Lots of Fundementalists in Hounslow have not seen any at the stoop recently although some of the Union lot like a beard

Of course an insult is acceptable. If you want to visit a forum full of RL fans and discuss what you think is going wrong, then you expect to get shot down. Your persecution complex on the other hand would point to deeper more personal issues

I have mentioned many things I would consider a way of attracting the fans back. I would reclaim the name and colours of London Broncos - I very much doubt that Harlequins RU would give a toss about the name change. I would get rid of absolutely mediocre players such as Jon Wells. Any foreign imports would be hard hitting, barnstoming characters. Matchdays would be on a Sunday. Football supporters would be massively targeted - any London season ticket holder can for 20 quid get a ticket to 3 super league games, and a drink/food item etc with heavily reduced season ticket etc etc.

And your response to that is to call me a 'twa-'?

If You 2 are going to disagree so openly why not call it a day or start a Gutterfax v Rupe 1 thread

I suspect they might. I am the first to admit to loving the Broncos far more than I do QRL but seriously how many people do you really think it would add to the gates if this was a possibility? it's not as if we were not bleeding support away at both the Valley and GP.

Chiken and Egg though Rupe - until your missing thousands come back how can the club afford better players? I think that if you originally left because the name and colours changed then that is pretty short sighted.

It is a viscious circle!

I googled it, just in case you were going all PHD on us, but nope, it was just a typo

I think it would make a big difference. I personally find it abhorrent that we are known as 'Harlequins' and play in their colours. I think the reclaiming of the London Broncos name and colours is very important - if this was done with the removal of the mediocre players such as Wells et al and a targeted recruitment policy of only going for exciting foreign players, a sunday matchday and a hard hitting targeting of London football fans then I do think an increase of 1000-2000 fans is quite possible.

If things carry on as they are, what do you personally think will happen to the club? I personally think that we will not get a Super League licence next time.

wrong, wrong and thrice wrong...in my opinion that is and not that of the clique.
London Broncos? Most Londoners thought we were an American Football team, so there is no "herritage factor" involved. 2,000 fans my arris.......you really have a bigger ego than me if you believe that!


Harlequins (and I am a London Irish Almni and fan) are the single largest club brand in the UK. Show someone a Leicester Tigers shirt and they'll struggle, but the vomit shirt is instantly recogniseable. We also have a better ground as a result and don't have to feck off every season for re-seeding!
As for John Wellls......I agree, he doesn't score or make the breaks of some SL wingers, but I'll tell you what, he stops more tries than some of the so called marque names in the game and I wouldn't swap him for anyone. True club players are few and far between.
Exciting players.......OK my little keyboard warrior, get your wallet out and pay for them. By your mates own admission, you don't go to games any more on principle....so the £200 a pop you've decided not to give the club is another reason we can't afford the names you want.
Rupe1......you are a troll of the lowest order in that you feed on your own. Why don't you just stop breathing and let someone else put your air to better use! Is that too much of an insult for you? I can do better if need be!

Have you not seen David Howell play this season?

He is a good player. I was talking about the likes of Williamson and Robinson - adequate but not worthy of a quota spot.

But many others don't and many others are also realistic enough to understand that there was little if any choice left in 2005, it still boils down to do you want to watch top level RL in London or not.



1 You get the players your budgets allow, who can honestly say they have not had a downer on one or more players in the squad in any given season, even in the '97 season I can remember players getting bagged, however we don't tend to make scapegoats of them like other clubs supporters do.

2 What are the quota allowances for these "exciting foreign players", who is going to fund them and most importantly, who are they?

3 No disagreement about Sundays.

4 Footie fans. Not sure about this, it's been debated millions of times that just because a person likes one type of sport doesn't mean en-bloc that they all do, target them [my view would be lower leagues and non pro by all means with whatever deals you want, but not convinced the numbers would increase by that much, and squaring the circle slightly.............if we cannot perform well on the field then they will not return anyway.



If it is based upon the supposed published criteria then yes we will get a licence, whether or not we can keep a club going by relying on DH to fund it is another issue. My own view is that the only way this sport & this club, will increase in popularity and size is by organic growth of the love of the game via the community surrounding it and that means taking what we are as QRL and living with it.

Why respond in a language he doesn't understand. You can't reason with him as in his world, he would see us fill the team with Australians and pi55 off our partners in the other code.
Simply put Rupe1....your model was tried for 11 years and failed....big time.
As I have said, do us all a favour.......stop posting until you can offer a solution as well as a misguided opinion!

Whilst at Charlton when known as the Broncos we brought in some big name players, we played some pretty adventurous rugby, at times, in the latter days as the Broncos. Our crowds were still poor. The crowds remain poor as Quins and as such we now have to cut our cloth very carefully whilst recruiting.

There are clearly a small number of people who will not watch the club whilst we are called Harlequins. However that number is nothing compared to the number who have no idea that there are two codes of rugby or that there has been a troubled past between the two codes. As Quins we do have a name / brand with a high recognition factor, as Broncos it's back to most of London thinking I watch American Football. I wish I believed something as simple as changing our name would be all but a cure all to our numerous problems but I just don't think it would be.

The simple fact is that the future for fully professional RL in London is far from secure and would be irrespective of whether we were called London Broncos or Harlequins. The issues the club needs to surmount go far deeper than that.

Incidentally whilst our gates have stayed roughly similar for the past decade or so I don't agree that this means we have few lapsed fans. Rupe1 is correct, we have many however I suspect his diagnosis as to why most are lapsed is erroneous. Towards the end of his time Nic Cartwright said what % of our season ticket holders did not renew when we moved from Charlton to Brentford, it was incredibly high. Presumably they didn't fancy travelling across London every other weekend. Would those people now start hauling over to West London if we were called London Broncos??

H of t'e...whilst I agree with most of what you have said, for 10 years (forget the first 4 years as they were the novelty years and look at the mighty Monarchs now) we have remained static. In these years I believe that we have retained a hard core 1,000 and through child birth etc...added another 500. At that rate of natural progression, we would put Wakey and others to shame in 100 years time, but alas, we are now a business and therefore we have laid out our stall and we are HARLEQUINS RL. This is the only point that rupe1 and his posse keep harping back to...the RU tie in. Well guess what. Given that RL had a 100+ year head start on the professional front, which code generates more revenue and pays its stars more money nowadays?......rupe1 lives in a past when we still had mines and beer was 1/2p a pint

Mines a pint, too!

I think that's it in a nutshell. All for new ideas but suck it up on the old ones !!

The only people doing a dis-service to the game are those who claim to support RL but dont come and watch the only pro RL team in the South East for some half-baked, miserable over analytical reason. Quit moaning and support the game. You dont have to be 100% behind every part of it, but a succesful London side would be huge for RL and it won't happen if people don't turn up.

Exactly

You may join our clique

Who put you in charge of membership

The point I was trying to make is that abusing other London RL fans on this site only alienates them and makes them less likely to pay their money and turn up. No one should be told that the club does not need fans like them because of their views. Before the advent of chatrooms I used to believe that Fulham / London Cr. and Broncos fans were in general a pretty good bunch of guys, and I guess ( and hope ) the most abusive people on this site are still unrepresentative, but they are by their actions driving people away.

It is very easy to get big and brave in a chatroom ( bit like when driving a car ) but maybe certain members ought to tone down their criticisms of other London RL fans and only write comments which they would be prepared to say face to face, and reserve the abusive stuff for RU, Soccer, Refs, the RFL, Sky and other SL clubs fans!!!

delete

I am prepared to back up anything I have said on these boards to anyone (and that includes the club) face to face, though why you would want to use the usual keyboard warrior defence amazes me. This was a debate that you and Rupe1 instigated and yet all you have done is post criticisms and rhetoric, with no other suggestions other than ditch the Quins name and move back to a soccer stadium...........you two are a real loss to the marketing and strategy industries, I can tell you



You have posted your opinion, others have replied with theirs and a few posts back, the voice of reason was heard in that if you are a fan of the game, then get your but down to TW2 on saturday and support the only pro team in the area. If you really want to have a chat, most people will be able to point me out to you!
I look forward to making you aquaintance in the near future.