GF what do you think the business case for the move is based upon?

As the clubs marketing guru what would your approach be to making it work.

It just seems to be based on short term financial savings. Have we studied market data (rather than looking at one game we held there). Will a future investor be interested in Gillingham? Will some of the savings go into marketing?

We could easily sell out the olympic stadium

It will come down to finance and alternative sources of funding. DH is not going to be around for ever, who knows we could well end up with the Skolars. We have not had the results of the club review that was started in the middle of the season and no doubt financial pressures and the rent demanded from staying at the Stoop has been part of that discussion.

Common sense would suggest staying in one place is better than moving but yet again there appears to have been no clearly thought out marketing strategy, nor as any suggestions been made with regard to new investment. One thing is clear, stay at the Stoop in the present form and projected cost of rent and with no marketing plan to increase our fan base, we will be stuffed and follow in the footsteps of Bradford.

The more I listened to `Backchat` last night the more depressed I became….back to earth with a bump following a few good on-field results.

No wonder the club is in a mess if DH is taking advice from and confiding in the likes of Stevo who in my opinion is a complete and utter moron.

DH preparing us for the lower divisions?.......possibly, anyone else noticed that the front page of Sky Sports (RL) lists our possible relocation story under the heading `League Two`…………spooky or what!!!

What with Bradfords woes, I would have thought this was a bad time to be raising the debate of whether our SL licence is still valid if we play out of Gillingham………….reduction of teams from 14 to 12 anyone?

If you want to sort out your club DH I suggest you dump the likes of Stevo; put your hand in your pocket (again) and speak to Mark Evans, ex Quins supremo who now works for/runs a sports consultancy I believe. At least you will have `tried` to do the right thing and got some sound advice, rather than fart around like you have over the years, lurching from one disaster to another.

If we go to Gillingham here is my scenario. We start well and gates look better initially at 3K after a lot of local marketing, free tickets for Gills ST holders etc. We start to struggle and gates soon hover around 1,200. Meanwhile Skolars get promoted from Champ 1, DH throws the towel in and we merge with the Skolars. The worse case scenario is that the move to Gillingham is a success and SL in London is dead as a dodo!

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I just cant see a move to Gillingham happening. As we all know it's insane and I just cant believe that the club is as deranged as that - it's not been run well but Gillingham? As someone else said way back in this thread it's more likely the standard tactic of give people a terrible scenario and then the real deal (maybe Leyton) doesnt seem so bad.
I have to believe that because if it really is Gillingham then people need to be packed off to the funny farm. It's beyond all logic.

Financial decision, backed up by an eager CEO eager to cover the failures of his first 2 seasons in the hot seat. People mistakenly put down my attitude towards Gus as something personal or petty, when in reality, it is based purely on the results that haven't been delivered.

The first casualties of the review were back office staff that if I were a gambling man I would say, were let go because DH had given up on Twickenham and the lack of financial assistance from extra fans and the sponsors they attract......the decision to move was made then. As for the exact reasons, in the current climate, does anyone really believe Quins would add any more than 10% maximum to the rent....so it would essentially be 4,250 a week up from 3,850...hardly a game changer. DH may have said enough's enough, Gus will have nodded accordingly and the search was on....
There are reports that Gillinghams Owner was at the stoop last week......when DH goes, maybe he'll be happy to own the club in the Championship, giving him another income stream for his stadium?


SAME AS IT'S ALWAYS BEEN....INVITE PEOPLE TO COME TO GAMES, PUT ON A SHOW AND ASK THEM IF THEY ENJOYED IT AND IF THEY'D LIKE TO COME BACK........repeat this until you have a supporter base.....



It's DH's toy and he'll do with it as he pleases.....he knows his own mind...look how long it took him to admit defeat with the Powell fiasco.......and not one penny will be spent on Marketing......he will put up goal posts and expect the good folk of Kent to roll up.....he doesn't care one jot for those fans he loses by moving to Kent......he is never wrong and so long as his CEO keeps nodding, he'll carry on doing it!

I haven't bothered looking into the social and demographic breakdown of Gillingham and the surrounding areas, but I have no doubt that a specialist firm will be employed to do so...maybe we could use the same marketing and promotions lot that delivered not one new fan this year........and delivered a shirt sponsor for 7 out of 54 games...they could probably do with a second chance...and the cricket season will be over by then



Anyway, no point in doing anything until it's confirmed.....we might all be so happy when Orient is announced we'll forget the pitch is the size of a postage stamp

??????????????? How can that be worst case PP..........as much as I do not want them to move to Gillingham (but I will still support them) I want the club to survive. They have been called all sorts over the years and played at countless grounds. If they are successful in SL but happen to play in kent I can live with that, and it will show that there is support for the game down south.

The problem is that just about everyone bar DH/GM believes that such a move is not a recipe for success, in fact just the opposite and remain very much against the rumoured relocation.

I predict looking at the pages overnight on this thread if we move anywhere other than The Stoop GF will come over on a holiday and stand outside the ground with a bill board around his neck "The End is Nigh" the height of real marketing!





Appreciate GF the twitter acknowledgement, you are really starting to catch up with new media!

OK, the worse case scenario is no southern SL club at all, I agree, but the whole case for the Kent move is, I guess, that SL cannot be made to work in London, and that if a move is successful we will be told that SL cannot be made to work in London end of, and that will be the last we will see in SL until the Skolars can prove that a paying-winning team can be built. It will a long time before the M62ers give us another chance to take one of their precious seats at the top table.

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Nope.
That would be a brilliant scenario and I would be the first to congratulate everyone involved when they are averaging 9k at games and making the play-offs on a regular basis with a decent shirt sponsor...........but they will have done it at the expense of some of the fans who have followed the club through thick and thin...fans who will have been abandoned because the right people didn't make the right decisions over the previous 17+ years.

London RL will not die.....the amateur game will continue to flourish, but the work in schools will need to be picked up by the RFL......but the team that will be making the play-offs regularly and attracting up to 100k+ through the gates every year will not be a LONDON Superleague club.......the will be the Gillingham Giraffes

Nope...as other have said, It's DH's ball and he'll play with it where he wants. My opinion is that the move, like the name change before it is being done for all the wrong reasons......and regardless of your poor attempt at humour, you've come up with nothing concrete to counter that standpoint!



I believe I opened a twitter account about 6 years ago.........I just don't feel the need to tell people what colour my stools are............

OK, see where you are coming from. Perhaps `not working in London` is a sad reflection on the state of the game in general i.e. that for the most part we are a minority sport that cannot afford to survive and compete with other attractions/sports in the big cities (leeds accepted).

I can see a new thread starting...

eugh....

I tell you what, I'd be dead impressed if you could market that.

So you say that even if our current landlords request an astronomical increase in rent as someone stated then DH should just cough up just to keep the fans happy who do not want to leave the stoop, sorry GF but I no businessman who would like that way, I can list a number of owners who do it their way be it RL or football it is not just DH. I think in the end most supporters accepted the name change, okay a few didn't but when can anyone keep everyone happy. I support the move away from the stoop, but I also feel we have to stay in London and I do hope any move will be temporary until we may be able to part own a stadium.

Sorry you don't appreciate the humour but you give it out consistently and most of us do take it!

On the other hand, with the exception of Harlequins, RU has largely abandoned London for the surrounding counties. we may have to admit that with 12 or 13 professional football clubs (I forget the exact number) London is a football city, and [ueverything[/u else is a minority game.

There is plenty that is wrong with the admin of RL, but I don't think we should beat ourselves up if we have a club near London rather than in it.
Especially when a game like RU has had over 100 years to build a fan base, and yet of the 7 teams that started the professional RU era, 2 have gone to the wall, and 4 have left the city.

Why would Skolars want that? They're run by people with a few more brain cells than pound notes but that idea is ridiculous. If Skolars were to get promoted and Gillingham Giraffes falling on their s, then I imagine some on here who live far from Gillingham will take up the option of watching a successful Skolars side in the Championship.

How do you know the new name? Has there been another leak from the zoo?

No, Stevo confirmed we are now "Gills Gee-Gees"

It was Stevo who said it on Backchat. I rather the comment with a pinch of salt. It is only a couple of years ago at a fans forum that Paul Blanchard was saying he felt we had a very good deal with Quins.What benefit would it be to Quins to price us out?

Why do people think that football clubs are philanthropic organisations who will let us in on the cheap? The experience at Brentford showed anything but.

If we can't afford the rent, how on earth will the club afford to be part owners of a stadium?

Stevo says the rent being asked for was astro.....I say 10% is the maximum they would have dared ask fo unless of course they are happy to lose the 200k a year.....this decision has very little to do with any rent increase......
BTW....5,000 fans this year instead of 3,000 would have generated 520k in revenue......sorry....EXTRA revenue. The rent increase, or should I say, the supposed rent increase wouldn't have mattered.....

Gutters- you keep overlooking the fact that people won't come and watch a losing team and that is what we've been since the move to The Stoop (look at the number of people on this forum that are interested enough to post, but say they only come to a few games).


I agree I'm surprised Quins are prepared to lose our rent but maybe they simply don't need us anymore.

We are unlikely to ever know the real situation but I can't blame DH for wanting to keep the costs down.

Every sport in the UK is a minority sport when compared to football now.

A bit o/t but, as someone who used to trail around the RU grounds of London when the leagues began and prior to professionalism, there were no attempts then to build up a fan base. There were no stadiums to speak of (usually just a small stand) and the clubs were still member based. My recollection is that the biggest RU stand (outside Twickenham) was at the Met Police recreational ground where London division played home matches. The seating area at Quins was even less than it is at Richmond presently.

Things only changed in 1995 and undoubtedly Union clubs have struggled to deal with professionalism.

As to leaving the city, Saracens are moving back this year and chances are London Welsh will next year. All four clubs who play first team games outside London still have their bases inside London with training facilities, lower grade/amateur teams and clubhouses in the city. Hammersmith Hills Hoists, the newly crowned Southern Premier winners, play out of Wasps ground in Ealing. If we move to Gillingham, I suspect no trace of our club will be left.