London Broncos chief executive Gus Mackay in an article on the BBC Rugby League website seems to be arguing once again for London to be given special treatment. He argues that whatever option is chosen London Broncos must be in the top division . Frankly I am sick of double standards . I agree that it is better for the profile of Rugby League if there is a succesful London club but it must be ON MERIT and without any special favours such as extra overseas players. Lodon crowds have been pathetic this season and there doesn't seem to be any real appetite for League whether they have a suvccesful team on the field or not . Whatever new structure we have it must be based on clubs finding their own level based on performance on the field and genuine promotion and relegation .

I think the operative word in that statement is 'successful' - so long as the current lot are in charge, there appears to be little or no chance of that being the case; it's a bloody shambles.

I'm afraid trying to expand RL to the South of Englans has been and always will be, a failure. There just is not a market for it. I cannot see that there ever will be, sufficient to finance and keep a team in the top flight on merit, whilst there is the game of Rugby Union in existence. It is simply unfair to more or less give a place to a London club because of the piped deam of Southern expansion. Up in the northern heartlands, we supporters have been supporting ourclubs and pumping money into RL a long time, some of us fo decades and I take exception to the possibility that Trinity or any other established Norhern club should get second rate treatment compared to a poject Southern side. It isn't on and I've had enough of it, especially as it clearly is failing

If RL is ever to grow, we need a presence down South. If you look at how many youngsters are playing the game in London, as a result of London RL's community work - I'd say they merit their place already.

Agreed, there is no doubt that RL in the south is a major success but, not as far as SL is concerned.
The problem comes when, if as expected, a traditional heartland club(s) gets axed and London keep their place.

I've said for some while that the sport needs some clear publicly stated objectives so that the game can move forward.

So why don't the RFL do things right and provide some funding for development officers to work with the junior and amateur clubs in the South?
That doesn't necessarily require a SL presence in London.
Let London Skolars and Hemel develop themselves in the lower leagues and if they can progress from there then so be it.

I thought that the RFL had given some funding/staff for the development aspect of RL in the south ?

I say forget the French, forget a team in London and promote it across the M62 corridor again where it is wanted. Give support there to make the teams stronger, give help and assistance to ensure no long standing club goes into administration. Make better what already exists and if good enough then other parts of the country will want to take part.

Other parts of the country are taking part.
The problem for RL is that we want to be seen as a major sport and be taken seriously in the media but, as a sport we are to insular.
It may be that the sport cannot expand successfully outside the north of England but, if the is the case, we can only expect to be a small time sport, which eventually would end up being something just above amateur level and most of the current 2nd and 3rd tier clubs could disappear.
In order to prosper, we have to be able to attract investment and sponsorship ahead of other sports and this becomes more difficult if we are seen as a sport played only in northern pit villages.

It would be great to think that Rugby League could be introduced to all 4 corners of the British Isles wirh successful teams in North and South Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as in the south of England. But hang on why stop there, what about the rugby leage mad dwellers in the midlands, the rolling Suffolk downs and the Kent coast. Yea right now we have a reality check and back down on planet earth it is a strk relity that this will never happen. The grown ups who manage our glorious sport must forget about trying to force feed our game on others who have no interest in it whatsoever. I think the Wales fiasco is a prime example and London crowds are not there. I know lots of youngsters are now playing Rugby League in the London districts but that is because the facilitiies are there not because those guys "darn sarf" are now converted to our glorious game. There is and will always be a divide between union and league and so be it, nothing wrong with that. There should be funding to develop clubs if the clubs in question can put a good case forward to be elected to the league but these should be no guarantee of continuity in SL. Imagine the reaction if London retained their licence and Wakey or Cas or any of the established teams loose theirs. Red Hall "get a grip" and stop trying to fix something that is not broke.

To attract significant investment/sponsorship and to be something more than a local game it's "expand or die" and none of us want the sport to die.

As someone already posted ,expand through Hemel and Scholars.
The correct way.
From the bottom tiers upwards.
Must have posted similar hundreds of times.

Am i right in thinking that even if they were 'put' in the top league, based on current performances they would be dropped into the 2nd tier when the season/leagues split as was proposed?

Based on that proposal, i would say they would be better starting in 'Super League 2' winning a few games and 'getting a roll on' both on and off the field. Surely more spectators will come (admittedley not loads!) should they get some results and be up near the top of there respective league

This is something that has never happened in the history of our game, ever. Up until the addition of the new clubs into C1, only one club in a century had been able to make the jump from amateur to semi-pro, The London Skolars. No club has ever been able to make the leap from amateur to semi-pro to fully pro in the entire history of our game. Asking an area to start at the very bottom and work their way to the top is asking them to give up on ever being at the top.

Just because something hasn't happened previously doesn't stop it ever happening.

Why can't a club like London Skolars go on to reach the top if the development is allowed to continue and they get the most important addition to any RL Club - a wealthy benefactor.

Why is that worse than letting London continue to make the sport look a laughing stock playing games in front of empty stadiums? Guaranteeing them a presence in the top flight and forcing a "Heartlands" club to drop out because of that is surely worse (although obviously not to you as it wouldn't be your club that got the boot).

The top flight should contain the overall strongest and most viable teams - that is not London!! and never will be!

I don't think the expansion darn sarf has been a failure at all. It's just not been successful at the top end.
There are are many amateur clubs playing that were not before. Building slowly is imho a good thing.

And in terms of Broncos, I remember Terry O'Connor saying he thought Broncos could survive at a level down as the same fans would probably support them.
Although I don'ta gree much with him he makes a good point. If they ahve a small number of die hard fans, why woudn't they watch when they play Featherstone. It's not like Wigan and Leeds are dragging more in at the Stoop (or where ever they play.

I'd let the drop a level and fund the junior development rather than prop them up in Super league.

When have London been guaranteed a position and which heartland team have been kicked out for them? London have a wealthy benefactor. They didn’t get him by being an amateur side.

If something has never happened before, it is only sensible to assume it isn’t likely to happen, A turtle hasn’t ever built a piano, so we assume it quite unlikely that a turtle will build a piano. No club has ever gone from amateur to semi-pro to pro, it is only sensible that we assume it is pretty unlikely that they will do so.

There are inherent advantages to being a heartland club, advantages Wakefield get, like the fact that they can pick up players from other heartland sides, how many players Leeds developed are playing for Wakefield right now? How many over the past ten years? It is easier for Wakefield to do that than it is for London or any expansion side. Which are Wakefield’s best attended games? Is it the teams on their doorstep or the ones miles away? Wakefield as a club also over a hundred years old, a new club by definition isn’t. If we don’t help expansion clubs, and give them advantages to redress the balance we will condemn them to always being lesser clubs. We will entrench the current status quo and the game will strangle its own growth.

I agree to a point. My position would be that London fans are more Rugby League fans than London Bronco’s fans. They are people who love to watch our game and whose outlet for that is currently the Bronco’s and yes, that would mean largely they would watch the Bronco’s in whatever division they play because realistically that is their only option. However I don’t think the game would grow in London off the back of those 1.5k or so diehard fans. It would make growth nigh on impossible. I have always said the SL should have a London representative, I have no problem if it isn’t the current London representation.

You maybe right on a fully professional basis but should still survive if it went back to semi-pro and amature level,the game seemed to do ok before super duper league and the input of sky tv.Personally if the top tear of rugby league was at an amature level I would still watch Wakefield play with a team full of local lads,so let's look after what we've got.

Like you, I too would watch Wakefield in whichever competition that they were involved in but, there is a bigger picture here, a much bigger picture.

Whether we like it or not, in order to be able to pay its participants a reasonable income, top level professional sport needs a substantial level of funding, usually TV money, PLUS significant income from other areas ie. local sponsorship, merchandise etc
Unless the game can attract the TV income, we are back to an amateur or semi pro sport and whilst this is still a good watch, it's a totally different beast to the sport that we presently have.
If we wish to sustain the sport at its current level or, preferably improve things, then we have to attract income from the TV companies and if we dilute the sport ie retreating into the heartlands (without the French club(s) and London)
will Sky, or whoever else, really want to pay the same amount of sponsorship for a small northern based game that is only played in Yorkshire and Lancashire (plus Cumbria) or, should we make the sport a more attractive option and then ensure that we can ask for a greater level of funding which in time will allow the game to expand and prosper.

Smokey if this were true the human race would still be single cells slithering around in the mud. I'm no turtle and i'm sure I could build a pianp given time, support, advice, the right tools etc. Surely Hemel Stags a a good example of what can happen - first game as an amateur club in 1981 which they lost 38 - 0 and then slow but sure progress, one step at a time, to where they are now. I don't know what their objectives are but I would imagine that they have no intention of just being a Ch1 for the rest of time. Parachuting teams in to SL just doesn't seem to work but patient and painstaking commitment and hard work a la Stags and Skolars (and hopefully Oxford) may do. The downside is that it takes a long time - 32 years to get to Ch1- but it can be done with the right support.

I never suggested the game should not have support outside the established areas - but that should not be guaranteed at the top level. All teams should work their way up and prove themselves to be worthy of a place. I'm not against expanding but it should be done by building outwards from where the game is already strong - expanding through South Yorkshire and into the Midlands or up to the North East etc. Build out from the strongest base - don't just stick teams in an area where they have no other clubs around them, and no interest.
Which games are generally the best supported games? - Derby matches or matches against a team with which you have no real rivalry?
Expansion should be about giving the new teams the best chance of surviving and then building - that will never be done by just plonking a team in Cornwall or East Anglia or London.

Sometimes you forget how blinkered we can be. RL in only the M62 corridor is a non starter, or the perfect solution to decimate the game.
A business has to develop and RL is a business. We have Hemel, Oxford and Gloucester this time from amateur to semi pro and hopefully Coventry next time. This is great progress and at the right entry level.

Fulham/Crusaders/ Broncos/Harlequins/ Broncos made a fatal error. They moved to Twickenham and into the Stoop across the road. The Stoop has been a disaster for the game. How much more g and t can you get. It has zero chance of progression with the contempt they will still hold against us. London has to be in a more practical location, but where is it?

32 years is a very very long time for us to be waiting. Besides, I would ask in what way are Hemel a better club than the Broncos? Better youth development? Better visibility? Better attendances? Better on the field? Hemel have taken a third of a century to become a C1 club for so far half a season, that isn’t an argument in favour of the slow and steady progress. Whilst you may say that parachuting a club in to SL doesn’t work, the facts are there is an SL club in London, one which has experienced more success in the SL era than most heartland clubs have, one which is finished 2nd in SL and has appeared in a challenge cup final. There isn’t one in Hemel or Oxford. If our aim is to have a wider geographical spread in the top fight history shows that parachuting clubs in has given us 4 expansion clubs in the top flight in 15 years, building from the grass-roots up has given us 0 in 117 years .

And what I am saying is that asking an expansion club to do that is asking them to work against so many inherent disadvantages that it is telling them not to bother. Our game, in every single way, is set up for the benefit of the heartlands. In some ways that is deliberate, in some ways unavoidable and in some ways an unintended consequence.
We don’t have that choice. The RFL don’t fund London, David Hughes does. David Hughes wants to fund a team in London, he doesn’t want to fund one in Sheffield or Newcastle, or Nottingham. If we find a David Hughes, or Bernard Gausch in Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham then great, if we don’t then we cant set up a team in Sheffield, or Newcastle, or Nottingham and get them to SL level. There isnt a deliberate choice to ignore these areas, there just isnt the opportunity right now for them.