So what did Hughes learn for this move ? Assuming your account is accurate, he has made a series of bad deals and bad appointments.

Hi, I think that there have been two moves which were offered London Broncos which I would have taken.

The move to Gillingham, which at the time had one of the biggest amateur clubs in the country with circa 500 members, and which hosted close to 4000 for the Warrington Wolves game, would have given the club an instant community. The people of Gillingham, which is a deprived area, I feel would have been ideal for a gritty game like Rugby League. There is also an overall poverty of life sport in Kent, and thus a potentially high catchment area once you get beyond the likes of Bromley South and Swanley which are still relatively commutable to London. I think the deal was actually done, for it was announced in one of the tabloids. I personally believe the club would have been viable in the long term based from there and it was a big error not to go. There's got to be over 2 million people in Kent by now; at least 700,000 households and over 100,000 people in just Gillingham in isolation. I felt that was an opportunity missed. It would have put out a few people, but history shows that many of the objectors would not stay with the club in the long term. I am not sure of the heads of terms for this deal.

The second opportunity I heard about must be eight or nine years back, and apparently the London Skolars complex was offered to the club. This consisted of many revenue generating opportunities for it included for instance popular and presumably sold out football pitches, golf courses and the like, plus there is a gym there now. The club could have been the operator of these amenities. You could have gone staffed up the facilities with players too if part time was on the horizon. The sky was the limit potentially to build up the Stadium, or build housing and sell it on, or house the players cheaply. The sky would have been the limit. You could have had one club in which the player pool extended from London Broncos in SL to a partner in Skolars perhaps also with an academy and reserve pool for both. Hughes could have left a legacy with that. Apparently the council were hawking this around.

I think the other deals apart from the initial period with Harlequins RU were simply bad deals and I do not understand why the 1 pound buy in was optional, this should have been locked in from day one when we wore those colours and their brand. We were either Harlequins or we were not.

I do not think a credible deal has been negotiated since, though I am not sure what the deal is with AFC Wimbledon.

But clearly you do not need an SL league ready Stadium when you have 8 first team squad members from London Skolars, plus their Manager and Assistant Manager.

I do not understand why people see my name and assume I will advocate the club's position regardless. I do not do that. I try not to denigrate the club for its own sake but no one is more dissatisfied than I am with where things are.

I just think it is simplistic to assume that e.g. a reunion with Ealing is something viable when there was a reason we left in the first place, and that is that the deal was not a good one for the Club.

I think the underlying issue is that the leadership of the Club has been heavily influenced by relatively random advisers who I would not take advise from, simply because I do not think the advisers have the depth of knowledge to provide such advise.

Any suggestion of a move to Gillingham post 1998 would definitely have had the remaining Fulham fans boycotting it following the killing of Matty Fox at Gillingham v Fulham match. Gillingham is just a blot on the landscape to us.

I believe the White Hart Lane deal was long term lease not freehold, and doubt the council would have permitted any housing development.

I do agree when professional RL ceases to exist in London, as I fear will happen, this will be looked back on as a massive missed opportunity.

Gillingham!?!?!?!

God almighty!

Perhaps the better question is 'Who Next ?'. With Hughes at the helm we are unlikely to prosper anywhere.

There is no where to go next. We will go out of business if wimbledon does not work. If they survive this season they can try to reboot, but if they get relegated then its the end.

I actually think it will be the end if we lose to Dewsbury. I'm planning to try and go to that simply as it and the Newcastle games could be the last ever games as the broncos.

So to be clear. Hughes and his CEO thought £225k a year and a slice of the bar too much, especially when wearing the hosts kit in 2012 but Hughes and his CEO now think that deal perfectly fine in 2022.....just with 3,000 fewer fans delivering £60k less in gate receipts?
Hughes butchered the relationship with Quins and personally I believe he wasn't keen from the start, but Lenagan drove the bus at the time. Once the business minded folk had left, the egos took over and even when the RFL pleaded with Hughes to sort out the sharp decline in crowds and even helped with marketing the WCC warm ups, he blindly ploughed ahead with disasterous appointment after the next resulting in the ultimate act of a narcissist.......deciding to walk away when your team gets hammered. This from a man who begged fans to return this year after a decade+ of being surplus to his needs.

The RFL paid the owner of Barnet £100,000 to take us in at the 11th hour. If he hadn't, 2014 would have seen a 13 team SL and London may well have ceased to exist as a professional entity.
The bars and associated income, together with everything else was always going to be skewed in favour of a host who didn't want us and didn't have any cause to help us either.
Club staff as far as I can see are now based out of a regus office in Richmond and we pay extra to train on a pitch with rugby posts (not that our place kicking reflects this)
....and I again ask at what stage will Hughes see that he is the problem.

Firstly, I was aghast at the move to "The Wedding Venue". I saw this as further evidence that the lunatics had taken over the asylum and was proof that Hughes was now doing the bare minimum to ease his guilt from the 2013 dummy spit.
As time went by, the ground seemed to suit us and when I first visited it, I could actuallu see the potential. I still believed that there'd be little chance of the locals allowing a stand to be built, but was proven wrong, so when I returned to watch SL Rugby there in 2018, the ground was perfect for what we had at the time, which was 2k fans. When we returned to the Championship, we would return to a 1k average and Trailfinders was perfect for this. Couple all of this with the fact that our hosts had their eye on the prize of the Gallagher and further development would have been in the pipeline. I believe Hughes had also mentioned he would help with upgrade costs when we moved in (or did I dream that), so the venue seemed perfect.
The Knighted Billionaire you refer to didn't become either a "Sir" or a "Billionaire" by doing daft things. That said, how many times over the seasons at Trailfinders did we "sell out" the corporate lounge? The straw man argument over corp-hospo income is a red herring and given they've dropped their drawers (and the gimp in commercial) 2 games into AFC fiasco, it wasn't the venue nor the revenue split that was the issue. Short term issues can be ironed out by open and frank discussion, but Hughes doesn't do that and Loubser is an accountant.....as a Salesperson I'd eat him for breakfast in such negotiations.
I can only assume that Hughes has asked where the crowds are and "why am i sat alone in corporate hospo" and has been told it's the venue, location, pricing, revenue split and that the dog ate someones homework.....so it's off we go AGAIN.

REMEMBER...225K A YEAR WAS TOO MUCH AT HARLEQUINS.......so it's blatantly obvious why we'd move a few more miles down the road from there for a pretty similar set up with 3k fewer fans, in a lower division and as a part time team for the same money.

...valid arguments, but the real answer to your poser is DAVID HUGHES!

Who employed Gus McKay? Who employed Powell and Grima as first team coaches? Who promoted accountant Loubser to CEO? Who employed Milner and then allowed him to farm off contracts to his own company?

I have no doubt Hughes is lovely genuine bloke, but personally, I've watched him disassemble and destroy the club I supported with an abandonment of common sense that both beggars belief and betrays his narcissism. He won't be told, so guess what the outcome is.......the one I predicted 15 years ago....which makes me a narcissist too, for saying I told you so, but I did.

Hampton and Richmond Borough are applying for permission to install an artifical surface. Perhaps another option for L1.

Perhaps best to just lower the Flag! for the last time, rather than playing on any field we can find, that's not any future.

Ealing decide not to continue with their appeal. They'll not be a Premier RU team next season.

But they'll continue with development plans for their ground......which at present is probably twice the size that we need.

Trailfinders also getting easier to travel to with the opening of The Elizabeth Line which serves West Ealing.

When it EVENTUALLY opens……..

Not long now.

They’ve been saying that for years!!
I flippantly said once that we’d move from Trailfinders before Crossrail opened- and we have!
Abbey Wood to Ealing would have been such an easy journey for me!
I read today that Abbey Wood to Paddington will allegedly open in late May , although Bond Street will remain closed for now.
Like all Crossrail’start dates’ I’ll believe it when it happens!

They won't move from Wimbledon while DH is in control, as he can't admit he was wrong on this (unless the dons do the break). So only if we get new owner will it be likely if we move

Surely Hughes has no credibility left to be damaged.