A subject I have bored various people with over the years. Yes I do think there's something in the lack of a geographic identifier.

*DISCLAIMER* Before the usual suspects jump all over me, no I am not suggesting this is the only thing wrong with the way the club has been run, or that it is a magic bullet for the future (assuming there is a future). *END*

The "London" tag is rather like Oldham, Salford, or Wigan calling themselves "Greater Manchester".
Because "London" has existed as a metropolitan authority for much longer than other places there is a tendency to assume it's a homogenous whole, but it really isn't. Ask anyone in London where they're from, and the one answer you won't hear is "London". At the very least they'll qualify it with "North", "South", "East", or "West", or more likely they'll name a specific suburb. And be under no illusions, many of the London suburbs have as well defined a town centre as any of the towns that make up other conurbations like Greater Manchester, or the West Midlands.

Of course having moved around so much, naming ourselves after a specific suburb wouldn't have made much sense. But "West London Broncos" would have made sense. Even if we'd changed it to "East London Broncos" when we played at Charlton, at least it would have reinforced the fact that we'd moved to the other side of the second most populous city in Europe.

I agree with you 100% Perry.......in fact, I believe a number of posters may have recommended this to the club back in 2011.......and were as usual, ignored

I disagree strongly, its an interesting subject but I think it is almost completely irrelevant what your name is.

Every major sports team in Berlin is called 'Berlin' (a city of 3.3m people). New York has 2 NFL teams called 'New York'. Some Premier League soccer teams are named after small suburbs of major cities (Aston, Everton). Some Rugby *nion teams are called something very bizarre (Saracens, Harlequins) with no mention of any area or city.

People will identify with a club whatever they are called if they are well run and are stable and successful.

Like Tre, I disagree strongly with Perry.

Speaking as a proud Londoner, one of the main things that appealed to me when i first started watching the Broncos, was the fact that they represented the whole of London.

I loved supporting THE London team then, and I still do.

If only we could cut the whole of Norf London adrift...maybe call it "The Crapital"?

North London is where it's at, not even cabbies go south of the river for fear they'll never return alive

I will concede that North London is nicer than North of Watford.



As far as the demise of LB goes, I have had word today that we still have a chance of playing in SL next year.

Whether we will have enough players to form a team is another matter, but I feel a little more upbeat that things are progressing in a positive manner.

Can you put a percentage on that?

Wonder if any bookies are offering odds. Must be time for Mark Rammond to be giving betting advice.

Both located in New Jersey & 45 minutes journey from Manhattan let alone the other boroughs.

Paris St Germain do ok being called 'Paris'. Ditto 'Madrid' and 'Milan'.

Don't Washington Redskins play in a different state due to the racial nature of their nickname? I read that the local authorities wouldn't let them build a stadium in Washington unless they changed their name so now they play in Maryland? But are still called Washington.

Milan is also the Anglicised version of Milano.

Although Londres Chevals has a nice ring to it.

According to Rammo on twitter. If we do have a club in SL next season he thinks at the moment all we will have is 6 players signed up from last years squad. One of those he thinks is Krasniqi. I'm hoping we can keep him and Dollapi. May not be household names to all, but at least I feel they will give 100% for us.

If this is the case then I'm with a few others here in that if we have to go cap in hand to other clubs and rely on loaners how is that going to make for a successful team for next year. What I mean is these clubs could call players back as when they feel like it. They wont give us their best lower squad players. so how could the club or the coach build a team who get use to playing together week in and week out if in danger of one leaving one week with maybe another arriving in time for the following weeks game. which was happening lest season along with those big names not playing to their full potential.

Does anyone here think that we could wait for the RLWC to scout players for the club and see if can pick up some bargains there. I think I read some where its what the Bulls and Wakey might be thinking of doing too.

Im quite excited about the prospect of a complete squad revamp if it happens. However last minute and rushed.

In a nutshell!

Washington DC isn't a state, the DC means "district of columbia" i.e. it is part of the state of Maryland.

To be pedantic, Italian cities tend to have one local name in the local dialect and one name in Italian. The "Anglicised" names are usually just the way that the locals say the city name.

That's not correct it's not in Maryland. its a Federal district and not in any state.

I always thought using the name London appealed to a larger supporter base across the capital.

Utter nonsense to suggest that the name has anything to do with it.

I agree that the name has nothing to do with the state of our club (it's the least of our problems, imo).

I do like supporting a team that represents the whole of the Capital though...I quite like the feeling of us against the world (well, the M62 corridor anyway).

I don't think anyone has said it is the main cause, but one of a very long list.

Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree.

They have been established for a long time from when the city was nowhere near that big. Also you have to remember that during the cold war both East and West Germany used Berlin as the showcase to demonstrate why their political system was supposedly the best. Sport was not immune from the clash of ideologies, by keeping the name "Berlin" for a sports team you could [ide facto[/i claim that your team was the true representative of the whole of the city, rather than just the half of it that you ran.
Major League US sport has always been based on the business franchise model. They can, and do, up sticks to a completely different city at the whim of the owner. So we should be careful drawing too many parallels to the UK in general, and ourselves in particular.
A throw over from the days of shamateurism. But interesting to note that the only ones to adopt "London" in their name are the ones who play nowhere near the place. A bit like airports, if they have "London" in their title they're nowhere near.


The problem I have always had with the "London" tag is that it smells slightly of artifice, especially when you have no real period of history compared to other sports in the area. London is a city of 8 million people (second 2nd most populous in Europe) and myriad suburbs all with a distinct identity. I just don't think that most Londoners identify with London as a whole, as neatly illustrated by these two comments,
There's your London unity for you.

When the US was being constituted it was felt that if the federal capital was in a particular state then that state would wield too much power compared to the other states. Consequently a federal district was created to house the capital.

A.C. Milan were set up by an Englishman, who used the anglicised spelling in the name. By contrast Inter were set up by Italians hence their full name, F.C. Internazionale Milano, uses the local spelling.

Regardless of who is responsible for the mess we are in, `London Broncos` is still a crap name and if we are to rise again it should be consigned to the bin along with all the other baggage of failure.

Surely dumpimg the name, along with all the rest of the crap we are going for along with a new name is just stupid? probably the only thing we should keep? no-point being the Barnet (Edgeware) Eagles or whatever?