Quote: mickyb1234 "So 30 odd years back when the club first started, where were the crowds coming from?
before super league what was the target for people playing rugby league down south?'"
The blunt truth is that wherever those crowds came from they aren't coming now. RL is a hard sell down south. I'm sure a large chunk of those still going will carry on doing so but the new status will make it harder to attract new faces / win back old faces. (The hard sell bit is true across the region. Suffice to say some of the Championship One games I have been to have resulted in gate declarations that made me wonder if fans had turned up dressed as empty seats.) A team that doesn't generate new support is doomed or totally reliant on benefactors and / or Sky. That's no business model.
As for players well given the track record of development I'd say 30 years ago it wasn't really on the radar. Without southern lads playing in sufficient numbers to produce good enough players we are reliant on northern lads and imports padding out the southern teams. Difficult enough to get the former in SL never mind now. Broncos were, and hopefully still will be a hugely important part of the developmental chain. If they can't fund this now I hope the RFL does.
Events at Broncos have been a huge blow to southern RL, not quite a serious as the development officer funding drying up but close.
I'd suggest if you add Broncos, Skolars, Hemel, Oxford and Cheltenham together you have just over 1000 people regularly watching professional RL and about 100 southern lads in the match day squads, plus a few playing up north. The world may not stop turning but the overall position of southern RL is currently worryingly weak and the sport taking a significant step back towards where it was in 1980 is not something I can welcome.
I just hope we have professional RL down here in another 30 years.