I used to really, really love watching the team in the 2000’s. There were some wonderful characters and while they got beat plenty of times, I generally enjoyed the rugby they played. Also, the players, and the staff (including Tony as coach) were so accessible. I had a tonne of fun days and nights, and it always seemed like the club was doing something.

I thought they tried some really good things marketing wise in a tough city to market anything (pre-social media) – it was usually pretty interesting, anyway. Back in that period they seemed to have much greater financial restrictions than they do now, and things like databases and CRM systems were more expensive and difficult to manage. I can’t particularly knock them for trying the Harlequins brand or the Stoop.

Hopefully, I’m not just worn out by it, but it seriously seems like they’ve just completely abandoned any pretense of operating that club in a way you might consider professionally the last 3-4 years. I guess they compile 25 players and pay them each £1.6m a year – that probably qualifies as professionalism.

The rebrand didn’t do much to inspire anyone. The colours look lucky dip. The jerseys are bland and late every year. Incredibly, this year, we’re the only team that didn’t change either home OR away jersey. The season tickets are late. We off our landlords who raise the rent and we don’t have any other options except becoming…. The Non-London Broncos. We search for coaches by not searching, which doesn’t do anyone any favours - coach, players or club. I’ll defer to Gutterfax or other smart people on what would work marketing-wise, but whatever we’re doing is creating crowds that are worse, not better. They don’t seem to have any actual staff there that might create any interest in anything beyond a few hundred friends and family and whatever the away team bring. These things just all seem like they're handled in a half-assed way.

Some things just don’t sell, and I understand the club is going to lose money ad infinitum, so maybe all they’re actually trying to do is just field a team of rugby players and pay them £1.6m a year and do whatever else it takes to keep the Sky money and licence (like have under 20s, London training, and scholarship programs). It certainly looks like they care about it a whole lot less than we do. I'd probably respect them if they just said "we're just trying to field a team - we have no plans".

Winning more would be nice, but I’m usually pretty lubed up win or lose, so losing’s not the end of the world for me. But it’s just really, really hard to like anything else about the place.

POST OF THE YEAR - I LOVE THE 'NON-LONDON BRONCOS' - BRILLIANT!

If this is the case (and it probably is), then even more so now, the RFL/SKY TV/Superleague need to wrestle control of the club away from captian meglomania (DH) and corporal self preservation (GMc)....because with these two at the helm, this is never going to end well



4 Years into 6 years of Licencing and other than Crusaders, we are the only ones who have gone backwards in real terms...the other strugglers seem to have investors lined up, new stadiums in the offing and are getting decent crowds, while we are about to move again, with less fans than some Championship clubs and are still 100% reliant on the health and insanityof one man

Well this pronouncement takes some beating, to tell us that other than the Crusaders WE LONDON BRONCOS are THE ONLY CLUB TO HAVE GONE BACKWARDS, I think many clubs have gone backwards over the past four years, Bulls! saved by the RFL buying Odsal lease? Wakefield & Castleford, saved and still hoping for new grounds with local council monies! Salford, moving to a new ground which has not worked because of the road plans to the stadium and lack of opportunities to make income other than match days, sponsors and the Sky money! at least their new potential owner has seen the Light!!!! a club can only work if it owns its own ground, it looks like Salford Council are going to sell their 50% ownership and I would not put it past Peel Holdings later down the road if they need more funding selling their share. St Helens has a nice new ground, but still not completed looking like a mess with no sides on, one minute they blame the designers, but the same builders have constructed many grounds with sides on the same design, could it not be they do not have the money to complete the ground? and their owner had to take a Loan from a Hong Kong contact!

It is so easy to knock Everything that our club does, like many I do not agree with many ways they proceed but not Everything, we are Lucky we still have a club! I look forward to the BBC TV North West programme on Monday evening which is about the concerns of rugby league in the future. I think the only successful clubs really are Leeds, Warrington & Wigan and the latter does not have their own ground but they are really successful in Marketing!

We kick off Super League next weekend the same time as the Rugby Union International weekends start, so which will the media give coverage to? our friends the BBC started promoting their coverage on TV early this week, we are lucky to get a one day promotion for the Challenge Cup Final, we promote our game as Summer Rugby, next weekend the snow many have only just gone.

I have got knocked in the past saying this Our Club may have problems but so has Rugby League! people have fallen for the strap line The Greatest Game or Sport in the World! which is far from the truth, a sport just managing to exist more likely.

Who hacked Jays account? first time in 10 years he has made sense

Not sure how to take that!

but I will say thanks!

Tonight rugby league and its future is featured in the northern edition of the BBC1 opt out show "inside Out" at 7.30pm, this is a preview issued to northern media.

SUPER League clubs are on the edge of "a financial abyss" with combined debts of more than £60m, according to a leading sports finance specialist.

Rob Wilson, from Sheffield Hallam University, came up with the conclusion after analysing the balance sheets of 11 of the 14 Super League teams for the BBC's Inside Out programme, which will be screened tonight.

Whilst information was not available from three clubs in the competition, Wilson believes the state of the game is in a perilous position.

Wilson said: "You have three or four teams that are doing very well, three or four teams doing poorly and a group of teams that struggle to wash their face financially.

"The overall effect of that is that League itself will struggle for finance.

"The biggest challenge for the Super League is that there are too many teams generating insufficient turnover and generating too much cumulative debt.

"And that alarms me as someone who looks at finance in an academic environment, so using a term like rugby league is staring at the financial abyss isn't too harsh a thing to say."

In the last six months, Bradford and Salford have both teetered on the brink of bankruptcy before being saved by new investors.

Super League clubs are guaranteed an income stream in excess of £90m from the Sky TV deal but the new season will start on Friday without a main sponsor.

The Rugby Football League has issued a strong rebuttal, with director of standards and licensing Blake Solly insisting the game remains in "robust health" as clubs prepare to kick off a World Cup year.

However, BBC Inside Out presenter George Riley has spoken to some of the sport's leading figures to test the financial health of the game and whether there is any room for optimism.

Hull KR chairman Neil Hudgell issued a warning on the state of the game last year and, 12 months on, he sees little improvement.

"I think probably on the whole it's a little bit worse than it was last year," he said.

"Every year we make a loss and every year as directors we've funded that shortfall. I think it'd be very hard for us to argue otherwise than we live beyond our means."

Gary Hetherington, chief executive of Super League champions Leeds added: "The majority of clubs are working hard ... it's some of the others that have let the sport down quite frankly."

But in a game where the fans' passion for their teams is legendary and loyalty is fierce, Solly insists there are still some real success stories.

In a statement, he said: "Rugby league is about to embark on the most exciting and most important season in its history and the sport is well placed to make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.

"Compared to every other major sport, rugby league is in very robust health. Attendances were at an all-time high in 2012, more people saw the game on TV than ever before and the RFL was able to make record levels of financial disbursements to clubs.

"We expect standards in Super League to continue to rise in 2013 when a more geographically diverse Championship will showcase the sport to new audiences whilst the Rugby League World Cup will elevate rugby league's profile to new heights.

"This year will also see more commercial income flow into rugby league than at any time in its history and with a growing stable of sponsors and partners, the sport is approaching the new season with confidence.

"The salary cap and licensing have both brought the stability that is allowing many clubs to operate profitably and helped attract the new investors who coming into Super League.

"However, no amount of central legislation can guard against some of the decision-making that takes place at local level."

THE BBC One programme will go out on air at 7.30pm tonight, just hours after the new Super League season is officially launched in Manchester.

It will be interesting to watch, I'm not always convinced with some University Professors reports, but it may be a wake up call to many who feel everything in the garden is perfect with our game.

Are we really the only club to have gone backwards during the licensing period. What about Bradford, Cas, Wakey, Salford

Cas probably have but the others have all been taken over by owners who seem to know what they're doing.

The Bulls have a number of issues- previous debt, no income(or reduced) from the RFL

The Reds haven’t got an owner currently-They also have no/few recognised players

Wakey are steadily moving forward under new stewardship but nothing significant.(crowds have grown)

Add to that the owner of Widnes Vikings has been looking for a buyer, approached a local scrap dealer? who was not interested.

Then you read today's rugby press and Big Nigel is saying what rude health the game is in and how even though we do not have sponsors for the super league or championship monies will be higher and how he expects a 5 star season?

The game is not in a good place.

1. There are too many teams in Super League for the country's talent pool. Reduce to 10, merge some of the northern clubs.
2. No promotion and relegation. Turn the Championship clubs into feeder clubs.
3. Keep the licensing with reviews every 3 years.
4. The RFL and or Sky to take control of London Broncos until it can support itself, not unlike the Melbourne Storm model.

These are general ideas.

Some of the "dyed in the wool" northern RL journalists got their knickers in a twist last night after the BBC1 piece, I thought George Riley did it well, truth often hurts, one made a fool of himself saying that it was a typical BBC job to destroy the launch of Super League, why did they not do it on football, but he said football had more serious problems, but that was of their own fault often with wages. Wages have gone up a lot in RL but it is more with the running if the same lack of major sponsors, bad marketing etc.

generally very good ideas smashy.

In modern times, are there any cases of a succesful merger in any sport?

Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC - now second in the SPL, formed of Inverness Caledonian and Inverness Thistle then both tiny clubs in the Highland League!

Think it was back in the 70s when the NFL came into being with the merger of two whole leagues.

merge Castleford and Wakefield...if it doesn't work, no problem, as neither would be a major loss

Havant and Waterlooville FC in non league football have made a surprisingly good job post merger given they used to be deadly rivals.

Great piece on Wigan TV about the state of the game. My he is a good talker, almost had me believing it. I mean Wigan to finish in the top three, really!

The stench of death has been hanging around the London pro side for several years now. To be fair, though, there's more than a few rotting corpses along the M62 as well.

It's very hard to see where a recovery starts. The whole sport can't even find a sponsor for its heavily televised national competition, so it seems unlikely a white knight is about to ride out and replace DH. But unless something fairly major changes - leadership, funding, location, publicity... then I think the club's beginning to run out of chambers in this particular game of Russian Roulette.

I hope a good start to the season on the field brings in more optimism and more returning bodies. But that'll only take the cllub so far. Anyone know any Kuwaiti millionaires ?

I recently met up with the co owners of the Warriors Mad Butcher (Sir Peter Leitch) and Owen Glenn in Auckland.....bent both their ears about how a 20 million pound investment in London Broncos over 8 years would make the club self sufficient and do wonders for the global reach of the game....Mr Glenn said he'd be in London later this year, so I have emailed him our fixture list.......you never know!

St George Illawara

Sheffied/Hudds
Gateshead/Hull
Manly/Norths

not the last one.