The club has been around since 1980 and apart from an embarrassing appearance in the 1999 CC final have done naff all. Nearly 35 years in existence with one major final appearance and no silverware. They have produced only one player to go on to bigger and better things (although that could be debatable). They have had four name changes and eleven changes of home venue.

London has had everything it needs to be successful but it hasn't and although you should 'never say never' I really don't see how it can work.

I said "this year" - please explain how London's performances this year can be compared with Salford, Huddersfield and Wakefield?

Are you sure they haven't? I understand they were given financial assistance with a large number of development officers paid for by the RFL. Something which was denied to Bradford.

by the same token bradfords ground was bought to help them out of the sh*t. the RFL didn't do this with wakefield or london.

the number of players coming through and the amount of teams/schools in london playing league shows it a shrewd decision

one would assume there should be more development officers in London than Bradford, one is a city of 8m people, one has 500k.

Development officers are also focused on the junior and amateur game more than getting people through the pro clubs doors.

I would hope that whatever was been done at junior and amateur level in london continues as great success is being seen there independently of the pro club.

As for the pro club. A good pro club in London would be invaluable to the game. As it is we havent had that choice for a few years. To say they have been run potically over the last few years would be an insult to pots. They have been failed in all areas by successive owners and central governance.

Pro RL in london is probably dead now. This club will probably limp on for a few more years, at best they will probably level out at Skolars level. Without long term planning and central support it is impossible for expansion clubs to survive in a regional competition like the game is currently contracting to. Especially under P+R.

People will pay lip service to their survival, say how they hope London will regroup and come back stronger through 'organic growth' but in reality there is a faction of the game desperate to see it remain a small regional competition which is why the only method of growth they will accept is one which has been responsible for a grand total of 0 clubs making it to the pro level in the entire history of the sport.

Bar the venue and name bit, you could hurl those same facts at Wakefield. Or up to the Ken Davy era, Huddersfield.

What have Hull KR done in terms of trophies or producing players in the last 25 years?

London seems to attract a lot of vitriol from chip on the shoulders northerners that they don't feel inclined to throw around closer to home.

I wouldn't say I have a chip on my shoulder as that suggests some element of xenophobia, it's more wasting valuable resource on a hiding to nothing.

The RFL have continually bolstered teams that are outside of the traditional heartland areas and to date all of these follies have proved fruitless. My point is that elite RL always has and always will be confined to these traditional areas, history has taught us this so why bother trying to expand the sport?

Oh and comparing Hull KR, who have only been in the elite league for 8 years to London, who have been in SL since its inception is hardly apples with apples is it?

Hull KR were an elite team before London existed. You can remember that far back, right?

You said "in the last 25 years". You can remember that far back, right?

No, it shouldn't be the end of the London project.

Within the last few years they've produced Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Tony Clubb, Dan Sarginson, Mason Caton-Brown and Keiran Dixon - all players worthy of top-level SL. By rights, that should have been a core around which a succesful London team could be built.

There does now need to be a retrenchment. Find a home for the club and keep it there, if not as landlords at first then at least as long-term tenants. A club can't survive without a support base, so one needs to be built within that locality. Focus on developing the youngsters, building up the amateur scene and passing them along into SL. Only then will London be a goer in SL.

Personally, I'd like to see a carve-up of London. Get Broncos back to Brentford or West London, let Skolars have North London. Look at building up to a semi-pro side in East & South London, and try and develop the area around Hemel and the Medway towns.

Tad and AG make valid points, Bradford had their ground bought by the RFL, something that didn't happen with London. One of London's main problems aside from mismanagement, has been that they did not have a permanent home. If only the RFL could buy into a club such as Harrow Fc or Wingate and Finchley Fc for example then that may have provided some permanence (Harlequins/yawion connection was always doomed IMO).The other thing that I think should have happened was that London should have had first dabs on dual reg players on offer from any super league club who are outside the first team squad 20 (with a minimum of 3 months loan).I do also think the same mistake is being made with regards to a Cumbrian Super league team.

This 'it isn't in Yorks / Lancs heartland, so why bother' thing is a bit closed-minded for me. I appreciate it is hard to sustain and grow the sport and teams outside of this area, but it should be perservered with in my view.

The thing about them having a different 'home' all the time will have a massive effect. I'd be interested to see how Rhinos' attendances would be affected if (for whatever reason) they had kept moving around Leeds to play.

How many would stop / start going if it moved from Headingley to Horsforth? How many would stop / start going if after a couple of years it then moved to Holbeck? If it then moved again to Harehills?

I suspect for many of you (wherever you currently reside) part of the reason you follow Leeds (and not one of the other teams close by in the top league) is because either i) they were your 'local' team when younger or ii) you are following in the footsteps of past friends / family who introduced you to them, maybe because of reason i).

Now, how might that be affected if when you first started watching / enjoying RL, Leeds were going through a period of moving around all the time - realistically it can not grow and develop when you don't know where your 'home' is, apart from in the short-term.

I know it isn't the same thing, but I play in a social sports league in Leeds for one of the American 'big four' sports - though more a 'fringe' sport in the UK. For several years it was based at the same location, and year by year, more people got involved - partly due to 'word of mouth', partly locals who were interested to find out more, seeing the same people around doing the same sport week after week, that they knew little about.

Anyway, the last 4 years or so, the league has migrated around Leeds each season. In the first year, certainly it lost some people who used to go to the original place where games took place. It probably gained a few people though, because new people were seeing what we were up to.

However, it then moved again the next year and the numbers went down again - the new 'community' it had been in hadn't had it around long enough to get inquisitve about it (and therefore involved).

The facilities were better in the place it moved to (a rugby club) but the regulars there went there to play rugby and thus weren't really interested in getting involved in our sport that appeared at their place twice a week. In the end, the league had to move again as it got in the way. It moved again (further out of town) but even fewer people went as it was so far from town and in a place where non-players would never really 'stumble across it'.

So it moved again and is now up at Roundhay park and has been there a few months and the numbers have stopped dropping off. The reality was though that the number of people who were involved grew the most each year when it was consistently in the same place.

'Part-time followers' are less inclined to blindly go wherever the game goes each year and 'regulars' will start to get weary when they have to move around all the time.

I'm probably wide-of-the-mark with my understanding, so apologies if this has been irrelevant...

The London 'project' in top flight terms is over for now.

They had their hand held for a number of years to give them a kick start. But it has been a slow decline in recent years when standing on their own two feet. With the previously mentioned poor gates (not helped due to constant ground changes) it looks like the battle is lost in driving interest to their cause. If they can't people to pay their money to watch the likes of Tomkins, Hardaker etc along with their own players how are they going to market a battle against Keighley!

I do tend to go a bit off-topic and get all philosophical and rambling at times, so apologies for this. Will try and keep it a bit more succinct next time!

One last thought on the moving grounds point.

The relocation that London have undertaken isn't remotely comparable to any other SL club moving to new stadia. From The Stoop to Barnet is a journey of 18 miles. It's equivalent to Leeds relocating to somewhere like Tadcaster.

If you're doing that every three or four years you have no chance of building the consistent customer base that is the foundation of any business. If the landlords of your favourite pub moved that far away, you wouldn't follow them.