Bloody hell, I agree with retirethename

I get as frustrated as the next man regards the lack of bums on seats and general malaise that seems to be part of the Quins RL structure currently. As I see it, we have two main challenges in terms of getting people to the games - the match day experience needs to look after itself and I know there are short comings there - and these can be split

1) The potential walk up fans and those within a small(ish) radius of the ground - they must become more aware of what's going on. I find some of the anecdotes on here quite depressing.

2) The fans and potential fans that travel a long way to the game - London is a big place !

And this includes the amateur clubs and their membership who are dotted all over the place. Whilst I agree with the vast majority of comments I do get annoyed when criticism falls on the regions amateur clubs for not supporting the Quins RL. Frankly, as far as I can make out there is a complete lack of engagement between the Quins RL and any development activity going on beyond their own doorstep.

What's does Quins RL mean to kids (and more importantly their parents) in my area, St Albans (30 miles to the Stoop), who are brought up on Arsenal, Tottenham, Watford, Saracens, etc ? Nothing is the answer, they may play rugby league and enjoy playing it but their club is St Albans Centurions and it is unlikely that they will be even aware of Super League / Quins RL unless someone at the club bangs on about it and organises trips etc - but this requires someone who is motivated towards Quins RL and who has the time over their club commitments to do this - not many I can assure you.

So I got thinking about the Broncos days when we had regional forums. I am not sure how successful they were or perceived to be but it certainly formed a focal point for that area - so in my instance it was St Albans / Hemel Hempstead - it gave the fans a chance to get together, meet a club representative, ask questions, etc, etc.

If that logic is rolled out a little further there must be an argument to suggest that it would be advantageous for Quins RL to have a local area representative (likely to be a volunteer) who would actively engage with 'their' locally based fans and 'their' local clubs providing club information, fliers, organising the occasional gathering, maybe organising Stoop trips, player appearances, etc. Database information could be provided by / to the club for mail shots, etc. As an example the Hertfordshire representative would 'look after' St Albans Centurions / Hemel Stags (and associated clubs) and all the registered fans in that county. This approach could equally apply to areas close to Twickers, etc.

Is this workable ? I have no idea, but I do know that the message that Quins RL exist and 'need your support' must be made at ground level. Just because Quins RL are in Super League does not mean that a sporting public brought up on Union and Soccer are aware of professional Rugby League in the Capital. The club needs to actively get the message out there.

maybe if you looked in papers that covered Richmond instead you would find a lot more.

How much does a full-page ad in one of the London freesheets cost, anyone know?

The saddest fact is - all this is a complete duplication of everything that has been said for at least the last 20years.
There will never be a 'rugby league culture' in London (unless we survive 80 more years maybe)so that makes it extremely hard to push the idea. The staff have not grown up into RL - they have been appointed to a job. Which they do to a greater or lesser standard, for a paycheque. They may love RL - or think they do- but they dont have and can't have a yearning to bring the game to as many people as possible. The few passionate staff people are not involved in the bums on seats side, they are cleaning up after the team or in David's case working their socks off in several jobs. It is always going to be Supporters who do the shouting about it.
Does anyone know if the team still go into schools to do assembly and health and fitness tallks? That was very useful a few years ago when we were at Brentford. And the local forum idea did work but it needed good will from the club. Tony Rea was very good at going to see supporters but I doubt Brian Mac sees it as part of his remit, given his previous attitude.

Why would I read the Richmond papers lving in Kingston?

Surely the club should cover Twickenham, Richmond, Teddington, Ham, Kingston, New Malden, Raynes Park, Feltham, Hounslow etc. in its search for supporters and therefore spread of articles in the papers?

Um cuz they cover areas you're interested in?

Otherwise you kinda made my own point.

Why would I read the Richmond papers lving in Kingston?
Why would a Kingston paper cover Richmond?

All Richmond and its local paid for paper carries two QRL sports stories each edition plus all the community stuff
Feltham and Hounslow are both in Hounslow and both the paid for papers (with around 6 pages of sport each) cover Quins, the Hounslow and Brentford Times shares the sports section with the Richmond and Twickenham Times while the Chronicle carries match reports sent in by the club.

Spot on, unfortunately. There is very little being done [or not] that has not been tried before and in the main by various supporters groups over the years.

The only possible difference now is that we do have [in theory] a stable home base so the community within a radius needs to be continually reminded we are there, There is no quick fix for this other than repetitive drip drip marketing, I have always thought it would take a minimum of a decade for any community to begin to adopt a local sports team, especially one that is "alien" to them. This does need to be a long term view coupled with short term initiatives to keep crowds growing slowly year on year. Families are the key to the long term game as it need to be ingrained in the psyche.

The RSG suggestion with local supporter reps is a great idea and is probably one that could work given, as Dotti states, engagement from the club. The only main reason for anybody to turn up at one is the opportunity to meet players.club staff, and senior staff members to take and answer questions, if that commitment dissapears after a few events [as before] then the obvious happens.

Even tougher with us as in the past we would bugger off as soon as we started to put down roots so there is a barrier in our way as people think "why bother"

Yep......and everyone who has said it must have been wrong...because we're doing fine as we are 4.53857421875:5