..getting smaller by the week.

[urlhttp://www.londonbroncosrl.com/news/5204.php#.UyDPbUaBrIU[/url

Amazed that the RFL are allowing it......

Shut due to lack of demand, nothing to do with capacity.

The middle section of one of the terraces was closed off on Sunday, due to Selco having paid to have their advertising board unobstructed.

30K.......FOR THE WHOLE FUCKING SEASON......30K.



The SL clubs were looking at buying Bradford Bills after they had been badly run, but they seem happy to watch one of the games best opportunities to drag itself away form its "northern" tag being driven into the ground.



I know conspiracy theorists abound on here and I have a juicy one for them.......



David Hughes is actually spending RFU money to drive the final nails into the expansionist coffin of RL.......and he's doing a splendid job too!



Not only will London go down, they wont even be competitive in the Championship by 2017.......



back on thread......so the RFL are happy for the club to close sections of the stadium as opposed to actually do anything that would encourage people to come along and fill said areas?

Sad to see



A London fan told me yesterday the RFL have people at London to help with advertising etc is this true? if so what are they playing at

The last couple of times I went to the Stoop the ends were closed and the crowd was on either side.



I'm not sure the RFL are that bothered tbh. Why open up the ends and have stewarding etc arranged when people aren't going? Can't see a problem here, its a separate issues to why people aren't going to London games.

Hardly worth opening them for the small amount of London fans using them on Sunday. With no massive away support that the next two games bring why bother having them open

Yeah why bother opening the end terraces for standing, which away fans and home fans like. Force them all to sit at the side in one stand and reduce the amount of fans wanting to go and reduce the quality of the atmosphere. Great. At least it will save AK a few quid. Outstanding.

With crowds London are getting stands makes perfect sense. However if and its a big IF, they suddenly get a big rush of tickets sales will open them.

I suppose you'd feel the same if the Rhinos closed the south stand for CC games?

I still say Wales is our best opportunity to drag ourselves from our northern tag. A team in Wrexham and in the South of Wales should be long term goals. London simply doesn;t and won;t work without massive SL extra funding and the game can;'t afford it.

If expansion is to happen, it needs to happen with a plan.



-A proper schools & minis plan for 5 years beforehand



-Support for the development of an amateur scene in the area



-Exemptions to SC & overseas player rule for the first 5 years to make the team competitive & get the fans in.



-Stable locations - ideally as landlords not tenants.





London is definitely doable, but right now we need to be supporting Skolars & the development of amateur RL across the capital. Eventually, there should be a franchise in London - in one place, with one name, and staying that way.



In the meantime there are lots of promising avenues for expansion in the Midlands, South West & Wales.



Getting Sheffield, Nottingham, Bristol & Coventry into a place where they could launch a feasible SL bid, getting a second team in Greater Manchester and teams in South Wales should be the aim.

Do you mean a 7th team in Greater Manchester after Wigan, Salford, Leigh, Swinton, Rochdale and Oldham?

Wigan often close the North stand for the visit of certain clubs. Bradford, Catalans, London etc.

Meant actual Manchester.



After all, how many people are travelling out to Swinton or Leigh from Manchester itself?



Best bet would be to look at a merger between Rochdale & Oldham, brand up as 'Manchester' and take the East half of the city, with Salford taking the West.

the game can afford it.......the clubs wont stand for it and as a result, the game will continue to blossom along the M62 but will wither as a national entity.

Wigan shut the North Stand for some games. Presumably we're doomed to fail as a club also.

So do Hull KR. Although the stand we close isn't actually in the same postcode...

Actually if the Rhinos were only getting crowds like London are I would, because out of the four sides at Headingley, the southstand should be the last to close.

Errr, were Crusaders NOT that very club, they collapsed in a tenth of the time London have taken.



Besides, I repeat this information AGAIN.



At the birth of SL, there were TWO clubs in the SE.



There are now 33, plus over 200 schools teams (60 girls teams too), AND 8 University sides as I keep saying, it's not ALL doom and gloom down here, it just looks it from up there!!



Now if we were REALLY serious about expansion, we would gradually expand out from the heartlands. North Derbys, North Notts and North Lincs all already have strong amateur sides, then theres CUMBRIA, Cheshire etc. This should have begun in about 1895 or there abouts!

Right there are the cold, hard facts that a lot of Rugby League fans (particularly from up North) seem to overlook. They'd rather take one look at the London Broncos attendances and come to the quick conclusion that RL in London has failed.

We weren't and still aren't ready for Super League, that much is clear, it was pretty clear to most of us back when they "gifted" us a SLE berth, but we were silenced and have had to endure a ridiculously slow-motion train crash!



What upsets me most is the London Crusaders were competing at the top of the second tier and doing well and then..........................



Maybe if we had a better marketing and strategy team it may have been different, but we didn't and it isn't, BUT we will survive, always have and always will, there IS a small, but HARDCORE fanbase down here!

I accept that this discussion is about London (whatever that means .. city, area, SE as a whole) but I cannot fathom this quote:

"Best bet would be to look at a merger between Rochdale & Oldham, brand up as 'Manchester' and take the East half of the city, with Salford taking the West."

Why would Rochdale and Oldham merge? (I live in one and used to work and coach RL in the other: they do not get on at all.)

Why would a team called "Manchester" take the east half of Salford: Broughton and Pendleton would not be interested?barton is in the west of the Salford.

You realise that there are two cities in Greater Manchester (and probabbly three when Bolton's dreams come true!)

You cannot parachute RL into Manchester. You could get a successful club there but with the local impact of what has been achieved at Sheffield Eagles (and no discredit to them at all).



Personally I felt there were real prospects at Wrexham.



On the main thread, although I am an outsider looking at London, in my many years of following RL, I cannot grasp London Broncos/Fulham/etc as a concept. It feels like a rich man's toy and about as intrinsic to the game as a poodle in a fox hunt. Skolars look the real deal. Even if I lives in London, I could not support them as I do not know what I was supporting. I know what Fax, Salford, Rovers mean. They have the impact of the top shelf in a working class pub: you need it, you use it occasionally but it does not feature in why you go there.

P.S Apologies for the typos

and I am aware of the history of poodle dogs: a chosen example.

Well Hillbilly, what Skolars are now is about what the London Crusaders were (only we were the larger club, about twice as big as Skolars are now) then Brisbane Broncos took over, and SLE "gave" us a SLE place and well the credibility went clean out of the window.



It was then taken over by Branson, who quickly decided the bubble had burst and since then it's been a series of rich blokes bailing the club season after season whilst watching the crowds dwindle back to pretty much what they were when Brisbane took over.



That just about sums it up.