Quote Surreyben="Surreyben"I can't agree with you here. The problem is that with the exception of the first season and a half the club's guise as Fulham RL, our top division crowds have always tended to sit somewhere between 3 and 4,500. On occasions when we have had crowds above this, it has been very short lived. We have spent time in the top division of the came known as Fulham, London Broncos and Harlequins RL. If our crowds were no better when we were called London Broncos, then the real problem cannot be simply because we are "the rugby league playing arm of Harlequins RU."'"
It isn't the route cause, but it does not help with the perception that we are not separate from the union team. The second perception is that we play to poor crowds and the team itself is poor because it is a northern game. This is a commonly held view among people who enjoy sports and have no hostility towards the game, but Harlequins RL are recognised as weak, and who wants to go to see something that is regarded as weak.
Changing that perception is easy in theory, hard in that it takes cash to improve the squad, cash that is not available at this time. A truly competitive club who can honestly go into a season realistically challenging for play-off football will see crowds increase, not necessarily surge, but rise to previous levels.
Perception is the reason we are not attracting sports fans and the reason we have not retained fans who come to the bigger games is that we have had increasingly weaker squads mixed with no direction in the back office.
'"
