekends expense.....BUT, the club, as you point out need to get the 750-1,000 strays back in the pen before they go hunting for more.
Lastly, the 20 point plan was posted at the end of last year...that's when, if you were going to use any of the points, you should have planned, booked and scheduled activity. That's why I got so wound up on Saturday....it's not like the club didn't know we had three of the lowest draws coming to town early on and they should have planned for it....didn't, then started begging on facebook........

Aint going to get that many from Saints this year at £25 a ticket. Clearly Quins RL and RU have misjudged this one.

Talk about ripping us off.

Can you not buy a ticket just for the league game? There's a decent gap between games, surely they aren't making away fans roll up and pay for a Union game?



I was informed by Paddock Punter that Quins RU were the ones driving this double header as they had to reschedule due to the weather. Surely Quins RL and Saints fans shouldn't be penalised for this? I have tried to look for prices on the club site but no joy...but surely the club aren't going to risk getting the second biggest draw over the last 10 ears by charging them £25 a pop. I know that the club will probably get to announce a 14k gate for this, but unless they are getting 50% of the gate money..I think this is a bad move if true.