London Skolars

[Toby Chopra]

29 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Thing is, even with their not-great results and flatlining/decreasing attendances, you would still have said that Skolars were 'well run' and solid. (And, indeed, seems like they mostly were.) Never going to set the rugby league world aflame but doing the right things as well as they could.

And yet here we are.

My view, downbeat as it is, is that if they, with that solid way of doing things, wind up stepping back after 20 years in the professional ranks then nobody is really safe.

A big part of the problem was that solidity - albeit still a pretty precarious one - was completely upended in the last 12 months by a/ the Broncos going part time and stealing their role (and players and coach!), and b/ a big talking saviour coming in who, when it came to the crunch, didn't deliver.

There would still have been existential questions about the club given the declining revenues of the sport, but if these two shocks to the system hadn't happened, they may have had a more stable environment to make plans.

I'm not sure no-one is safe, but certainly any sports team that has 500 or fewer fans, and few other revenues, is going to have questions asked about whether it can sustain a professional set up in the current environment. And that does mean tough questions for a few clubs in L1 (and Championship given the divide is to some extent artificial).

[Ovenden Grunt]

12 hours ago, Yorks Tim said:

As a fan who wants to see more games next season, I'd be perfectly happy with that. They just need to come up with a plan that retains the sporting integrity of the competition and a fixture list that avoids repeat trips to distant opponents on consecutive weekends.

 

You cannot retain summat that was lost a long time ago.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

Hate to say to say this but I'm not confident Broncos will exist in 5 years 

Hope I'm wrong 

[newbe]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

Hemel are a fair way off getting back in the SCL I think. 

I think a lot of the Skolars players might come back, at one point Skolars had up to 7 players in the team associated with Stags.

[ATLANTISMAN]

18 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Hate to say to say this but I'm not confident Broncos will exist in 5 years 

Hope I'm wrong 

Disagree and can see them winning at Featherstone 

[The Masked Poster]

5 minutes ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Disagree and can see them winning at Featherstone 

What if they do? What if they were promoted to SL? Do you think there's a plan or just to continue stumbling on ? 

How many false dawns can they have? 

[OriginalMrC]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

The worst thing is, I can see other L1 non-heartlands clubs leaving the comp over the next few years. Certainly Cornwall if they don’t progress, and maybe Newcastle if they lose their benefactor. Midlands seem to be doing ok and so do North Wales other than their ground issues, so that would leave just two in the whole three divisions.

Thing is, and I don't want to see it happening, I can't see those clubs lasting more than a couple of years. Heartlands clubs aren't safe either as there's only so many times they can rattle a bucket. 

[wiganermike]

19 hours ago, Phil W said:

Obviously really disappointing news but at least Skolars aren't being completely lost.

There does need to be something done about balancing leagues though. This season on my Thunder ticket I get 13 home games and now next season it's currently 8. Either have one league below Super League or restructure. Obviously if a restructure was to take place there would be at least one very unhappy club but the imbalance needs addressing.

Sad to see Skolars needing to step back. Hopefully the club can continue as intended by rejoining the community club ranks as opposed to being lost altogether.

If there were to be a restructuring below SL, which seems the only sensible way forward, perhaps a way to do it and avoid a last minute extra relegation place (or two) would be to merge the two leagues and run with a single 23 team league in 2024 but with a fixture list of 26 games to keep the number of games manageable (perhaps playing 8 clubs twice and 10 further clubs once). At the end of 2024 that league could then be split into two leagues formed from the top 12 clubs and the bottom 11 clubs to be used from 2025 going forward. That way we end up with two leagues of a more workable size without any club suffering an after the fact relegation due to a hastily made change.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

1 hour ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Disagree and can see them winning at Featherstone 

Not sure results are going to have much to do with it 

There has been less and less people each week turning up to watch....less interest and comments on the RFL fans forum, less interest on LB social media 

People are starting to not care 

Getting out of the rubbish location of Wimbledon would be a first step for me 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

1 hour ago, OriginalMrC said:

Thing is, and I don't want to see it happening, I can't see those clubs lasting more than a couple of years. Heartlands clubs aren't safe either as there's only so many times they can rattle a bucket. 

I think Cornwall will...there is interest and fans already ...they love rugby down there and aren't as prejudice as some RU fans 

[OriginalMrC]

4 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

I think Cornwall will...there is interest and fans already ...they love rugby down there and aren't as prejudice as some RU fans 

That might be so but if the person funding them decides they've had enough then where does that leave them? I bet their travel costs alone are costing £50k+. I'm not trying to put a downer on Cornwall who've been magnificent but in a league with no funding and massive travel costs it's a reality 

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

Is there any chance of Broncos now relocating to New River?

[Phil W]

1 hour ago, wiganermike said:

Sad to see Skolars needing to step back. Hopefully the club can continue as intended by rejoining the community club ranks as opposed to being lost altogether.

If there were to be a restructuring below SL, which seems the only sensible way forward, perhaps a way to do it and avoid a last minute extra relegation place (or two) would be to merge the two leagues and run with a single 23 team league in 2024 but with a fixture list of 26 games to keep the number of games manageable (perhaps playing 8 clubs twice and 10 further clubs once). At the end of 2024 that league could then be split into two leagues formed from the top 12 clubs and the bottom 11 clubs to be used from 2025 going forward. That way we end up with two leagues of a more workable size without any club suffering an after the fact relegation due to a hastily made change.

That could be a logical way forward which to be honest I wouldn't be against. But that's easy for me to say supporting a Thunder team that's been relegated already. 

There won't be a perfect way forward but this is about damage limitation especially to the nine clubs left in League One. There's a much bigger picture to this than nine League One teams.

[Spidey]

8 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

Is there any chance of Broncos now relocating to New River?

They need to sort something out if they defy the odds and get promotion. I don’t think New River will be suitable for SL

[THE RED ROOSTER]

19 hours ago, EssexRL said:

Personally very gutted about this. The club tried everything to make it work. Can’t see much prospect for the spurt outside the heartland. 

Feel sorry for you. You are a genuine fan and hopefully not lost to the sport.

[Cb2]

12 hours ago, Rapscallion said:

The crucial words in all of that is “if done well”. Will it be done well?

Will fans turn up? Will there even be a FNL or Capital Challenge? 

That’s a very good question. If it gets run as their London Premier side has over the last 6-7 years then it’s the end of the club.

[Rapscallion]

24 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

Is there any chance of Broncos now relocating to New River?

I don’t really know why they would move to New River. 

On the pitch, Broncos are doing well and seemingly pushing for an unlikely promotion.  If the miracle were to happen, the New River is nowhere near Super League level. Off the pitch, Broncos owner David Hughes mentioned a long-term plan for returning to Super League and I don’t see how the New River is part of that plan. 

[Rapscallion]

I seem to remember London was a focus point with one of the many IMG PowerPoint’s. Now, London as a term is quite broad and details were, as with most IMG releases, sparse but since that PowerPoint London has not had any international games planned, whether Mens or Wheelchair, and one of the two London based clubs has pulled out of the third tier and in The RFL statement and London Skolars’ statements, IMG were not mentioned at all. Did Skolars approach IMG/The RFL once the takeover fell apart for assistance finding investors?

[Anita Bath]

This M62 corridor thing….well league 1 at start of season consisted of 5 teams in the corridor and 6 outside. It will lose one and possibly 2 corridor teams to be replaced by 1 and possibly 2 non corridor teams (and two non corridor teams having dropped out)

Super league at the start of the season had 11 teams in the corridor and 1 outside.

Clubs at the bottom of the rugby league ladder dont moan about the need for expansion while criss crossing the pennines…they get on with it.

 

Now where did I leave my tin hat.

[Joe Aitcheson]

It’s a great shame when we lose any club, but the Skolars’ decision to step down has to mean a restructuring below SL, but if you do the obvious and combine the championship with L1, how do you produce a fixture list for 23 clubs who require 26 games?  One way would be to have each club play the rest once and have 4 extra fixtures with local teams to you, to produce derbies?   Another way would be to go back to the days of one division in the whole league ( pre mid 70s) where for instance my club Workington played all the other Cumbrian and Lancs teams home and away, plus 4 Yorkshire or “eastern “ teams to get 34 fixtures. The problem there was that sometimes an eastern team or 2 might be reclassified as western to even up the 2 sides. If that format returned, looking at the teams below SL, would say Keighley and Newcastle be happy about being put into the western half?
Its a bit of a minefield, but something needs to be done, and for certain a L1 of 9 clubs is not sustainable.

[del capo]

A nine team division is not sustainable and it seems to me inevitable that the RFL will have to consider the dreaded loop fixture format as they have little option with plans for 2024 already advanced. Any chance of them being torn up and a radical re -structure ? What do you think ?

Which leads to the real problem underlying all of this - MONEY or rather lack of it.

Loop fixtures will exacerbate travel costs issues regardless of the no doubt modest payments made to the players and L1 clubs will end up in even deeper financial mire .

The geographic spread  is daunting . Even the NCL clubs this year have not been immune with at least 4 clubs failing to travel  and the NCL management having to consider potential re-structure.

Being pragmatic about it all at this stage Skolars decision makes sense.

Forest fires break out quite often in the South of France. The response from the rest of the country is a sight to behold , with long convoys of  ' Departement ' fire trucks sweeping down their motorways to help. No idea who pays for it all after the fires are quenched but they do what it takes... Would that we as a sport  could have something similar.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

3 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

That might be so but if the person funding them decides they've had enough then where does that leave them? I bet their travel costs alone are costing £50k+. I'm not trying to put a downer on Cornwall who've been magnificent but in a league with no funding and massive travel costs it's a reality 

Massive travel costs? It's a coach....most clubs need a coach to get to games (including my amateur rugby union club for some fixtures )....granted they'll use more fuel and hire time but it's hardly 50k a year more across 10 away fixtures 

 

[OriginalMrC]

6 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Massive travel costs? It's a coach....most clubs need a coach to get to games (including my amateur rugby union club for some fixtures )....granted they'll use more fuel and hire time but it's hardly 50k a year more across 10 away fixtures 

 

Not sure you understand how much it costs. For Coventry Bears it was a minimum £1500 per trip and the Bears were much closer than Cornwall. 

Cornwall's closest game in Birmingham is 5-6hrs away and they have trips to Cumbria in the season. Taking all players, staff, equipment and all other associated costs builds up. On a lot of trips they'll need to hire two drivers and will also need overnight stays and food etc to book for some fixtures. 

[del capo]

8 minutes ago, OriginalMrC said:

Not sure you understand how much it costs. For Coventry Bears it was a minimum £1500 per trip and the Bears were much closer than Cornwall. 

Cornwall's closest game in Birmingham is 5-6hrs away and they have trips to Cumbria in the season. Taking all players, staff, equipment and all other associated costs builds up. On a lot of trips they'll need to hire two drivers and will also need overnight stays and food etc to book for some fixtures. 

Spot on.

I'ts £250  minimum to move the coach out of the garage.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Joe Aitcheson said:

It’s a great shame when we lose any club, but the Skolars’ decision to step down has to mean a restructuring below SL, but if you do the obvious and combine the championship with L1, how do you produce a fixture list for 23 clubs who require 26 games?  One way would be to have each club play the rest once and have 4 extra fixtures with local teams to you, to produce derbies?   

Who will Cornwall's derby opponents be ?