Barry Hearn has said that if West Ham move into the Olympic Stadium as sole tenants then he is going to sell Brisbane Road Stadium and relocate the team to Harlow or Romford.

Now if that does happen a 9k stadium can easily be converted into a 10k stadium and give you a permanent home.

Yer an idiot

It's a blessing

you lucky person

No, for two reasons.
1. As covered elsewhere the local council blocked development in the past.
2. At the Stoop they were able to develop flats on the old training pitches to fund the redevelopment of the ground. No equivalent source of funds exists at Esher.

Elmbridge Council would veto an extension to Esher Rugby Club as at the moment they are trying to decide between two sites for sports development. One site is the privately owned Walton and Herhsam Football CLub in Stompond Lane which is in need of development, close to the main train line in and out of London and direct trains to the south coast and Woking. It is within close walking distance of the town and close to a number of eating and drinking establishments and if developed caefully will have plenty parking. The other ground is the other end of Walton and already has a leisure centre, gym, training pitches and swimming pool there. The council want to develop this with a stadium and new training pitches and combine with other sports. Maybe that is the way LB should be looking, get in with the council and get a ground share with a football club or get in with a private owner and develop the land between football and rugby.

daft dad, it was a throw away line, I agree London broncos should be a London based club, but we are back to the Gillingham scenario, choice between those two?
The thread was esher development, even if it was a goer, daft idea too far out of the way.
If we had the money and the choice then throw our hat in with the new stadium at Brentford but hey again that's just my thoiughts

hey if we moved to Gillingham maybe we could be called kent invicta

Gus Evicted more like.

David Hughes has been involved with the club for 10-15 years and already puts a massive amount of money in each year.

But I am not sure he is looking to deliver us a modern high quality 10 - 20,000-seat stadium capable of also hosting first class professional football or rugby union, perhaps with income growth potential, in order to secure the long term sustainability of London Broncos.

If he were, the opportunity could be there to develop Wood Green with the Skolars, given there is an immense amount of land, a potentially willing partner and a council who may co-operate and I am sure the likes of Brentford could be interested once again plus perhaps other small clubs.

However, I perceive that we are looking merely at a tenancy at somewhere which is reasonably close to the RFL requirement but I do not see the RFL as being insistent on meeting 100% of the standards anymore.

Cheers
Mark

Guesstimate is about 15million over the years he's been involved, stacked heavily post IL, since 2007.....London has never lacked a backer and Mr Hughes is a Saint, but in reality, he needed guidance from the RFL and business minded individuals, but without any help with his financial burden, he seems reticent to accept any advice from anyone.

Long term sustainability and in the end, self sufficiency could and IMO should have been secured through building up a decent size supporter base. The club in general, not just under Mr Hughes ownershiphave repeatedly failed to see the formula is:


Increased awareness = Increased attendance = Increased atraciveness to sponsors = Increased attractiveness to investors = Increased revenue all around.

Ever since SL I, they've stuck posts in the ground and expected people to roll up......

April 4th, 1996....9,638 roll upto the Valley......17 years later and 1,136 bothered to go to Esher.......

Will be 1000 again on Sat judging by the efforts made so far to entice locals.

If we are at 1,000 it will be an increase on the Cats game

Wycombe cannot be used because Wasps are still there, there is no way three teams could play there. Wycombe does have undersoil heating but I just cannot see how three clubs could fit there fixtures around each other. It would take some organisation.

Hughes will tie up Buck and Dusty in Gillingham in 2014 and cite that Rugby Union didn't have a London RU team for years and that each club prospered oustide of London and that the London Travellers will do so playing out of Kent.

Apart from Quins

and Wasps I guess to when they were winning things

I am supposing that the idea of moving outside London/beyond the London Underground is not sacrosanct, despite the heavy resistance of supporters, and that the club is willing to risk alienating/losing supporters to safeguard the future of the club.

In this case the catchment area would cover probably anywhere within about an hour's travelling distance from London in all directions - maybe into any of the home counties.

I know this is provocative and am not meaning to be so, just to create a frame of reference.

In theory, there are four realistic 'transaction' scenarios:

1) To purchase land, have an architect design a Stadium and then have it built. Obviously we have no Stadium to sell. We would assume no support from a local council. We would also assume no support from the RFL. Thus this would be 100% funded by David Hughes. This seems to be the least likely scenario. But it is attractive to supporters, with the closer to central London the better.

2) To become the tenant of a club who already has a Stadium and plans to remain there for the foreseeable future. The club would have a stadium which is reasonably close to the RFL requirement. A carefully chosen partner would be someone without a realistic chance of going into a league which pays so much money that when they return to success that we would be seen as an inconvenience/pitch damager/pitch blocker. This seems to be the most wanted scenario for us, and if our rent is always seen as highly desirable, not peppercorn, then this could be lasting.

3) To form a relationship with a club who has a Stadium now and to share in the expense of building a new Stadium with them, thus creating a legal entitlement to the ground. This would probably mean support from the football club's local council and would require David Hughes to pay in, but not necessarily as much as a half share. This would seem to be the best long-term scenario.

4) To buy the Stadium from a club who is moving out by using a long commercial loan and effectively paying down a mortgage. This would work best by taking over a stadium in a relatively cheap, downmarket area which cannot be instantly transformed into a more luxurious or commercial development. This would be an ok scenario, especially if the Stadium is simply too small rather than being decrepit.

There are of course fantasy/silly scenarios such as sharing with a Premier League club, the Olympic Stadium, Twickenham or Wembley or the RFL offering to build us a Stadium but none are appropriate.

I don't see us evolving a very small ground with no quality Stand into a full Stadium but I'd love us to find someone who genuinely want to work with us, with a supportive council and secure our future, even if it means a little extra effort 13 times a year from me and others to get there.

Cheers
Mark

"The club in general, not just under Mr Hughes ownershiphave repeatedly failed to see the formula is:


Increased awareness = Increased attendance = Increased atraciveness to sponsors = Increased attractiveness to investors = Increased revenue all around."


Really?........think you've missed a vital ingredient here........should be preceded by......Success on the pitch= Increased awareness etc........otherwise it's increased awareness of what?


"April 4th, 1996....9,638 roll upto the Valley......17 years later and 1,136 bothered to go to Esher......."

Says it all really.............and many many reasons I guess as to why it's come to this

London Irish spent HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS getting fans to Reading......as did wasps. Saracens hardly prospered at Watford......urban myth designed to cover up for a lack of willingness to roll up their sleaves

Our arrangement at The Stoop seemed to work pretty well until we gave notice. We have made the ground our biggest problem when it should have been the least of our issues. Lessons should have been learned from the failed rebrand which was a similar folly.

This.

Which failed rebrand are you referring to? The H********s one was hardly a rip roaring success!

The first three years of the 'partnership' was relatively favourable to our club and it is easy to have fond memories as we were more of a 7th to 9th club than a bottom three team also.

Nic Cartwright initially secured a deal for London Broncos which secured the useage of the Twickenham Stoop on extraordinarily favourable terms meaning that all four corners of the ground were open and a degree of co-operation around marketing and commercial opportunities took place. Ian Lenagan was also an open and lively commentator building rapport and the club was open and friendly, rather than the barrier place it later became.

When Nic did the deal Harlequins were up for a full amalgamation of the two clubs. Statements such as “both clubs go into this partnership with the intent that they will be one club playing both codes of rugby” and there was talk of a “synergy and sharing” strategy and that we “will also begin to work together on community, marketing and commercial opportunities” were commonly bandied about.

However the main instigator of the deal on our side was Nic Cartwright from the Rugby League side and he left relatively early in the partnership whilst Ian Lenagan was at Wigan on the 1st December 2007, a long way before the end of the inital three year deal concluded, after which he left the club in suspended animation for several years. Whilst Mark Evans on the Union side was purely committed to his own club - and did nothing for the partnership. It worked for him as he expanded the Stadium and got numbers in crowd-wise particularly from the Big Game concept and no doubt he gained by cross-selling £99 tickets into our base and living off the back of our community work and engagement that promoted Harlequins.

After 2008 we became a tenant/landlord and at that point we should have immediately abandoned the Rugby Union colours and name for our own identity. They declined to buy in for a nominal sum, so the partnership was over.

I know the Union were quoting over £5 grand to open up one stand on one day when asked several years ago and we felt it wiser to only open one stand, such was the steep rise in costs and believe me they have grown each year!

Since June 2009, when we won at Leeds away and then Hull KR away, there has been a major decline in playing standards and that was due to the mediocre acquisition and retention of Brian McDermott which saw him gain just 7 wins from his last 38 games and the club decline year on year under his stewardship. This is fact. Although he only left 2 1/2 years ago just O'Callaghan, Howell and Melling in the squad were discovered by Mac and in the team.

I say this knowing that someone will jump in and talk about how he kept four-times-in-a-row Grand Finalists Leeds still in the Grand Final but there is a difference between maintaining success and delivering it. He did not build things for us, bar having an involvement in the youth side.

Then we had another two bad years with Powell who was a steaming pile of mediocrity with just 9 wins from 47 and thus the club has had five years declining under Mac and two more under Powell, so we have now lost any enthusiasm from the Union supporters as well as the paymasters.

We should have got out after 2008 when no full integration took place, just as we should never have took on two unproven managers, but we are where we are.

It is easy to constantly talk about winning every week and bigger attendances and I have no doubt that possibly some of the floating Union support may have joined a winning bandwagon, but the reality is there was one 8000 gate and the rest has been derisory - people walking out of the ground rather than staying on for free to watch us etc.

I'm looking forward to ending this bad relationship and giving things another go.

But on to more positive things, let's get behind the guys against Bradford and batter the Bulls, after all they are our club and the only one we have.

Easy
Rammo

I may be wrong but I don't think that Nic had much to do with the Quins move and it was ILs drive that got us there.Mark Evans was I believe very supportive. Unfortunately those two have not been around for a number of years and we are where we are.

I just wish the move away from the Stoop was explained fully. If it is this perception from the Warder that RL doesn't work in SW london the sorry that is bullocks. No marketing allied to no success on the pitch and an alienation of the existing supporters will mean it will work nowhere in crowd terms.

Sad as another 2 kids are named in the England yoiuth team and we had more homegrown players in our team than our opposition heartlands club on Monday (probably most heartland clubs in fact). Somehow the M62 gene pool has to be expanded to beat the Aussies and make the international game more popular and by inference the club game.

We've finished 2nd, made the CC final and the play-offs twice in the SL era....each season following OUR CROWDS WENT DOWN.
Success is what it is...a bonus, but the culture of supporting a team is more tribal and cultural than results based....unless you follow Man United that is.....



As for the move from the Stoop......bundled with the foolish rebrand and everything else designed to"improve" things......none.....and I mean not ing one of them, has worked nor will they in future.......regardless of the blind devotion shown by some fans. 1,136 is an embarrassment...let's hope Bradford bring a few down this weekend......

We were in an eminently preferable position then compared to where we are now. We also had a better atmosphere and more songs. I am sick of singing the monotone drone that is our only 'chant'