Would that mean a name change to Wimbledon RLFC?

Well Wimbledon is in the London Borough of Merton and that is Greater London, so I see no reason why we couldn't call ourselves London whatever if we wanted to.

Even thought this move is hyperthetical which name convention would be more likely to engender closer relations with the local community wherever we ended up? it would still require a good decade to get into their mindsets wherever it was, but local identity would IMO work better than London whatevers, after all there's no Northern club called the Yorkshire **** or Lancashire ****

Why do they always seem to cheer on that team called Yorkshire then?

You know, when they do that "Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire" chant?

Yeah I did think that anywhere we want to set down roots, we would need to set down roots and that would start with the name. At the same time Wimbledon RLFC would see us in a similar position to the one we are in; with AFC Wimbledon and Wimbledon RFC confusing the issue.

How about the London Crazy Gang.

london dons
lon...dons

Yawksuuure, Yawksuuure, you mean

apparantly residents of that county like to be connected to some kind of pancake-like substance.

www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/dtdocs/su ... wnload.pdf The Dons Trust outlines the various directions that their club can go to secure a possible new stadium. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 398625.stm I read the David Hughes quotes and I wonder if their is an RFL presence in London, is there actually someone looking into any location at the RFL? "It's very difficult to find a location in London, where you have the council co-operation, the loans, the finance. It's not easy. "The RFL are looking for us as well because it's got to work for them as well, so nothing fixed at the moment yet. "However, it is very important to have somewhere to call your own and build on that."

www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/dtdocs/su ... wnload.pdf The Dons Trust outlines the various directions that their club can go to secure a possible new stadium. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 398625.stm I read the David Hughes quotes and I wonder if their is an RFL presence in London, is there actually someone looking into any location at the RFL? "It's very difficult to find a location in London, where you have the council co-operation, the loans, the finance. It's not easy. "The RFL are looking for us as well because it's got to work for them as well, so nothing fixed at the moment yet. "However, it is very important to have somewhere to call your own and build on that."

But our situation is closer to that of Catalans surely ? I mean they could have called themselves ' Perpignan Panthers ' I suppose but chose a name to reflect a region rather than the specific town /city where they play.

Well, there WAS Lancashire Lynx, though I've no idea how their fans referred to them.

But London is different in RL terms because, while Yorkshire and Lancashire (before its local government was chopped into bits) have always had many professional RL clubs, London has not, so a London club represents the city as a whole (with due deference to Skolars). And picking a local name such as Wimbledon not only sets a hostage to fortune should yet another move occur in the future, but also provides a disincentive to residents of neighbouring places.

Although my own connections to London are tenuous (and I don't actually much like the place) I was always very happy to chant "Laandaan, ...." in Broncos days as it marked our difference from the opposition. So I'd be in favour of the "London somethings", but not Broncos - they are of the past.

EDIT: So I think that puts me in agreement with Rob from Erith and his argument re Catalans.

Really...a proven fact? Point me in the direction of this proof? Don't bother, because you can't......the club have never tried (well not since 2000).....They have failed miserably to even try.

And as for "flash patter"...I may well deal in smoke and mirrors, but I also deal in response and results.

At the stoop we have had a number of employees who should never have seen the inside of the offices IMO.........none of these are currently at the club but all managed to get a minimum of 18 months salary for "0" response/results....that is where you'll find your "flash patter"...Not here.

I repeat, If DH is going to "waste" money, then why not waste it on something that if it worked, would reduce the financial strain on him and the club.....because finding another 30 LMS's or Clubbs isn't going to pay any bills.

Surely the reduction in attendences shows that the team performance affects numbers, regardless of the marketing effort (or lack thereof).

Stop responding as if it's all personal to you, it's not, as for proven fact point me in the direction of the proof that will back up ANY marketing blurb that could catagorically confirm that had the club been able [impossible in the Brentford days, very possible in the QRL days to invest better in their marketing spend [or invest at all we would have increased and retained supporters?

because that's the point I am making.....................retaining a group of people who love the sport with the same passion as Northern clubs supporters do, where the sport while being niche, is part of the community fabric they grew up with, is not specifically related to marketing spend, part of it agreed, and the club have been woeful in what they could have done, but it would not alter greatly the results.

To some degree now it doesn't really matter anymore about what has happened in the past and by whom with whom, what matters is the future and how, if we are to survive in any shape or form, we can do so, and in conjunction with that would be the massive marketing effort required from both the national sports body to engender the sport down here as well as the club for the specific purpose of getting people in and retaining them.

I thought you cared



OK....let's say the club move at the end of the year...to say a town near Medway......how long do you give them? 10 years? 15 years? Will the SKY TV argument save them for that long if the fail again to capture the imagination/attendance of the locals?
I agree it takes time to become "local", but even £2 a ticket for the first 3 years gets people used to turning up on a saturday/sunday afternoon...gets the Kids used to it, gets some replica jerseys sold, gets some loyalty.....but just rolling up, putting up goalposts and setting a KO time just won't cut it.
FWIW....If they move, then nothing less than an average of 5k by 2013/2014 will be enough to save them....DH will be ofski! IMO that is.

London Dons & London Skolars might as well just move the teams to Oxford and Cambridge.

These are "perfect world" answers to your points and by no means exhaustive.

A move if it happens needs to involve the ability for the club to add additional non match day revenue streams, only way any investor would even consider coming aboard.

The Sport itself needs to decide that if it wants to expand it needs to support that expansion itself, not soley rely upon the parachuted club doing all the work, proven not to work. Example Turkish GP.

The club needs a minumum of a decade protected from movemement from the top flight simply to engender the beginnings of a community spirit and feel, the hows and why's of doing that come secondary in relation to your points above. The reason for the protection is simply that while great work is being done across the south getting the sport played at junior level, without a flagship club for them to aspire to play for, it's as meaningless as teaching schoolkids to play American Football.

People need something to believe in before any marketing can work. Not many people are going to believe in the club in its present state, paying high rent to play in a union club's stadium and sharing their name and strip despite being a completely separate business? It makes no sense to me.

Leyton Orient is a good fit, a forward thinking millionaire owner with great sports marketing credentials. Get him on the board of our club and give us something to believe in. Only down side is that it encroaches on Skolars patch a bit.

Barnet's a terrible idea, the slope on that pitch has to be seen to be believed and the stands are among the worst in pro-sport that ive seen. Millwall is too big and too hard to market. Anyway we'll see what happens.

Melbourne Storm anyone?
1998....joined the NRL...Averaged 12k fans year 1.......in an area where RL doesn't really matter (soccer team got bigger crowds before it was split into 2). Biggest Average gates?????
Last year.....the year they were found guilty of cheating, stripped of their titles and prevented from playing for any competition points............20% on their previous NRL winning season



I believe that a certain amount of 'dislike" for NSW/QLD and their RL dominant attitude may have helped create the Identity that they needed to creat a bit of "local loyalty"....that in turn found them an extra 3k on their average. The result, they are currently running at their 3rd highest average in 14 years......

What London needs is an identity.

Check out Barry Hearn's dealing re the Orient stadium in 2009. It's highly unlikely he would want to get involved with Quins given we have no stadium he can secure losses against. Anything involving Orient would surely be as tenants only and it's difficult to see how that moves us on from where we are now. www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... sbane-road

Check out Barry Hearn's dealing re the Orient stadium in 2009. It's highly unlikely he would want to get involved with Quins given we have no stadium he can secure losses against. Anything involving Orient would surely be as tenants only and it's difficult to see how that moves us on from where we are now. www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... sbane-road

When I used to get the NRL, I seem to remember the Storm seemed to drop attendances after their start-up, and only started getting big crowds again after they started winning.
And they are going well again this year.

Quote ="kit80"When I used to get the NRL, I seem to remember the Storm seemed to drop attendances after their start-up, and only started getting big crowds again after they started winning. And they are going well again this year.'" www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams ... asons.html Melbourne is a sport mad city, as shown by the Melbourne Rebels, little interest in club rugby union now they get similar crowds to the rugby league side. If only we could have been marketed a little better when we have started afresh.

Quote ="kit80"When I used to get the NRL, I seem to remember the Storm seemed to drop attendances after their start-up, and only started getting big crowds again after they started winning. And they are going well again this year.'" www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams ... asons.html Melbourne is a sport mad city, as shown by the Melbourne Rebels, little interest in club rugby union now they get similar crowds to the rugby league side. If only we could have been marketed a little better when we have started afresh.

Its a hard thing. If you pick, lets say, Wimbledon as a base, as has been suggested and use the Wimbledon name, you are slightly alienating those who live in other areas. It's not a big deal but then again, if a club was called "London Broncos" for arguments sake, their is no identity to say that they play wherever.

Success is the key to attendances.

1996 - 5,859 and a 4th place finish.
1997 - 5,634 and a 2nd place finish. A drop, I know but still over 5,000 and 5th highest attendance in the comp.
2000 - 3,419. Compare that with '99 when the average was 2,934 with a cup final place.
2005 - 4,003 and a play-off place.
2006 - 4,917. Some will have been interested RU fans but a play-off place in '05 and nearly 1,000 turn up in '06.

Since then 9th ('07 & '0icon_cool.gif, 11th ('09) and 13th ('10) and currently in a 9 game run without a win and 11th place will hardly draw in the speccies.

I know we had a few big gates in 2006 (Saints was about 7-8K?) but is your overall average figure a bit skewed by counting the RU/RL double header gate of about 12,000 when clearly most of the RU fans had buggered off to the pub or home leaving only about 3k inside the Stoop?

We used to have one but then London Broncos went bust and we 'borrowed' someone else's!

If success is what you need and nothing to do with the location then why were the crowds complete turd after starting so well

The Stoop and the Quins names are the root of the problem. Hardly anyone from a radius of 3miles watched the Quins RL team and they have few local friends

I hate the club playing in Twickenham, which is steeped in such much union. In fact I can't think of a worse strategic move than to have ever played there

Crowds dropped every time the club moved back there.

Another move needs serious consideration, preferably to a working class area (or at least ex-working class area) of London with little Union to compete with.

Leyton Orient, Millwall and perhaps Streatham/Mitcham/Sutton would be good targets. Leyton might be the best because it is close enough to Skolars to generate synergism. I also think that RL should focus on East London

That being said I wouln't complain about a move back to Brentford or even better Fulham (as Fulham)