[urlhttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/football/60563560.amp[/url
Our biggest ally in our move to Cherry Reds is gone. The coach and a vocal group of the fans are blaming us for them being bang average and we've gone 2200, 1,400, 500.....in the usual predictable manner in terms of fans with fewer than 1/4 of those paying full price.
Question is "Where can we move to next/Who would want us"?
It's looking like League 1 is a real possibility in 2023, so we would only expect 500 or so as fans.
Would Richmond RUFC work?
Would Trailfinders have us back?
Serious question.......where will the broncos go?

Richmond Athletic Ground would have good enough facilities for L1. However, Richmond already share it with London Scottish.

I feel like a source an exclusive in The Sun. Anything else you'd like!

As someone who watched Prescot and Oxford this is all begining to feel horribly familiar. Sadly I'm not sure there is a next place. I fear the club is now in such a hole there may not be any way out. I hope I am wrong.

If we get relegated Imber Court will do.They have a rugby pitch with a 700 seater stand , good bar facilities and only about a 5 minute walk from my place.

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Back here?

Aaaah Chiswick. Crumbling stand, muddy mound to stand on & a team where you never knew who would turn up next from down under to play. But we were a club then where owners & supporters worked together to move Fulham RL forward. In stark contrast to the club Hughes has reduced us to.

London Irish ground at Sunbury would be more than good enough.

Played there in the 80s. Cracking amateur club.....bugger to get to.

If they don't get promoted Ealing would most likely take us back. It's an easy fit for them, no real work to do just take the hourly payments and the bar takings, and that's about it. They can easily fit us in around their own schedule.

If they do get promoted, however, they'd probably not see the point. They'd just be focussing on their one season in the sun.

Not sure that is the case, Ealing had been told they couldn't play at Trailfinders if they got promotion last season which is why there was a deal in place to use Loftus Road as I understand it. Also not sure about 1 season in the sun as the RFU want to increase the league to 14 & relegation may be on hold for a year or 2 anyway. Clearly they prefer Doncaster to secure promotion as that fulfills their desire for more northern teams & that may affect the relegation decision anyway. So think Ealing would take us if the bridges haven't been too badly burned either way.

In stark contrast with RFL that seem to spend their lives with their hands in their underpants where growth is concerned.

Sunbury is only a training ground, they play their home games at Brentford. Would be great for me if Broncos played in Sunbury, the training facilities are only 15 minutes walk away.

Dont agree Orangeman. I live in Lower Sunbury and its a 10 min walk from Kempton Park Station
You can get a train at Kingston to Kempton
10 min walk from Green street bus stop which comes from Brentford
Lots of ways to get to sunbury

I thought London Scottish were off to Esher?
Maybe that's since changed.

London Scottish world has been all over the place recently.
Withdrew from the league as they had no money.
Rejoined the league and are getting whupped most weeks.
Now thinking of joining the Scottish league.
Next week, who knows?

Quote ="nadera78"If they don't get promoted Ealing would most likely take us back. It's an easy fit for them, no real work to do just take the hourly payments and the bar takings, and that's about it. They can easily fit us in around their own schedule. If they do get promoted, however, they'd probably not see the point. They'd just be focussing on their one season in the sun.'" Funny you should mention this. Look what I've just found. https://www.championshiprugby.co.uk/new ... -promotion For those who don't want to click on an RU link, the first line says. "Doncaster Knights and Ealing Trailfinders have not met the minimum standards criteria for promotion"

Quote ="nadera78"If they don't get promoted Ealing would most likely take us back. It's an easy fit for them, no real work to do just take the hourly payments and the bar takings, and that's about it. They can easily fit us in around their own schedule. If they do get promoted, however, they'd probably not see the point. They'd just be focussing on their one season in the sun.'" Funny you should mention this. Look what I've just found. https://www.championshiprugby.co.uk/new ... -promotion For those who don't want to click on an RU link, the first line says. "Doncaster Knights and Ealing Trailfinders have not met the minimum standards criteria for promotion"

Now that the RFU have announced that both Doncaster & Ealing have failed to meet the minimum standards criteria so will not be promoted at end of season. Whether that would make Ealing more open to deal with us who knows.

I played there in the 80s......back when I were a lad. At the time I ran a boozer in the city.....not an easy trip.

Quote ="Anthony Jones"Funny you should mention this. Look what I've just found. https://www.championshiprugby.co.uk/new ... -promotion For those who don't want to click on an RU link, the first line says. "Doncaster Knights and Ealing Trailfinders have not met the minimum standards criteria for promotion"'" Makes it much more likely they'd be open to a Broncos return. Assuming the club still exists in 2023. That article also scotches the Ealing to Loftus Rd idea, which has been floating around on forums for a couple of years without any evidence. It never made sense to me. I'm a QPR fan and tbh the pitch struggles at the best of times, and we're a team that plays on the deck, so there'd be uproar at 30 fat blokes rolling around on it through the winter. We had Wasps there for a bit 25 years ago and it was a poor relationship - they also stole our training ground but that's another matter.

Quote ="Anthony Jones"Funny you should mention this. Look what I've just found. https://www.championshiprugby.co.uk/new ... -promotion For those who don't want to click on an RU link, the first line says. "Doncaster Knights and Ealing Trailfinders have not met the minimum standards criteria for promotion"'" Makes it much more likely they'd be open to a Broncos return. Assuming the club still exists in 2023. That article also scotches the Ealing to Loftus Rd idea, which has been floating around on forums for a couple of years without any evidence. It never made sense to me. I'm a QPR fan and tbh the pitch struggles at the best of times, and we're a team that plays on the deck, so there'd be uproar at 30 fat blokes rolling around on it through the winter. We had Wasps there for a bit 25 years ago and it was a poor relationship - they also stole our training ground but that's another matter.

3 Kit ideas for 2023. 1st, away and a 3rd because we always had a "nasty one" in there somewhere

Like the Catalan RL/ Perpignan RU looking shirt. Be happy with that.

BUMP:
If the "rumoured" gate of between 750-900 for Bradford is correct, then this surely must spell the end for this disastrous move south of the River and highlight the need to discuss moving back to Ealing.
Regardless of the expense of the various grounds we know rent, the idea of a few hundred rattling around a 10k stadium, watching a relegation battle unfold is surely seen now as insanity?

The whole move was managed terribly and yet the club are insisting on playing in Dons colours to try and garner favour rather than playing in our proper colours. There is no attempt to market the game other than to existing fans, no game day experience
no feeling that the club know what is happening from day to day.

Surely Hughes, who has alluded to 4 more years after this, can see that anything other than cloth cutting and hard work back at Ealing is key to having any chance of building to even half his 5k figure. 1,350 is the current average after 4 games (if we take 900 as correct). This includes hundreds of free tickets and discounted offers to curious dons fans and we started discounting after just 2 games into this new dawn.....so the club are aware they have f%$&*d up...now they just need to admit it and get the side back to West London ASAP.

An unnecessary move, executed badly. Surely there can't be anyone left who thinks Hughes is the saviour of the Broncos.

Other than Hughes himself

There was a reason for each of the previous moves...

Harlequins RU negotiated a deal with the Broncos which gave the Broncos a free ride on a Matchday, however the Union Club benefitted from their brand being paraded around, and also the Broncos paid for things like an after match party which filled their bars with takings for themselves. They had an option to buy in after a few years for one pound. There appears to have been little thought about what happened if they didn't buy in. Once the initial deal elapsed, the Union Club wanted tens of thousands a game, plus a large share of the takings. This was perceived as not worthwhile by the Broncos.

A similar deal in many ways was agreed with Barnet, in which the Broncos would get the ground free, but basically Barnet would take all money. Parts of the deal, which made it potentially worthwhile for the Broncos were that they were promised a training pitch and provision for club staff. However, Barnet sold their former ground, where Broncos trained, would not install Rugby pitches at the Hive, would not let Broncos train on the match pitch and wanted an additional payment for just about anything. This damaged relations and the Broncos had to go to the expense of setting up again elsewhere for training and for club staff etc. It was not surprising when the deal was terminated.

The deal at Ealing Trailfinders also seemed to be baked in warmth, with the initial talk being about treating the club as your own and one big happy family etc. But the reality was that once a supporter had passed through the gate, pretty much all money went to the Trailfinders. The Trailfinders were also highly restrictive around what Broncos could do, and fixed prices in e.g. the corporate facilities. The problem with this was for instance, the Broncos may have got e.g. 100 people who would pay 15 pounds for a meal, but perhaps only 30 people who would pay 25 pounds for a meal, meaning the club had no flexibility. Some of the other decisions stripped out revenue opportunities in the last season or two, because if you are merely a salesman you might remove unprofitable product lines, but if you are with a big business, you cannot necessarily apply that thinking or you might close everything down, which is not exactly commercial acumen, as the downturn becomes then closure in real terms. In my opinion the club should have insisted that any merchandise provider ran a stall for say 5 hours on a matchday, guaranteeing a range of products etc. As things went, it became improbable the Broncos would make any money once in the ground, due to short term decisions which had a highly corrosive impact.

I reckon it would have only taken a modest double digit percentage of the bar takings and food stall takings to secure new terms, perhaps 50p out of a Pint, and a pound out of a burger sale and we could still be at Trailfinders. But obviously the octogenerian travel multi-millionaire at Trailfinders wanted all the cream for himself.

The problem the club has had over the past 15 years or so is that the majority of commercial people were simply unable to build positive relationships with their landlord, but I guess if a deal is signed which is so clearly one sided, it becomes very difficult for the beneficiary to renegotiate or want to renegotiate. Why would someone want less?

The problem that Hughes has always had is that he appoints someone into e.g. a media role or commercial role and the next thing along is that they start to give him advice. It is fine if you hire e.g. Phil Knight the founder of Nike to advise on sporting merchandise but less so if you get Fred of Fred's Sporting Barrowstall. After all a Fred will always seek to cut costs, change location etc if sales are low. But a Phil Knight would not sack all staff simultaneously to save on wages, or close the factory, or start over, because he is not a small businessman but interested in longevity. It is just also like McDonald's they do not apply the exact model to all locations, but Jack's Burger Van would merely roll up anywhere with no adaptation. That is why Jack and Fred are small businessmen and why big business doesn't hire them.

Looks like we found the one person on the planet who still backs David Hughes....