Plough Lane is very popular with the women’s football game.

I'm not sure that would be a reason for such a long period of repair. Charlton were playing at a higher level than AFC & Brenford probably about the same, but obviously clubs expect their pitches to be of better quality now. Pitch technology has moved on in leaps & bounds since then, so you have to wonder if AFC have installed the right sort of pitch for year round sport if it needs this length of repair.

Our fixture list is pretty ridiculous. We play Barrow at Cherry Red on 13-May and then are not back there again until 30-Jul against York.

Thats 12 weeks without a home game (I don't count Ebbslefleet as home games). Remind me again if any other club who shares with a football club also has 12 weeks gap in the middle of the season

I think this approach comes from the “How not to build a club” handbook. Page 14 under the sub-heading “Stalling momentum”. I believe there is a well thumbed copy in the Gold Lounge if you ever get in there. Other chapters include “Non recruitment- a spirited defence” and “Retaining players? Nah xxxx ‘em, there’s always more”. I believe having tried it out in 2022- we no longer feel the latter chapter quite worked for us.

York has a 4 week gap at the end of May, the beginning of June, which may or may not be for pitch work & Doncaster has about the same a little later.

On the current fixture list, Wigan also has a 4 week period from the end of May to late June.

Yes and no. There is interest and like the Broncos they have moved to the East Stand together with a (smaller) Fan Zone. But numbers aren't large (although good for the lower Leagues of the Women's game)

2023 Plough Lane Attendances for all events so far are:
Women's Football - 394
Men's Football v Bradford - 8,383
Men's Football v Stockport - 8,511
U18's Football v Leeds - 1,074
Rugby League v Batley - 1,849

The issue with the ground maintenance is that the grass doesn't get as much natural light as expected. Perhaps not surprising with those flats! They did expect the ground to be able to cope with two football teams and one Rugby League team (not Union) initially. They have one lighting rig (I think a premiership team would have around a dozen). I guess more may resolve the maintenance issue, but shutting down the ground for two months from mid May to mid July every year is not a great use of the facility regardless. Last summer it was to dig up and totally relay. Looking like they plan the same again.

I have a copy of that book. The opening chapter explains that if you follow every step as instructed, you can then blame everyone else for the utter shambles you have created, including whinging fans, the RFL, top flight Union clubs, 2nd tier Union clubs, Lower league football clubs and the dog eating your homework..........
......I don't think he's ever admitted making a mistake in terms of anything the club has done. Unfortunately for him the evidence is there for all to see, so no matter his level of denial, his crimes will always be there for others to learn from.
Hughes has butchered the club and the carcas that remains is there to have any decent developed kids picked off by the northern clubs at will....

And let's face it we've developed some good kids over the years - Silva coming back for a month showed he was pretty good on Sunday. Add his name to a fair old list, starting perhaps with LMS?

LMS & Clubby were both 2006 & both have had excellent careers from our Acadamy. Although not born a Londoner, you could make an argument for Peter Lupton from 2000 as sure he was Acdamy too & has done ok for himself.

Not sure about Peter. I once bumped into an old youth coach of his up north. He was quite damning, saying Broncos harmed his career. He stated the senior coaching staff basically ignored Peter and the youth set ups we occasionally got together for him to play in simply weren't good enough. As such, Peter spent much of his time with us playing RU for Charlton Park, to ensure he got game time.

To be fair he also said the - then full time - Broncos learnt a lot from what happened to Peter and was confident any youngsters heading south then would have been treated much better.

Interesting to think what our best home grown team might be. Seems to be the more creative positions we have struggled to develop.

Walker
Caro
Sarginson
Caton-Brown
Dixon
Keyes
O Leyland
Clubb
S Davis
McCarthy-Scarsbrook
Pearce-Paul
McMeeken
M Davis

Bienek
Krasniqi
Lupton
M Worrincey

I can't understand the youth setup being ignored back in the late 90's Peter Lupton played in the same academy team as my sons friend (who we used to sponsor). As far as I know they had the same opertunities back then as they have know playing against other super league club academies. Where possible we used to watch the academy games at home and away. If my memorey serves me right Bev Risemen used to be involved with the youth setup at Brtoncos in the late 90's.

It was a long time ago now but from memory he felt Peter didn't play enough RL in London, the junior sides he played in were too weak to develop properly, training was below the standard required for the same reason and that he was mismanaged during the transition to adult RL.

One persons perception obviously but he was a friend of the Lupton family so was probably well informed.

Watched the highlights on YouTube....we looked unorganised