keighley

+1

You mean like the 73,631 world record attendance at Wembley in 1992.

There is no relegation, they are not in with any chance of making the playoffs so the league points are meaningless. They have, however, saved themselves 5,000 pounds.

Hemel have had two articles on them in the national press in the Independent in Feb 2012 and in the Guardian on mar 2, 2013. This is for a team that was not a member of CC1 even until the beginning of this season. They have also had mentions on the BBC sport website and have had local articles re the re development of their Pennine way ground. The Broncos, despite being a current and past SL club, have had very little press coverage. I can find an article in 2012 in the Mirror in regards to Gower joining them and a BBC website mention re their playing at the Stoop. they also have had two match reports in the Guardian this year, one the extremely positive fact that they managed to lose to wigan 64 to 6. good press that one. This was a brief google search by me and there may be other reports for both teams so don't treat it as the gold standard on the subject.

here's some more the. If Broncos get relegated ( than should probably be a "when") If Hughes's financial support disappears for whatever reason and there are a couple of scenarios If they don't improve their crowds A couple more and they will be in CC1 playing Gloucester for the wooden spoon.

Oh, i agree with you they are at the very start of their odyssey as a pro/semi pro RL club. I don't know the scope of their ambitions either, but the fact that they are here at all is a positive for the game. There ceratinly seems to be a more positive vibe coming from this club than from the Broncos.

You just have a vituperative hatred for ambitious underdogs. Any hint of ambtion or progress from a small team sets you off like a rabid dog. Long term, if Hemel continue to upgrade their ground (at least they have one viz a viz the Broncos who shortly will not ) and if they continue to churn out players from their local area and if they get into the Championship via p and r then they will be at the same level as the Broncos when they get relegated. Let the chips fall and we will see which direction each of these teams takes. Your sarcastic last sentence might come back to haunt you 15 years from now.

Interesting. I'll bet they have never had this kind of press coverage for this season's SL games.

No, i never said that. However they got national exposure and i'll bet more watched them that day than watched their last televised home SL game.

Well, the remedy is for them not to get relegated then. However, looking at their current stellar SL incarnation, I don't think they are more than a blip on the radar of sport in London now and are ignored by the media. They will get more press if they fold or are relegated than they curently do holding down a perrenial bottom four spot in SL. For instance, havn't Hemel had some decent media coverage stemming from their elevation to CC1 whereas the Broncos have had what national coverage from their SL season.

l It used to be a double header with the st div/SL final so the viewing figures would have been quite decent. How many of London s home games do Sky show. If it s more than one or two I ll be amazed and theyt are always on a Saturday with the lowesr viewing figures of the Sky coverage.

I will be able to hear the howls of mprotest emanating from Wigan in the farthest corners of the earth if you did any such thing. The track record so far suggests that even if you did, London would still struggle remember Branson and Marantra. How did those investor supports work out in making London the success you think it will become if once again they get more funding.t

They played in the 2nd division premiership final at Old Trafford in front of Tv cameras. This was more publicity than they get playing once a season on Sky as an also ran SL outfit.

That's not true. if p and r is reintroduced, all they would need is money. if they had money they could retain local players, sign others and buy their way back to the top. If they can't find investors in a rich cashed up megapolis like London either in the Championship or SL, then why are they still playing.? If Fev can find money in the smallest twon in the league, are you saying lLondon cannot. They did before when they were not in SL, remember the Closes ?

1. i don't know about soccer, too much of a wendy game for me. I do know I joinde an amateur RL team in Keighley at the age of 15 and i did so because me and all my mates used to play endless touch rugby in the local park and fancied a go at the real thing. We had been mates for years and I know it was not the lure of a pro career in RL that precipitated that. There were about twnety of us and two did become pro with Keighley. The remaindcer went on the various professional and labouring jobs and going pro never was part of the lure. Where I am located now is 3,000 miles from any pro Rl or pro RU team but hordes of kids are joining junior RU programmes, from deprived families to kids of the eilte and it is not the lure of a professional rugby career which is driving them. Buying a replica jersey of your favourite team does not corellate with a desire to play professionally. Kids are not stupid. most of them are aware of their abilities from an early age and the pursuit of a pro career does not come into the equation until their skill levels suggest that it might be an option. 2. This is a chicken and egg situation. In other words did Leeds, Wigan et al cause the junior leagues to Be strong or did the presence of strong junior leagues from the dawn of the game in those areas aid in the senior club beoming a power. The fact that many many professionals from Cumbria, Dewsbury/Batley, Leigh and lately the midlands, the north east Wales and London without there being SL clubs in the area, wouls suggest that the latter scenario is the correct hypothesis. 3. yes we need more pro players from all areas including outside the M62 and the evidence is that slowly they are emerging thanks to the growth of the amateur game and not due to the presence of a SL club in the area. i am not suggesting that A SL club in the areas cannot be a catylist to growth but i am suggesting that it is not a necessity and certainly not a reason to ring fence the failing SL club that are the Broncos 4.London have been a professional RL club since 1980, That's 33 years. Why have they only recently started producing local players.? I'll tell you why. It's because there was no decent amateur presence until the last te years or so. Its the growth of amateur clubs which produces the plares nit the presebce of a senior club. 5. Are you sure that, pound for pound, London produces many more pro plares than Leigh. there have been many many top class pro players from the Leigh rangers/Miners/ East clubs. an absolutely prolific reservoir of talent. i am sure any leigh based posters can corroborate such claims. with names. Right now, Leigh are one investor from being a better SL bet than London. I'm not saying that London dosn't have potential to be bigger, but right now they are a disaster.

I think any investor would be seriously put off by the lack of a ground and the long downward trend of attendances. i do hope i am wrong. A strong Broncos would be great for the game but the trend is of a seriously long term decline. Despite the downward trend in attendances this season, I think the heartlands are still reasonably strong, stronger than London at any rate. Catalans are an expansionary area for SL, despite having a previous history in the game, and they are going in exactlt the opposire direction to the Broncos. Sheffield. another expansion area, also are making encouraging progress and, if the new stadium comes off, and they get to SL, their crowds will soon equal those of the Broncos. They are only about 900 off the pace playing in the Championship.

Is this due to the Broncos efforts or is it due to the great advances in amateur and youth Rugby from the london amateur clubs producing many more players and Boncos have benefitted from that and reaped the rewards. If London are better now at producing players due to this, they are failing on other fronts, i.e. their playing record is abysmal, their crowds are abysmal and their ground situation is precarious whereas before they once averaged around 5,000, beat an Australian team on the WCC, came second in the league and got to the Cup Final and they were playing at Charlton which seemed to be a better draw for the spectators than The Stoop. On balance i would say they have regressed more than progressed. Let's hope they start to turn the corner and, at least, get to the Cup semi finals this season but I think there might be a banana peel lying in their path at Sheffield.

You always make the assumption that kids take up RL with a view to turning it into a professional career. i think nothing can be farther from the truth. I think kids take up RL because they want to try it and then keep playing because they like it. The vast majority will never be either pro or semi pro. This is true anywhere amateur RL is played from Cumbria to London.The ones who do become good enough will , in the case of London, turn semi pro with the Broncos or the Skolars or Hemel and, if they become stars at that level, will move to SL clubs as countless Cumbrian youngsters have done. A select few will be so good that they will come to the attention of SL clubs early and will move away to join the junior programmes at the SL clubs directly, as, again, youngsters have done from Cumbria. I think you correlate the impressive amateur and junior development of RL in the South and in London with the existence of the Broncos as a SL team and I, personally, don't think they are connected. i have mentioned this before but where is the amateur game strongest in London, Brixton, South of the river near Greenwich. in the Gillingham area. Near the skolars in Haringay. Why is is not dominant in Richmond and Twickenham and Brenftord on the doorstep of the Broncos ? According to your theories that is where the strength of the amateur game in London should be fostered by the allure of the SL Broncos in the area. I don't think this theory holds water. The junior/amateur game is similarly making prgress in Wales and the North east and the Midlands with nary a whiff of a SL club on the horizon. The added option, hopefully, in the future, will that the Broncos will be psuhing for readmission to SL via promotion and will keep some of these stars on the premise that they can get to the top level by helping the club get promoted. To summarise, I think junior RL will continue to thrive in London irregardless of the professional level of the Broncos and talented youngsters will still be able to gravitate to the higher levels if the game. This has been the case in Cumbria for the last twenty years since Workington were the last SL club in the area. Why should the same scenario not be applicable to London.

Looking at the present status of the Broncos and taking on board all the factors you quote in paragraph one of your post. I think the club has not moved forward at all since those days, except that they have Hughes on board. How are they any better now than they were at the start of the SL when they were artificially spooned into the competiton.? They have regressed since then, not progressed Once Hughes has gone i do not see anyone stepping forward to replace him. The other rescued clubs had a lot more going for them than the Broncos and they were all plucked from the fire at the last moment. If no investor steps forward, then the only alternative will be to play in the lower divisions, so the Broncos had better start a business plan for such an eventuality./

Firstly, it's my impression that most youngsters playing in both London and Cumbria are RL players from the get go and not union players so they will not be switching " back" to union and many of them, especially the forwards would not easily adapt to union. The distances between Hunslet and Leeds are so small that there would be no need for such players to move away from home. that's a nonsensical comparison.

1. They will so under p and r. 2. It's exactly the same situation. You have to leave Cumbria if you want to play SL and, if Boncos are relegated, you will have to leave London to do so.

I would hope that any Championship level London based clubs, including the Broncos if they ended up there, would be able to pitch to their local players the chance to play in SL with them, given the probable re introduction of promotion in some form with the new plans being debated and voted on by the clubs and thus not lose them to the game. I agree that to lose players to RU would be a terrible thing but the loss of top flight clubs in Cumbria does not seem to have resulted in mass defections to RU, so maybe that would not be the case in London either..

Just so you know there are no teams curremtly averaging above 15,000 pit tea, big city team or red wine conoiseurs. However, on a one off basis each can fill stadium for a cup final .

You are absolutely right and I was a very enthusiastic supporter of the original Fulham club when they burst on the scene and beat Wigan before 10,000 in their first 2nd division match. But they have never kicked on from that and, for the last decade, have been a poor imitation of a SL club, an embarassment when on TV both from their playing standards and the masses of empty seats on view. At this stage, they are not worth a SL place ahead of the other clubs mentioned. They have a chance to redeem themselves in the CUp and get to the semi finals but Sheffield might just riun that dream as they are an up and coming team and the Broncos are dire. What have they given up in their last couple of games, 100 ppoints or so.?

And maybe no avenue to the top is partly responsible for such a state of affairs. But you miss the point. The point I was making is that 50 or more years ago these clubs were the top dogs but things changed. A cast in stone, unchanging SL will have teams in it that are on their way down to the levels of the Swinton's and Workington's but ring fencing will keep them slowly fading in the top tier and prevent any newly vibrant clubs from replacing them. Why on earth should the Broncos be kept in SL at the expense of Fax or Fev or Toulouse ? Look at Huddersfield pre Davy, rotting stadium, crowds in the hundreds and in what is now CC1. If Davy was just taking charge of a Huddersfield in that state now, we would never see them in SL and maybe looking at a double and providing England with numerous international players, Look at Hull KR, same thing. Crowds in the low 1000's, decrepit stadium. In CC1. Now they are in SL, crowds in the 7,000 range, totally revamped stadium. yes they are losing money like most of the rest of SL but look how far they have progressed. If the SL was ring fenced they would not have been there. These new proposals will give lower level teams who are making serious progress a chance of making the top tier and replacing failing clubs who are already there. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. The creation of a larger number of stable teams and an avenue for them to progress and replace stagnant, moribund teams from the top division is a good thing. Don't give me the "Promotion has never worked guff either ". For Huddersfield, Wakefield, Hull KR, Salford and Castleford, it has worked just fine. Even Wigan maybe.