London Broncos Matchday Experience in 2023

[Ragingbull]

Am i misunderstanding something here.

Are London saying that by moving fans from the main stand to the stand opposite that they think it will entice more people to go watch the games? 

"If we move them, they will come" 

I went down for both our league and cup games last year.   My observations as an away fan were thats its a decent enough facility, very much ikea flat pack but decent all the same. Like anywhere there just arent enough people in the ground to great any sort of atmosphere at all so you very much get that empty tin can feel. 

Main issue for me is the location. Its an absolute swine to get to compared to the relative ease of previous venues like Ealing and Barnet (barnet is by far my favourite venue that london have called home).  I know that it put off quite a few people who didnt bother going to the second game because it was a ball ache to get to (granted our short comings on the field will also have been a factor). 

Obviously i dont know the ins and outs of what goes on down there but how the manage to run the club on 4/500 is beyoned me. Contantly moving every few years is going to impact you home fans but moving to a venue that makes it MORE difficult for travelling fans to get just compound the issue in my view. An extra 50 /100 fans ever other week makes a difference when your only pulling in a few hundred to start with. 

Edit: didnt mean this to come across as an anti London post. Id love to see them doing well and pulling in bigger numbers and wish them every success in doing so 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Ragingbull

[Angelic Cynic]

33 minutes ago, NW10LDN said:

I don't have time for London or clubs from the North which offer nothing to the sport.

Could you supply details of what,in your opinion,could be considered as offering something to the sport? Or what needs to be done so not to be considered tinpot?

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Ragingbull said:

Am i misunderstanding something here.

Are London saying that by moving fans from the main stand to the stand opposite that they thik it will entice more people to go watch the games? 

"If we move them, they will come" 

I went down for both our leage and cup games last year.   My observstions were thats its a decent enough facility, very much ikea flat pack but decent all the same. Like anywhere there just arent enough people in the ground to great any sort of atmosphere at all so you very much get that empty tin can feel. 

Main issue for me is the location. Its an absolute swine to get to compared to the relative ease of previous venues like Ealing and Barnet (barnet is by far my favourite venue that london have called home).  I know that it put off quite a few people who didnt bother going to the second game because it was a ball ache to get to (granted our short comings on the field will also have been a factor). 

Obviiosly i dont know the ins and outs of what goes on down there but how the manage to run the club on 4/500 is beyoned me. Contantly moving every few years is going to impact ypu home fans but moving to a venue that makes it MORE difficult for travelling fans to get just compound the issue in my view. An extra 50 /100 fans ever other week makes a difference when your only pulling in a few hundred to start with

The club is actually far easier to get to that either Ealing or Barnet imho. Both were in the middle of nowhere relatively.

Although I am not looking at it from the view coming from the North - which i think you are. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hemi4561 said:

The obvious tinpot club that has been protected since the early nineties is London xxxx (insert moniker). Abject failures.

Pay £20 to get in, and £20 for an "artisan burger" and a pint of "artisan real ale". No Way..

I go to watch Rugby league, give me a bacon bap and a cup of tea for £3 and I won't feel ripped off, and I might go back on the same day for another.

Are you a leigh fan?

[DI Keith Fowler]

3 minutes ago, Leonard said:

The club is actually far easier to get to that either Ealing or Barnet imho. Both were in the middle of nowhere relatively.

Although I am not looking at it from the view coming from the North - which i think you are. 

It would have been significantly easier for me to get to from where I was living in London. Ealing was a daunting journey. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

It would have been significantly easier for me to get to from where I was living in London. Ealing was a daunting journey. 

The problem with lLondon, outside of a pitch in Trafalgar Square, is that no location will suit everyone and every location will likely alienate someone.

For me, Wimbledon is far better than Ealing on all levels.

No plastic pitch for starters.

[crashmon]

1 hour ago, Hemi4561 said:

The obvious tinpot club that has been protected since the early nineties is London xxxx (insert moniker). Abject failures.

Pay £20 to get in, and £20 for an "artisan burger" and a pint of "artisan real ale". No Way..

I go to watch Rugby league, give me a bacon bap and a cup of tea for £3 and I won't feel ripped off, and I might go back on the same day for another.

Are you still living in the 1980's ?

its not the fault of london broncos or rugby league clubs in london that my small 2 bed house is worth circa 400K on the market right now, and that I could probably buy 3 similar sized houses in north for the same price, or something like a 5 bed detached with Land. Blame the tories or Labour (Blair years) for that.

prices in the south are 2 to 3 times the north.  This has nothing to do with Rugby League and everything to do with the fact that all the money is in the south.

I come from north west, and some of my friends who still live up there think 30K a year is a livable wage. 30K a year around where I live you would not be able to rent a garden shed, let alone a studio flat.

Do I like it not at all its harder living down here than in the north where cost of living is so much lower.  I'd love prices down here to be like places in yorkshire or Lancs, but blaming the broncos for it is small minded, and is why RL is dying in this country.

the tin pot is living within 20 miles of M62 all your life and thinking that everywhere else is the same.

Edited December 11, 2022 by crashmon

[Stuff Smith]

2 hours ago, Hemi4561 said:

The obvious tinpot club that has been protected since the early nineties is London xxxx (insert moniker). Abject failures.

London Broncos?

Tinpot? Yes!

Abject failures? Yes!

Protected? No.

[Hemi4561]

1 minute ago, Stuff Smith said:

London Broncos?

Tinpot? Yes!

Abject failures? Yes!

Protected? No.

I accept your take,even though their initial entry into the top division was protectionism, not equality or ranking based. Let's see what IMG's future holds.

[Stuff Smith]

Just now, Hemi4561 said:

I accept your take,even though their initial entry into the top division was protectionism, not equality or ranking based. Let's see what IMG's future holds.

And that's an absolutely fair point about our entry into the top division.

In my opinion, other—more established—clubs have had a few more favours from the hierarchy since though.

[Hemi4561]

7 hours ago, Angelic Cynic said:

At least make an effort to get your facts right before your ad hominem.

The statement from London Broncos names IMG.

I do not have any vested interest.The club I have pride,and a huge amount of good fortune,at last,to

follow,were treated disgracefully by the RFL long before Elstone,or IMG,or any other ' saviour of the sport 'was imagined.or reimagined. 

I care not one jot which club ' is protected ' - my interest is really the players on the pitch.I have no interest in the 'elite',the Category A club(s) run in such a manner as the loss making,world renowned,Wigan Warriors,or similar.

Oh,and fan engagement, of course,wins a vote from me. 

Providing for alcoholics,or having games at soccer stadia because they provide exquisite hospitality, doesn't appeal to me,or seemingly the missing crowds,as my interest is in the sporting contest of fit athletes.

I may even get round to learning all the rules and interpretations for the sport,for the season ahead as I have let it lapse over recent seasons.

I have huge respect for London Broncos followers.They haven't had it easy in recent years.

Is the club to which you refer the one that was so royally shafted by an odious bookie from Wigan, who even now he is dead seems to be venerated as a  Saint.

I seem to remember a certain journalist in a esteemed RL publication implying that as the bookie was dead that he, and by extension we, should forgive and forget and not ask hard questions,not in the journalists case perhaps discuss some of the misgivings he may have had.

[Hemi4561]

6 minutes ago, Stuff Smith said:

And that's an absolutely fair point about our entry into the top division.

In my opinion, other—more established—clubs have had a few more favours from the hierarchy since though.

I don't disagree, however my club has never benefited from the hierarchies benevolence,far from it.

[Londonbornirishbred]

My 2peneth.

London Broncos, under their current ownership model of 15 year have routinely and systematically ignored (at best) their fans to the extent where they are now 3,000 shy of where they were when Hughes took outright control. This is £60,000 a game in ticket revenue, not to mention losses in the shop and other residuals. Imagine what they could do with £780,000 to spend on players this year?
The club is like a young junkie, who's parent (Hughes) made the decision to try and gradually break the addiction rather than make some tough decisions. As a result, over a dozen years later, the Junkie is not only still an addict, but is now reliant on the parent to provide it with its fix.

Many London fans used to decry posters who ranted on about how bad Hughes was for the club, saying things like there's be "no club without him....."

Guess what? There isn't a club!

There's a team, playing in a soulless shell of a stadium with little (if any)connection or affiliation to the locale and fewer than 200 season ticket holders. 

2,182 was the gate for the 2022 opener. Followed by 1,411 and then 903. The expression about first impressions being the most important is valid here. Too many who "gave it a whirl" just drifted away, be they dons fans or lapsed London Broncos fans. Hughes needs to go and take his accountant turned CEO with him. Until that happens, they will struggle to increase fan numbers (something they only ever did at one ground).

Here's a thought. If IMG are determined to make a difference, then I suggest they buy the club from Hughes and show us all how it's done, because all this latest announcement is is window dressing from a man who won't be told he's wrong.

 

[Angelic Cynic]

5 hours ago, NW10LDN said:

You need to get your facts straight. IMG have not been directly involved in any decision making at the Broncos. 

Someone should inform the London Broncos a mysterious voter decided to involve themselves with IMG,and join 36 other clubs,  to directly vote in favour of a decision about proposals not yet revealed. 

[Angelic Cynic]

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[Angelic Cynic]

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[Angelic Cynic]

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[Angelic Cynic]

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[Angelic Cynic]

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[DI Keith Fowler]

So daft you posted it six times.

[Stuff Smith]

Londonbornirishbred is on the nail here.

David Hughes: saved the club? 

That depends what you mean by saved.

47 minutes ago, Londonbornirishbred said:

The club is like a young junkie, who's parent (Hughes) made the decision to try and gradually break the addiction rather than make some tough decisions. As a result, over a dozen years later, the Junkie is not only still an addict, but is now reliant on the parent to provide it with its fix.

And Mr Hughes could have employed experts to help cope with this!  But he didn't, he employed the people he employed instead...

47 minutes ago, Londonbornirishbred said:

Many London fans used to decry posters who ranted on about how bad Hughes was for the club, saying things like there's be "no club without him....."

Many? A few zealots even worse than me, maybe.

47 minutes ago, Londonbornirishbred said:

Guess what? There isn't a club!

I agree. 

Still, we can buy a new hat, in colours I like!
https://london-broncos-shop.myshopify.com/collections/merchandise/products/2023-london-broncos-bobble-hat

(Apologies to supporters of other teams. London Broncos fans of a certain age, like me, can be very bitter, cynical and petty. Because, you know, experience.)

Edited December 11, 2022 by Stuff Smith

[Angelic Cynic]

1 hour ago, Hemi4561 said:

Is the club to which you refer the one that was so royally shafted by an odious bookie from Wigan, who even now he is dead seems to be venerated as a  Saint.

I seem to remember a certain journalist in a esteemed RL publication implying that as the bookie was dead that he, and by extension we, should forgive and forget and not ask hard questions,not in the journalists case perhaps discuss some of the misgivings he may have had.

Yes.I believe the former player,of Welsh provenance,who occasionally appeared before disciplinary panels,who was,and is,associated with Widnes, was ahead of the game and had his own opinions. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Angelic Cynic said:

Someone should inform the London Broncos a mysterious voter decided to involve themselves with IMG,and join 36 other clubs,  to directly vote in favour of a decision about proposals not yet revealed. 

IMG called London a key growth area but they haven't made any decisions for the club.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

5 hours ago, Hemi4561 said:

Reported. 

[Ivarr the Boneless]

There are rumours flying around London that Chelsea feel their women's team has outgrown their current small stadium and fancy a groundshare at AFC Wimbledon.

It's public knowledge both Dons and Broncos hold break clauses in the rental agreement, though it's not known if they are for set points, at x weeks notice etc.

Watch this space as they say