Hemel Rugby League

Any ideas on who the London Broncos Development Manager is and what his role is. Nothing on the Broncos website

What a wonderful thread this has become. It has brought back memories of many of Hemel's opponents of old since 1981. And there were some memorable BARLA National Cup days amongst them Fulham was the catalyst for the expansion of the sport - both professional and community - in the 80's although the amateurs made a better show of it. The RFU restrictions in place in the 80's and early 90's had no negative impact. Most RFU clubs knew their players were ignoring the restrictions and playing League on Sundays during winter. RFU grounds were not available, though, but there were some memorable alternative venues. When RU went open in 1995 the Rugby League Conference continued with the expansion of community RL but this time it was with the support of RFU community clubs. All was relatively!well until Covid changed grassroots sporting habits. Today, RFU community clubs struggle to put out two teams and this leaves a considerable smaller pool of rugby players who want to play both codes meaning the RL footprint is now quite faint.

There's a long history of London and the South East producing skilled RL players and can continue to do so in the future. But there's a few things that need to be urgently addressed by actions and not just fine words and sound bites. 1. A re-establishment of the Skolarship & Academy programme that was fully funded by David Hughes for so many years. 2. If the sport wants to attract good, young athletes to it, it needs to offer them more than a 6-8 match playing season if the sport wants those athletes to make RL their first choice sport. 3. The region is down to just 7 community clubs fielding junior teams - not all at every age group. We need to arrest the decline in clubs and a good starting point would be North London which contains 50% of London's population and where there is not a single community club offering junior rugby league.

The crosses on the kit have little connection to London apart from being used around the time of the Crusades. They are known as a Bolnisi cross and in heraldic terms they form part of the national flag of Georgia .

1962 Australia v Gt Britain Third Test SCG

Hemel Stags played against Bramley at McClaren Field in our Rugby League Alliance days in the 90's and also had some stirring encounters in NL3. We wish them the best of wishes for the future.

It should also be mentioned that the Sport England funding for Hemel Stags has come with the assistance of very significant pro-active support of the the RFL.

Pennine Way was basically a greenfield site when the rugby league club arrived there in 1981. The existing clubhouse, changing rooms, grandstand, floodlighting, 7-a-side 4G pitch, fencing, car park and soon to be installed new pitch were put there and paid for by the RL club via a combination of brewery loans; commercial activities and, more recently, grants via the support of the RFL ( 50% of the new changing rooms cost from the World Cup Legacy Fund, and now the recent Grasspitch Multisports pitch). The local authority has provided the club with a long term lease on the land since 1984 which has given the club security of tenure to make the significant improvements to the site. The initial peppercorn rent on the lease of the land was changed to a commercial rent in 2010 when the club made £350,000 worth of improvements to the site which included paying £32,000 to the Council under a S106 planning agreement.

The first chapter in the guide would be very short but the most important one - 'Where will you Play' When Hemel started in 1981 the local Council offered them the choice of 2 pitches: One was the overflow pitch for the local ru club and offered potential access to that club's facilities and playing resources. The other was on the other side of town and was actually a 130m long hurling pitch with 'H' shaped posts on it and little else apart from some dodgy changing rooms. Hemel rugby league chose that pitch as they wanted to be as far away as possible from the local rugby union club. Today that site is known as the Pennine Way Sports Stadium and is controlled by the rugby league club.

The pitch funding project was almost three years in the making and the club held off from sorting out the grandstand issues until the ground funding was resolved. The grandstand came from the 2012 Olympics (it was used at Earls Court for the indoor volleyball) and while of the highest quality the decking is wooden and it all needs replacing at significant cost. While the original purpose of the grandstand was to accommodate League 1 etc crowds, the club recognises that having such a facility makes Pennine Way a more welcoming environment for community rugby league.

When we talk of pathways in London producing players we cannot ignore the impact of the clubs in the London Junior League who have been so successful in producing players for Broncos Scholarship & Academy teams over the past 20 or so years. An audit of the London Junior League shows that there are now just 7 clubs, not all fielding teams at all age groups, with 4 in the 'Shires' - Eastern Rhinos, Brentwood, St Albans , Hemel and 3 in London , Brixton, Bromley & Elmbridge. All 3 are South of the River Thames with not a single Junior team operating north of the Thames. What will the 5 Year plan do to ensure that these clubs don't go the same way as the lost junior clubs of Greenwich Admirals, Medway Dragons, Invicta Panthers, London Skolars, North Herts Crusaders, Richmond, Newham Dockers, etc, etc? And equally important, how will the 5 Year Plan create new clubs and sustain them,?

Everything is going quite well at Hemel at all levels. The club's senior squad is being rebuilt around the club's successful juniors programme. For the past two seasons, every single player has come through the club's well established junior programme. The average age of the players have been less than 20 years Everyone at the Stags - players, coaches, administrators, supporters - know the SCL is their destination but only when the players are ready for that standard. E

And I've eaten often at Au P'###### Kir on the Canal du Centre in Burgundy, which they rated as the best canalside restaurant on their journey South. But no pie 'n petit pois on the menu

Should Carcassonne join League 1, this might be an option: https://images.app.goo.gl/GEn45j7imET3fNnD7

Been going 44 years at the same site - Pennine Way - and next month sees the 40th anniversary of the opening of its first modest social club by Barla's Maurice Oldroyd which was the first step in building the now Pennine Way Sports Stadium.