TR may influence the choice now he is at the helm

Unfortunately, I think Stevo's opinion probably carries weight with DH and regretfully, I have no confidence in the formers judgement.

Really, as good a friend as Stevo has been to London all these years, I'm afraid I think he is pretty clueless. A good rugby player he was, but I wouldn't trust him to make a good call on anything other than selecting a fine red wine.

This is DH preparing the club for life in the lower divisions......there can be no other sane explanation....well, none I can think of anyway.

Sydney here we come.

God that back chat got me depressed. I usedto think Andy Wilson was OK but after that!!! I think he was at Friday Night Lights last year if he is this year I will give him a piece of my mind.

And of course it was Wires weakened team on that (and the Super League show). Nothing about who we were missing and the emergence of the London Yoof.

Seems odd to me that a club can apply for a licence and not have its ground secured for the period. Some of the scoring is based on the ground and location.

After the drawn out scenario at Bradford, the RFL are hardly in a position to question anyone else about their suitability for a 3 year period of Licencing...

Stevo's gems included:
"Twickenham is a snobbish area" I suppose anywhere sout of Watford's snobby as far as he's concerned
"They didn't get the locals interested".......pray tell Steveo, when did they try?
"Twickenham isn't interested in RL"...and they know this because they asked.....like f**k they did!
"They can attract locals at Gillingham".....how, buy asking the 300 ST's they have left to bring a mate and get 10% of a shirt that won't be ready by round 18? Maybe some 20/20 at hald time will do the trick.
"They can tap into the Medway Dragons"......WHAT THE F**k
"I haven't seen Rhinos in Leeds or Bulls in Bradford, so of course London Broncos can move to Gillingham and be called London"


Sorry.....but the reasons that Stevo gave on chatback were insane........but they point to what some of us have known for a while now, St David of Swinton is an RL Legend and a Honorary Cockney, but he knows nothing about running a professional sports club.........move, fail.......move, fail.......move, fail..........

GF what do you think the business case for the move is based upon?

As the clubs marketing guru what would your approach be to making it work.

It just seems to be based on short term financial savings. Have we studied market data (rather than looking at one game we held there). Will a future investor be interested in Gillingham? Will some of the savings go into marketing?

We could easily sell out the olympic stadium

It will come down to finance and alternative sources of funding. DH is not going to be around for ever, who knows we could well end up with the Skolars. We have not had the results of the club review that was started in the middle of the season and no doubt financial pressures and the rent demanded from staying at the Stoop has been part of that discussion.

Common sense would suggest staying in one place is better than moving but yet again there appears to have been no clearly thought out marketing strategy, nor as any suggestions been made with regard to new investment. One thing is clear, stay at the Stoop in the present form and projected cost of rent and with no marketing plan to increase our fan base, we will be stuffed and follow in the footsteps of Bradford.

The more I listened to `Backchat` last night the more depressed I became….back to earth with a bump following a few good on-field results.

No wonder the club is in a mess if DH is taking advice from and confiding in the likes of Stevo who in my opinion is a complete and utter moron.

DH preparing us for the lower divisions?.......possibly, anyone else noticed that the front page of Sky Sports (RL) lists our possible relocation story under the heading `League Two`…………spooky or what!!!

What with Bradfords woes, I would have thought this was a bad time to be raising the debate of whether our SL licence is still valid if we play out of Gillingham………….reduction of teams from 14 to 12 anyone?

If you want to sort out your club DH I suggest you dump the likes of Stevo; put your hand in your pocket (again) and speak to Mark Evans, ex Quins supremo who now works for/runs a sports consultancy I believe. At least you will have `tried` to do the right thing and got some sound advice, rather than fart around like you have over the years, lurching from one disaster to another.

If we go to Gillingham here is my scenario. We start well and gates look better initially at 3K after a lot of local marketing, free tickets for Gills ST holders etc. We start to struggle and gates soon hover around 1,200. Meanwhile Skolars get promoted from Champ 1, DH throws the towel in and we merge with the Skolars. The worse case scenario is that the move to Gillingham is a success and SL in London is dead as a dodo!

[sizeKEEP LONDON IN LONDON[/size

I just cant see a move to Gillingham happening. As we all know it's insane and I just cant believe that the club is as deranged as that - it's not been run well but Gillingham? As someone else said way back in this thread it's more likely the standard tactic of give people a terrible scenario and then the real deal (maybe Leyton) doesnt seem so bad.
I have to believe that because if it really is Gillingham then people need to be packed off to the funny farm. It's beyond all logic.

Financial decision, backed up by an eager CEO eager to cover the failures of his first 2 seasons in the hot seat. People mistakenly put down my attitude towards Gus as something personal or petty, when in reality, it is based purely on the results that haven't been delivered.

The first casualties of the review were back office staff that if I were a gambling man I would say, were let go because DH had given up on Twickenham and the lack of financial assistance from extra fans and the sponsors they attract......the decision to move was made then. As for the exact reasons, in the current climate, does anyone really believe Quins would add any more than 10% maximum to the rent....so it would essentially be 4,250 a week up from 3,850...hardly a game changer. DH may have said enough's enough, Gus will have nodded accordingly and the search was on....
There are reports that Gillinghams Owner was at the stoop last week......when DH goes, maybe he'll be happy to own the club in the Championship, giving him another income stream for his stadium?


SAME AS IT'S ALWAYS BEEN....INVITE PEOPLE TO COME TO GAMES, PUT ON A SHOW AND ASK THEM IF THEY ENJOYED IT AND IF THEY'D LIKE TO COME BACK........repeat this until you have a supporter base.....



It's DH's toy and he'll do with it as he pleases.....he knows his own mind...look how long it took him to admit defeat with the Powell fiasco.......and not one penny will be spent on Marketing......he will put up goal posts and expect the good folk of Kent to roll up.....he doesn't care one jot for those fans he loses by moving to Kent......he is never wrong and so long as his CEO keeps nodding, he'll carry on doing it!

I haven't bothered looking into the social and demographic breakdown of Gillingham and the surrounding areas, but I have no doubt that a specialist firm will be employed to do so...maybe we could use the same marketing and promotions lot that delivered not one new fan this year........and delivered a shirt sponsor for 7 out of 54 games...they could probably do with a second chance...and the cricket season will be over by then

Anyway, no point in doing anything until it's confirmed.....we might all be so happy when Orient is announced we'll forget the pitch is the size of a postage stamp