Will the last person leaving London RL please turn the light out

[Sports Prophet]

In 2006, the RFL secured its highest ever investment into community coaching programmes when a bid led by the London and South East office were approved in the millions.

This funding was the precursor to the landmark £30m awarded to the RFL by Sport England, off the back of the achievements of that first grant and the results achieved in London and the South East.

By 2008, London was the second largest region in the UK for junior registrations. London based high school teams were competing in semi finals of national schools competitions. The London Junior and Minis League had divisions from U6 - U18. The London Origin programme was pinned as best practice against old service area style performance programmes. London and the South East employed 21 full time staff including regional SL managers, coaching development staff, development officers as well as additional part time staff in the dozens. 

By 2012, there were 5,000 participants in East London alone, registered predominantly through schools and club programmes.

By 2018, all of that had vanished and the staff structure was a skeleton of its former glory. The RFL, with no vision, budget or plan to fund development of the sport in the UKs most populous and wealthy market beyond externally secured funding streams.

Dan Steel, the man who headed up the sport in London and the South East for over ten years leaves the sport and leaves the region with just one FT staff member left to deliver participation growth in colleges and universities.

It is a very sad time for the sport. What had so much future ahead under the stewardship of Richard Lewis, within 10 years has seen the sport in London completely dismantled and back at its primitive worst.

If that doesn’t rip your heart in two, then I fear there is no League in your blood.

 

[LeeF]

Development Officers are key to the game's growth everywhere not just in London

Unfirtunately it seems that some just don't understand that 

[Ant]

Richard Lewis was the best thing to happen to the game in 100 years 

What's happened after he left just serves to underline that

[Pyjamarama]

Development officers just had to go. How else was Nigel Wood going to fund his £320K severance package?

[Tommygilf]

London is an absolute potential goldmine for the game and the figures above support that. Much more must be done and they would be my primary area of focus in England.

[iangidds]

1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:

In 2006, the RFL secured its highest ever investment into community coaching programmes when a bid led by the London and South East office were approved in the millions.

This funding was the precursor to the landmark £30m awarded to the RFL by Sport England, off the back of the achievements of that first grant and the results achieved in London and the South East.

By 2008, London was the second largest region in the UK for junior registrations. London based high school teams were competing in semi finals of national schools competitions. The London Junior and Minis League had divisions from U6 - U18. The London Origin programme was pinned as best practice against old service area style performance programmes. London and the South East employed 21 full time staff including regional SL managers, coaching development staff, development officers as well as additional part time staff in the dozens. 

By 2012, there were 5,000 participants in East London alone, registered predominantly through schools and club programmes.

By 2018, all of that had vanished and the staff structure was a skeleton of its former glory. The RFL, with no vision, budget or plan to fund development of the sport in the UKs most populous and wealthy market beyond externally secured funding streams.

Dan Steel, the man who headed up the sport in London and the South East for over ten years leaves the sport and leaves the region with just one FT staff member left to deliver participation growth in colleges and universities.

It is a very sad time for the sport. What had so much future ahead under the stewardship of Richard Lewis, within 10 years has seen the sport in London completely dismantled and back at its primitive worst.

If that doesn’t rip your heart in two, then I fear there is no League in your blood.

 

Wow what an absolute disgrace, I’m sorry but how can people hold their heads up after this?? The game has gone down the pan with people appearing to put their personal gain in front of the games needs. You have to look at the man and his team who oversaw this unfolding disaster , He gets rewarded with a huge payoff and another highly paid job whilst the RFL is probably not far off bankrupt.

[17 stone giant]

So, what caused the apparent progress that was being made, to stop?

 

[iangidds]

Is there enough of us to really care to force through change or is that just what the SLE are doing? The RFL run many key aspects of our game and we can all see where we are heading.

[iangidds]

1 minute ago, 17 stone giant said:

So, what caused the apparent progress that was being made, to stop?

 

Without knowing the ins and outs it certainly feels like miss management on a monumental scale to destroy all that good work in your tenure as the CEO of the RFL

[iangidds]

It would be wonderful to hear Roger Drapers view on life at the RFL and Richard Lewis too

[Number 16]

SP hits the nail flush on its head. Without a serious financial commitment to development it's nigh on impossible to see even a brake put on this decline, nevermind a reversal. Ironically, this month's RLW features a fantasy London team which highlights some of the talent produced in and around the capital in recent years (but which excludes plenty more, such as the Worrincys, the Griffins, Krasniqi, Cook, Bienek and others). 

The Broncos are doing remarkably well with their youth programme considering the lack of clubs, but one wonders how long it can continue. Without a serious rethink by the RFL, and a long term commitment to funding, then the decline will continue.

IMO, there are two ways help should be provided. The first is to fund Development Officers, and the second is to aid clubs in finding permanent homes. If a club has a ground of its own it should be better able to sink roots locally and properly plan for future development and growth. 

Even a network of just a dozen well established clubs in and around London could really take our sport forward. All with a DO to support their activities. 

Nice to dream.

[17 stone giant]

13 minutes ago, iangidds said:

Without knowing the ins and outs it certainly feels like miss management on a monumental scale to destroy all that good work in your tenure as the CEO of the RFL

That seems a bit too simplistic an explanation for my liking. I mean, if something is working, you don't even need to make any changes. Just leave it to keep doing what it is doing. I know that the RFL aren't always competent, but I'm suspicious that they can be that bad.

I guess I'm wondering if maybe once the money from Sport England ran out, that it wasn't then financially possible to continue funding things. I have no knowledge of what was going on, hence the reason why I asked - but just as a general observation, it's easy to make progress if you're bankrolling it with money from elsewhere. It's whether you can get it to a point that it can stand on its own two feet, so to speak.

 

[Number 16]

Yes, funding was cut so the Development Officer roles were junked.

From memory (can anyone confirm?), Sport England's funding went down from £29m over five years to about £19m, and if so, why were pretty much all roles done away with, instead of a reduction of a third. 

[ckn]

2 minutes ago, Number 16 said:

Yes, funding was cut so the Development Officer roles were junked.

From memory (can anyone confirm?), Sport England's funding went down from £29m over five years to about £19m, and if so, why were pretty much all roles done away with, instead of a reduction of a third. 

From my memory, it was dev officers first THEN Sport England reduction because Sport England targets require national development.  If I remember, there were many people saying this would happen but were dismissed as fearmongers.  Idiots.

[Ant]

Are the RFL in charge of Brexit?

[Number 16]

1 hour ago, ckn said:

From my memory, it was dev officers first THEN Sport England reduction because Sport England targets require national development.  If I remember, there were many people saying this would happen but were dismissed as fearmongers.  Idiots.

 

1 hour ago, Johnoco said:

I think you're right. Pretty sure it was the cuts in development officers that led to a failure in national development participation figures, hence funding withdrawn.

If I had known that, then I've forgotten it! Old news now so pointless raking over old coals. Interesting to note, though, that it occurred under Rimmer's watch as Chief Operating Officer. 

 

[Dave T]

Does anybody have stats that show the correlation to participation and presences of development officers?

[Lowdesert]

3 hours ago, ckn said:

From my memory, it was dev officers first THEN Sport England reduction because Sport England targets require national development.  If I remember, there were many people saying this would happen but were dismissed as fearmongers.  Idiots.

It was.  RL Dev Officers - Sports Dev Officers - lesser Sports Dev Officers.

Given the amount of schools available who are open to outside sporting interest in London, imo it is not so difficult.  Not sure what LB do, or what their stats are getting kids into their club, but the shear numbers and possibility might be more than they can budget to cover.  That could be one of the problems.

Not saying that his was the perfect template, but Ian Harris in Hull had heaps of schools playing in tournaments at all age groups.  Many of whom had never played RL.  Both Hull clubs failed to pick up on this and are left with their own systems now, which aren’t as good.  

It takes dedicated people to do this job.  People who get a buzz out of kids playing the game and progressing, not just as a day job.  They’re in the minority now.

 

[Northern Eel]

What a great ambassador Dan Steel has been for the game in London and the South East. This is a very dangerous time for the RFL. There are many good people working down there and some tremendous success stories. If the RFL don't have a positive plan for the region, that is an absolute disgrace.

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

Does anybody have stats that show the correlation to participation and presences of development officers?

A good question, but we also need to understand what/how 'participation' measures were made. Whilst it might be true to suggest participation overall has quickly declined, one has to question whether participation was a one off for many in the boom times.

Also, playing devil's advocate, to what extent were all the KPIs set by Sport England Funding met at any time? Were the DOs all value for money and did their work plant sustainability rather than just provide exposure to the game?

[Just Browny]

1 hour ago, Northern Eel said:

What a great ambassador Dan Steel has been for the game in London and the South East.

Yes, I would like to second that. Met him a few times - top bloke.

What a depressing thread.

[Northern Eel]

59 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

I don't know about KPI's or any of that but what I do know is that when the game was more available to more southern players, the number of southern players making it to the top flight increased significantly.

I'm sure there's a connection in there.

That's a very fair point.

Not all clubs had access to DOs yet they also manage(d) to provide players for professional pathways and continue to do so. It's not a totally lost cause, but it is damning on the sport that we are having to consider the topic in the first place.

[EastLondonMike]

Just as an aside, Dan Steel is still very much involved in the game down here, running the London RL Foundation, who still play a major role in junior rugby in London. And echo the comments regarding Dan. A quality bloke. 

Sadly there was never 5000 participants playing RL in East London in 2012. I wish there would have been.

The abandonment of London and the south east by the RFL is disgraceful.

[Magic XIII]

6 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

That seems a bit too simplistic an explanation for my liking. I mean, if something is working, you don't even need to make any changes. Just leave it to keep doing what it is doing. I know that the RFL aren't always competent, but I'm suspicious that they can be that bad.

I guess I'm wondering if maybe once the money from Sport England ran out, that it wasn't then financially possible to continue funding things. I have no knowledge of what was going on, hence the reason why I asked - but just as a general observation, it's easy to make progress if you're bankrolling it with money from elsewhere. It's whether you can get it to a point that it can stand on its own two feet, so to speak.

 

The duration of the funding / involvement of DO needed to run for a few more years to ensure that organic growth would have been guaranteed. That, and closer management from the RFL on each DO KPIs.

[Davo5]

28 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

Just as an aside, Dan Steel is still very much involved in the game down here, running the London RL Foundation, who still play a major role in junior rugby in London. And echo the comments regarding Dan. A quality bloke. 

Sadly there was never 5000 participants playing RL in London in 2012. I wish there would have been.

The abandonment of London and the south east by the RFL is disgraceful.

Not to dissimilar to Cumbria 

[Northern Eel]

36 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

Just as an aside, Dan Steel is still very much involved in the game down here, running the London RL Foundation, who still play a major role in junior rugby in London. And echo the comments regarding Dan. A quality bloke. 

Sadly there was never 5000 participants playing RL in London in 2012. I wish there would have been.

The abandonment of London and the south east by the RFL is disgraceful.

Until the end of September, yes.