1996 Valley 5,418 average and finished 4th
1997 Stoop 5,076 2nd
1998 Stoop 3,625 7th
1999 Stoop 2,935 8th
2000 Valley 3,419 11th
2001 Valley 3,177 6th

figures from Rugby League Yearbooks

Very good post.

My memories are from the mid 80's and early 90's when I used to go with my family (and one of my Dad's mates played for the Alliance team), from the time I was old enough to understand things there was always an argument that the Saints board were too small time and reluctant to lose control. You only have to look at what was happening at Wigoon and Leeds around the same time to see (yes, both are bigger towns than St Helens). It's only in the SL era that genuine professionalism started to be injected into the club.

However, I do agree with you about Pilks, the lack of sponsorship was always been a bugbear with some people, and as far as I'm aware they didn't get any control at the RFU just because they did the Pilkington Cup.

WTF went wrong that year

1997, sitting in second place in the league, following year, the crowds down by nearly 30%....
Surely the marketing/pr machine should have gone into overdrive......oh hang on, this is London Rugby League. What was I thinking

What if they didnt have the money to spend?

Its not an endless pot of cash you know!

As a prefossional in the marketing business you should know that there are many ways to "promote" without spending loads of cash. You will also know that those who do not promote, do not grow and in most cases go under (see London Broncos Ltd 2005).
Not going to get dragged into another debate on marketing, we have a thread that is sticky for that at the top of the forum.

So then....about this sponsor..............

There is NO free way to market anything!

Everything costs!
If you throw a little at it - you get a little back
You throw a lot at it - you get more back.

Thats Marketing in a nutshell.

So unless the pot gets bigger - the marketing stays small.

the excuses are many. but to name a few.

we are playing in a union heartland and a rl backwater
we are competing against the saturday football 3pm slot
we've been a nomadic club travelling around london
eddie hemmings doesn't like us


it does matter to me how many people turn up and it should matter to you too. its crucial to our survival as a super league club. its the only way to generate long term revenues. the fact is the more people we get through the turnstiles the more money the club make and the more attractive we are to sponsors whch in turn brings in more money. what i'm trying to say is that it all stems from attendances.

its a bit muppetish to compare league positions. we've only played one game

stop accepting mediocrity wire-quin. ask yourself why cant we do what catalan have done on and off the pitch and not why we can't do it

[url=http://viewtopic.php?t=381466let's move this here[/url and keep this as a sponsorship thread.

Good point EFH; though I think i can shed some better light

I was a regular spectator during this era -
1) 1997 - novelty value of moving to Stoop in 1997 pulled in extra crowds; and I suspect that they went up as the season progressed and club marched up the table. Year of Super League/NRL war - good year in general for attendances, lots of PR around this. Branson's first year of involvement (although Fosters shirt sponsor). He pumped in a sizeable marketing budget/team and also brought a lot of incidental PR. Shaun Edwards first season, loads of press around him joining up with Offiah.

2) 1998 - the club finished 7th! Need I say more?
Fickle people sports fans. Ask Bradford.....they we're pulling in 15k fans to watch them play Broncos @ Odsal during this era. How many are they bringing in now? Novelty value of Stoop over. Marketing team did leave the club mid season this year. Edwards was playing for Bradford this season....

You can't build a team & spectator base around one player - but a superstar and recognisable face helps. I've said it before, now that Henry Paul has left the club, most Londoners wouldn't know a QuinsRL player if they fell over them in the street.

What kills me most about this board is the suggestion that things are black & white. It's clear that the club could do a better job of marketing itself but sport is a strange, strange business, that doesn't follow normal dynamics. It's affected by micro socio-economic climates, politics - and sometimes of course, good fortune!

Get over your good selves and concentrate on bringing everyone you know through the turnstiles!

Remember meeting a south african lady ay the club when they were first at the stoop. I walked into the offices in the lexus stand and was redirected to the porta-cabins in the car park

as that's where they Brocos were operating from





As for bringing mates, most of us do. It's just very upsetting when you sit down an analyse the number of times that the club has dropped the ball when it comes to marketing.

As for getting over myself, I have never claimed to have the solution, just Ideas that might be a solution, so I don't see the need to get over myself. Anyway, this is a sponsorship thread.[url=http://viewtopic.php?t=381466marketing can be discuused here[/url

absolutely no idea what point you're making re portacabins - if it's that they're now in a smart office and that should make all the difference to the quality of their work, then i have to disagree. A lot of amazing businesses have grown from people's garages.....

And have you considered why the club appears to have never held onto a marketing team for more than a year or two at a time?
And when you say 'dropped the ball' - who exactly? As far as I can see, it's a different set of people every five minutes.

Also - It ceased to be a sponsorship thread a long time ago and became a conversation...people reacting to each others postings in a logical (sometimes!) fashion. If you want it to be a sponsorship thread - sticky it as such. Anyhow, sponsorship is a subset of marketing, so let's not get overly anal.

Some of you on here definitely damage the club with the things you post. You're entitled to post them, but I suspect if you thought long and hard about it, you might realise that you're not engendering anyone wandering through the internet ether to come watch games with the constant negativity and blame. This site in itself is in danger of becoming negative PR for the club!

NO......never and you damm well should know it.

I'm RL thru & thru and have little or no time for any fan who supports our game as a second choice & sometimes third choice over football, chricket or such minor sports as ice and field hockey.

However, consider we are in serious management trouble without a CEO etc. Unless this is resolved soon and the Board expanded we will be in trouble before to many months have passed.

Perhaps this is another topic that needs a seperate discussion heading.

Who is making these excuses you refer to. Ive never heard the chairman go on about them. I think this is you getting caught up in this forums hype rather than fact. People who post on here in the main are just making general points and opinions based on very little inside knowledge of the club and/or knowledge of their own businesses which they relate to the club.

What have Catalan done? Yes they had a very good third place last year and improved there crowd. What you dont know is what support assistance they have received from behind the scenes possibly from the French RL, RFL, European federation etc

I dont accept mediocrity but what I am is a realist. I've followed a very poorly ran warrington club for 40 years. I've followed the Broncos/Quins for 15 years concurrently.

Warrington probably one of the biggest/famous RL clubs in Britain were playing to 4000 crowds at Wilderspool and had massive debts. They were bailed out by the council regularly and to my knowledge still have debts from those days.

Don't think for one minute we are a failing club. We are on the playing filed probably and overachieving club. What we appear to need to do to satisfy the RFL is improve our crowds and profile which I'm sure we will in time given the resources.

I can tell you what happened in 1998. We bought our season tickets on the strength of the team in 1997 only to find in 1998 half of those players had got fed up and left. We almost lost the great Gilly. Scot Roskell, a great try poacher, got so disillusioned that he went off to play for London Welsh (I believe) and is now in New York, working as a landscape gardener. We had to start again with a team getting to know and learn to play for one another. I believe this was the year a certain Mr. Steele Retchless joined us and Mr Grant Young. Grant never needed to tackle a player, all he had to do was stick his chest out (he was 6 foot, seven) and let the opposing player collide with that....

It's a sin to support more than one sport? If the club had 10k football fans as secondary fans, 10k RU fans as secondary fans, 10k cricket fans, 10k hockey fans....should I go on?

If these fans came to 4 home games per season....see where I'm going?
What an incredibly narrow minded view.

I've supported soccer in the north, AFL in Sydney, cricket in the carribean, NFL in New York, Kabaddi in Mumbai, darts at Frimley.....please

RL is a summer sport, where are the conflicts?

And didn't you try to get a CEO thread going before...?

Hockey is in the right demographic for Rugby support.
Amazingly hockey is one of the top 5 PARTICIPATION sports in the UK every weekend.

West London has the highest %age of players in the right demographic.
Sunbury/Teddington/Surbiton/Chiswick/PHC Chiswick/Richmond/Spencer/Barnes/Hounslow/Ealing/Raynes Park/Wimbledon each have +20 teams - thats 2860 people doing NOTHING in the summer months.

If people like Storming Bronco wont even entertain the fact that these people could to the weekly attendance figure, then maybe thats the problem.

I will openly admit that Hockey is my No1 sport and i play it and love it.
But RL is my spectator sport, and im not alone in hockey players watching RL.

Dont ostracise us - we may be a lifeline!

I can't remember if it was Bradford, Sarries or Warrington....but didn't that genius of the sports marketing world, Peter Deakin (RIP) once have his pro rugby club sponsoring the local cricket club....?
It's a complicated world of synergies we live in! A world of abundance in choice, supposedly without the prejudices of yesteryear. Reach out QuinsRL, reach out.

Today this could be....the greatest.... blah.
hic.

EFH I understand where you are coming from linking sports and the players, sadly though Hockey is middle England sport akin to Golf, cricket and RU.

We have a reputation rightly or wrongly of being a northern working class sport. Maybe we have to change that perception some way.

WIRE

Wrong wrong wrong!
Hockey may be perceived as having that background - but in West London, you have a lot of Saffas/Kiwis/Aussies, mingled in with ordinary state school boys like myself, to OxBridge grads.

I played hockey for Richmond at Dukes Meadows on Chiswick Bridge, 1 evening we wanted to go out on the but didnt want to start at 3pm..............so...........we said we'd go watch a Quins RL game.
Some guys from the 2nd team decided to come along, then some ladies from the 1s, then housemates.

next thing we know, we're a group of 50+ HOCKEY players drinking at a slow(ish) pace whilst watching some RL.

Match over, train to Richmond, on the smash.

People loved it - some of us have even been back!

Interestingly I have a friend who is leaving the Army in the next few months and he is a hockey player. We were discussing options for future employment/networking when we got onto just this subject-Hockey/middle England etc and he agreed that the "type" of people who played the sport were just that. Paddock dont take offence!!

Its also intersting you mention Aussies etc, in the posts before the Manly game there were stats that suggested the Aussies that come to UK are "middle Australia" and likely to wear a Wallabies top.

Im not knocking this just questioning is this the right audience, do we need to change [iwhat we are as a sport [/ietc to make the link

EFH you mention in a earlier post you know why companies dont sponsor Quins RL- What is that reason? Im not into marketing but am just interested

Its all relative to the sector your in.

Its the perceived success and the benfits derived.

I'll list the Marketing Black Marks against Quins

Youre in Rugby League.
- You are detached from the main audience (M62 corridoor) which doesnt appeal.

- You have no local roots and fan base in an area of London, which means no immediate audeince

- Compared to the competition you dont get equivalent audiences, as a sponsor you wonder why you only get 5k when your competition get 15k.

- As a sponsor you want to be known in London (which isnt happening)

- As a London sponsor, could you get better coverage from another team (Wasps, Saracens, Brentford, Charlton,etc etc)

- You dont offer a commercially sound and succesful sporting platform to attribute a brand/company to. (Sky sponsoring British Cycling for example)

WIRE

With regards to your friend, maybe thats his circle of friends.

But im from Hull, went to a rough state school, went to Uni in Birmingham and couldnt be any further from your middle class RU fan.
Yes there are people in Hockey from that sector of society, but they are not the norm or the majority!

Porta-Cabin ref was to highlight the conditions the club were operating under. This is not a cottage industry, it is professional sport.
I have no idea why the club have never managed to hang on to marketing staff. I know they don't pay a lot, but still, it is a bit of a mystery. To have "grew crowds from 4k to 10k in 3 years" would look good on anyones CV.
As for damaging the club.....anything but. The club will launch a new scheme this year that I introduced them to. For this introduction, I would normally receive commission.....but I have declined the comms on this occassion. I sat with the RFL and discussed ways in which to promote the game. Taking no credit for the great turn out, but £500 a day is my going rate for consultancy which I would never dream of charging the club. Opinions regarding where things go wrong are just that, Opinions. As for casual visitors.....I think you overstate the importance of this site and this forum.
Negative PR.......GET FRIGGIN REAL. If we got some press coverage regarding this site it would be more coverage than the club normally get.
I happen to be in Sales and Marketing and as such, if I can help the club in any way, I will. If I was an accountant, I'd probably do their books for nothing.

Still no idea what the portacabins have to do with anything. It seems to me that the QuinsRU link up hasn't worked yet, so they may as well still be in the car park....
I suspect you probably do know why nobody has stayed in marketing - you're evidently bright and seems fairly obvious to me. 20% of your consultancy fee prob wouldn't be obtainable. And no matter how much you pretend it is, history suggests it isn't an easy task and that luck plays a major part - ask the team who put together the popular basketball side in Newcastle, but the same team, doing the same things, can't make the Falcons work....

I think it's great that you help out - but why not do so with humility and selflessness, or why bother?

I like your postings - they're witty and you clearly don't always take yourself too seriousy....however you sometimes let yourself down with personal invective.

Incidentally, PR doesn't have to involve media - it's the management of the flow of information between an organisation and its publics. So it can be quite subtle. And I work in it. And get very well paid to do so - though you won't find me crassly quoting figures.

And although this board isn't mega-populated, it does partly contribute to the publics perception of the club. All these things add up and if I were a new fan looking to support, I'd think twice given some of the things that are said!