Magic XIII

How much do you reckon land costs in London plus stadium build ? If only we all had your hindsight.

Of course HS, but whilst calm and measured, the letter hardly reassures they have aces up the sleeve. I mean. lets be honest, they've either got a load of top notch players signed and hoping for the 12th place nod, but also have the plan B, a second set of players lined up if the juice man says no ! If these players were happy with either option, as say Craig K, then surely they would have been announced by now. I have been watching this crowd for too many years to think its going to be plain sailing. And add to that, I don't think we've had a Featherstone supporting commercial manager before

London does that but the best get cherry picked by the big clubs and the remainder, without class and experience around them won’t win us a GF

The fact we let Dixon go made a big statement to me, sort of took the wind out of my sails and made me reflect. I have literally no idea now.

Frankly I don't know where we go from here. I now have literally no idea why we would want to apply for the 12th team as whilst its laudable to promote academy players to the first team squad, I go to games to watch a competition. We now have only a handful of experienced players and as a collective we would struggle to be top 6 in Championship. Trouble is, no-one in the club is saying anything.

Therein lies the issue. No one cares because no-one even knows about it. Great work from Elstone in the marketing department. All the chat about the 12th club in the limited media and current fan base, frankly (and I am Broncos fan) does not compare to the national chat about SBW and Toronto and from sports fans country wide how crazy (in the amazing sense) the idea of Toronto playing in a European (sic) SL

As am I <fingers crossed mode>

Again, jumping to conclusions. You are aware of the 30 November date when contracts end. Has it not crossed your mind that they cant announce players signed ?

Sorry, I felt obliged to go back and read your tripe. You absolutely demolished us 7 months ago in the first few games of the season - well done. I always thought the season was a bit longer than 5 games. Several players have moved on that's is natural isn't, biggest loss Fozzard, Smith disappointing, the rest - whatever. I don't have any clue who else we have signed as replacements - you ? Promoted 5 lads from the Academy - that could be regarded as quite a positive thing, would you not agree ? Not having an academy, I guess you'd struggle to understand the concept. 70% of squad now from our Academy; whether they are good enough is a different questions, but it comes to something that crappy old London has a vibrant academy bringing new blood into the game of rugby league and all Featherstone can boast is their plot of land and top class hooligan element. Bravo !

Don't cry when we get in ! Space on the cap, no idea who we have signed, you are jumping to conclusions. The dads armies assembled at Featherstone and York are something to behold.

Like being relegated at the last game of the 2019 season having won more games than any other relegated team before, even the much vaunted Leigh Centurions; granted the team has changed but we deserve a chance at redemption !

He wavered after we were humped 70-0 by Goon in the CC semi at LSV - a performance and result that still give me nightmares. But other than that, rock steady. A stalwart.

If they play games at Trailfinders

Would there be a glass ceiling though for some clubs ? For example could Halifax, Leigh and Fev realistically regularly get 10k crowds at the end of the 5 year period ? Could either run an academy given their proximity to other 'bigger' clubs ? Same question for Bradford, Widnes, London and Toulouse, answers must be yes and yes.

Brilliant post. Building on it - hypothetically - if your club was given place 12 and you were exempt from relegation for 5 years, what would your club look like at the end of 5 years ?

I don't believe it is the name. It comes back to marketing and work in the community, the later taking time. Toronto were dropped into sports mad city and gained traction almost immediately. We have ended up in the Ealing area of London, and that doesn't strike me as sports mad, other than maybe soccer and union, but that's the landscape wherever you are in London. On a local level – the club need to make the product stand out from the crowd. It’s about the game day experience not just 80mins of rugby. The club are making inroads in schools and that is a good starting point. The club have helped set up the Pitshanger Panthers (Pitshanger is the area of Ealing !!) community club and through that will not only engage local youngsters but also, community teams from across the region will come to play them and if the Broncos had their wits about them, there is a captive market. That said, having persuaded them to host my junior side, they failed miserably on 2 or 3 occasions to take advantage of the opportunity to spread the word. On a more London based level – there are 1000s of people in London who have had some engagement with either the Broncos, or rugby league in UK or Down Under, or on the TV. Ealing (despite what a number of Broncos fans would tell you) is not that difficult to get to by public transport. They need a 'name' to market, someone that would get these blokes of their sofa and travel 50 miles to watch the team. Anecdotally, I sit in my local in Hertfordshire watching games with a few RL fans, and lots of locals will come over (pre Covid) and talk about the game and their knowledge of league is first class; two claimed to have been at the first Fulham game ! Once folk make that emotional attachment, that is half the battle. On a separate note. COVID is a horrible thing no doubt and it has impacted all sports at community level very badly. My local union club coaches are of the opinion there will be no rugby this season, so there will be lads crying out for contact and I suggest will turn to rugby league come April (assuming the same processes are in place as of late, fingers crossed). Broncos now need to be approaching community clubs and working out a recruitment (marketing) strategy and ensure that enough qualified coaches are in place to meet potential demand. Not least because there could be a whole school year (or two) lost to rugby league.

I didn't craft my response particularly well, granted. But my sentiment remains. Anyone who has a modicum of understanding of the trials and tribulations of London (some self inflicted and others as a result of prejudice and RFL traditionalism), and there are many, couldn't really conclude the 'project' is a failure. Today's Broncos package needs significant improvements, but like all other clubs in the frame, need the SL presence over a continued period of time, to enable further growth and development. I am not sure I advocate franchising, but cant see any other way of getting the stability needed. Additionally, as long as big clubs can cherry pick the best of the Broncos academy work then we will always be on the back foot.

Its pretty easy to trot out the same cobblers about London, 40 years this, a team full of Aussies that, small fan base, poor stadium blah, from folk who fail to think beyond the boundary of their town / village, of what life used to be like and hanker for those days; its hard to grasp the potential and yet difficulties that London bring. I would only judge London on the Super League era, before that it was ad hoc at best. Moved far too many times to create any genuine roots - agreed Above point results in disenfanchisement from supporters, (equivalent to Fev relocating to Manchester), The Valley, Griffin Park, Stoop, Orient FC (all very good stadiums), The Hive (not that bad) and now Trailfinders (sneaks into SL but far from acceptable). Think of the Stoop days over 10,000 regularly. That's not too bad, so demonstrates with correct marketing and a decent team bums can be put on seats. From a club with a team full of Aussies, to a club with successful Scholarship programme, Academy, reserves this year and first team squad over 70% London lads. And think of the stars floating round SL McMeeken, Davis, Sarginson, Bienek, soon to be Butler, LMS, Clubb, etc. Genuine World class players have played for the Broncos in this time, Internationals, SOO players, McLinden, Hill, Dymock, Hetherington, Young, Carroll, Soward, Gower, Kaufusi, Offiah, Edwards, so can attract (or could attract big names), great city. A true great supporting the club with his own money for years, a gentlemen who loves London and loves RL. Not a bad playing squad now. Needs to be improved. But remember no one gave us a sniff last year and we won 10 games. Not even Leigh did that ! We might get up, we might not, but I just wish the broken record could be turned off.

Not yet, but to be fair we always do things in a considered way rather than shouting our gobs off.

Correction - Academy Lancs v Yorsk (or am I dreaming this up??)

St Albans born to be specific - I knew my adopted home would one day produce an international RL player !

No more daft than a 24 team Championship

London players qualify for Lancashire at Origin level, so guess we are West. Swap with Keighley !

Want talking about London. We know they are currently inept at marketing themselves.

What’s your definition of huge. Mine is say 10000/15000. I suspect yours is 500