Quote: wantawin "I think you are not comparing apples with apples, as a supporter of amateur football for many years now I can remember AFC starting in the Combined Counties League, every AFC away game was a bonus for the clubs in that league because of the money they made out of AFC fans attending the games.
The clubs in the lower leagues made a lot of money as AFC moved up the pyramid because of AFC fans attending away games. London broncos have been the opposite since 1997 when I first started supporting the Broncos they have gone from gates in the thousands to gates in the very low hundreds, moving to 6 new grounds over that period (including Plough Lane). Every time the club has moved we have been promised this move will be the last because we want to build a fan base.
AFC have not had the problem of moving home grounds since they were established, they made their home base Kingsmedow which is very close to Wimbledon and then moved back to Plough Lane which was where their original home ground was. With the move back to Plough Lane they are going pick up old fans who would not travel to Kingsmedow and a number of people who have since moved into the local area. Broncos are relying on picking up AFC fans and locals to the ground, this has not worked in the past after moving to 3 football grounds and 2 rugby union grounds. The gates may be swelled initially but once the novelty wears off it will be the same old same old.
I would love to see it work for AFC and the Broncos at Plough Lane, but do not build your hopes up.'"
I wasn't trying to compare the situations; they are totally different as you describe. Rather I was trying to highlight that it needs to be an event rather than just a match; that's just my opinion though.
You've highlighted something that I am ignorant of. As you say AFC Wimbledon had a "home" location and has driven most of the last 20 years. Together with how they lost the club means it is relatively easy to understand what the club means.
The Broncos are different (to me at least). Location means Fulham to me, but presumably to a Bronco fan that is little more than a location in the early days. But there has (certainly was) something bonding the supporters to the Broncos. A team representing London at the highest levels in a popular sport perhaps. I hope I'm not offending here, I guess I'm asking what is the ideal set-up and where does location fit into that. Where should the team play if money was no objective and the aim is to be a Superleague team?