Which failed rebrand are you referring to? The H********s one was hardly a rip roaring success!

The first three years of the 'partnership' was relatively favourable to our club and it is easy to have fond memories as we were more of a 7th to 9th club than a bottom three team also.

Nic Cartwright initially secured a deal for London Broncos which secured the useage of the Twickenham Stoop on extraordinarily favourable terms meaning that all four corners of the ground were open and a degree of co-operation around marketing and commercial opportunities took place. Ian Lenagan was also an open and lively commentator building rapport and the club was open and friendly, rather than the barrier place it later became.

When Nic did the deal Harlequins were up for a full amalgamation of the two clubs. Statements such as “both clubs go into this partnership with the intent that they will be one club playing both codes of rugby” and there was talk of a “synergy and sharing” strategy and that we “will also begin to work together on community, marketing and commercial opportunities” were commonly bandied about.

However the main instigator of the deal on our side was Nic Cartwright from the Rugby League side and he left relatively early in the partnership whilst Ian Lenagan was at Wigan on the 1st December 2007, a long way before the end of the inital three year deal concluded, after which he left the club in suspended animation for several years. Whilst Mark Evans on the Union side was purely committed to his own club - and did nothing for the partnership. It worked for him as he expanded the Stadium and got numbers in crowd-wise particularly from the Big Game concept and no doubt he gained by cross-selling £99 tickets into our base and living off the back of our community work and engagement that promoted Harlequins.

After 2008 we became a tenant/landlord and at that point we should have immediately abandoned the Rugby Union colours and name for our own identity. They declined to buy in for a nominal sum, so the partnership was over.

I know the Union were quoting over £5 grand to open up one stand on one day when asked several years ago and we felt it wiser to only open one stand, such was the steep rise in costs and believe me they have grown each year!

Since June 2009, when we won at Leeds away and then Hull KR away, there has been a major decline in playing standards and that was due to the mediocre acquisition and retention of Brian McDermott which saw him gain just 7 wins from his last 38 games and the club decline year on year under his stewardship. This is fact. Although he only left 2 1/2 years ago just O'Callaghan, Howell and Melling in the squad were discovered by Mac and in the team.

I say this knowing that someone will jump in and talk about how he kept four-times-in-a-row Grand Finalists Leeds still in the Grand Final but there is a difference between maintaining success and delivering it. He did not build things for us, bar having an involvement in the youth side.

Then we had another two bad years with Powell who was a steaming pile of mediocrity with just 9 wins from 47 and thus the club has had five years declining under Mac and two more under Powell, so we have now lost any enthusiasm from the Union supporters as well as the paymasters.

We should have got out after 2008 when no full integration took place, just as we should never have took on two unproven managers, but we are where we are.

It is easy to constantly talk about winning every week and bigger attendances and I have no doubt that possibly some of the floating Union support may have joined a winning bandwagon, but the reality is there was one 8000 gate and the rest has been derisory - people walking out of the ground rather than staying on for free to watch us etc.

I'm looking forward to ending this bad relationship and giving things another go.

But on to more positive things, let's get behind the guys against Bradford and batter the Bulls, after all they are our club and the only one we have.

Easy
Rammo

I may be wrong but I don't think that Nic had much to do with the Quins move and it was ILs drive that got us there.Mark Evans was I believe very supportive. Unfortunately those two have not been around for a number of years and we are where we are.

I just wish the move away from the Stoop was explained fully. If it is this perception from the Warder that RL doesn't work in SW london the sorry that is bullocks. No marketing allied to no success on the pitch and an alienation of the existing supporters will mean it will work nowhere in crowd terms.

Sad as another 2 kids are named in the England yoiuth team and we had more homegrown players in our team than our opposition heartlands club on Monday (probably most heartland clubs in fact). Somehow the M62 gene pool has to be expanded to beat the Aussies and make the international game more popular and by inference the club game.

We were in an eminently preferable position then compared to where we are now. We also had a better atmosphere and more songs. I am sick of singing the monotone drone that is our only 'chant'

Broncos 2005 ave 3,918
Harlequins 2006 ave 4,917

25% up.....

Harlequins 2011 ave 3,124
Broncos 2012 ave 2,807

10% down

spot the difference

Hi Gutterfax,

I am wondering whether your season one data includes the double header in which over 12,000 fans were counted as present.

That would be pretty much the difference explained for year one.

Comparing the years is also not necessarily comparing like with like unless you discount results/league position.

We have dropped from 7th to 9th, stayed at 9th, then dropped to 11th, then 13th, then bottom for most of 2012 before Tony Rea saw us finish the season in 12th.

Whilst away support has certainly dropped for London, with Catalans eating into the leisure £ for the once-a-year Northerner trip and then a recession that has gone on for 5 years.

It sounds all excuses, but the reality is that 1,000-2,000 could sometimes come from the likes of Wigan and Bradford plus the Hull clubs and I'm not sure that is still the case.

There are some similarities in that we failed to win at home for the first five games of each of the first two years following each of the rebrands. Whilst our Landlord won all its games in the first year 2006 at home and has since seemed to be playing European Rugby etc since then.

I honestly believe that the Twickenham Stoop has connotations in player and supporter minds given that we have only tended to win three or four games per year in it and that we have little or no home advantage playing there. I feel much more positive away from home.

It is irrational but I feel that the ground opposite is like a Spectre looming over the Stoop and that we are overshadowed by our landlord to the point that the Rugby £ is spent only in one place.

I have nothing against West London but feel that the football demographic is much more relevant to our game rather than a different rival sport, so Brentford or whatever would work for me.

I will be controversial and say that Gillingham would also work for me, because if the Rugby League community did get behind the club that would be better than having no community at all as we do now.

If we could get a council with us, a non direct rival club competing for the same £ and a community surely that would be better than now

Cheers
Mark

remove the double header and replace it with the previous average for Hudds of 2,860 and we still saw an INCREASE of 8% in fans year 1 as Quins RL.....Hardly a fail.
Then there's the fact that we had a new investor in 2006, one with ambition and belief in what could be achieved.....and a Rugby League CEO who had worked wonders down in Croydon and a new Landlord who at least made the right noises.

compare it to the 2011-2012 seasons....

and in 2007 the average was 3,395 a drop of 1,522 people on the previous year therefore 31% down. Hardly stunning progress or evidence of a successful rebrand and no Gus in sight.

And as for Esher as a ground, you would need to move the pitch if you wanted 4 stands and it's designated as Green Belt, which may prove problematic.

Well don't bloody sing it then!!

Now r u including the 12,000 that supposedly watched our home game with Huddersfield in 2006? Cos that would be a bit cheeky wouldn't it? I'm not claiming that the new London rebrand has worked, I'm bitterly disappointed that it hasn't as I loathed our incarnation as H********s, but as you have fondly told us the only time we grew our crowds in the SL era was as Broncos at Brentford! Even your own figures show our gates falling from 2006 to 2011! I spotted that difference ok thanks!

Yes he is. If you use a reasonable estimate of 4500 for that game, the season average comes down to about 4350. So that's more than half of his +25% gone, There was also the one-off effect of the 8213 attendance for the highly publicised season opener game v. Saints.

...I've already covered this and shown we still had an increase...


...so there was no reasonable expectation of a "one off" for the first game back as the Broncos......


I am quite frankly stunned at the amount of people (more than 1) who are prepared to defend the club at the moment....each to their own I suppose, but 1,136 v a french team in 2013 compared to 9,638 v a French team 1n 1996 speaks volumes for the "progress" made by the club