I really do struggle to get my head around the catchment area nonsense. It impacts on nobody else even if you just totted up the populations of Merton, Richmond, Hounslow & Ealing where we have had past "home" grounds. The refusal to accept this by the RFL/IMG does seem to be obstructive on their part to our grading score for whatever reason.

The Catchment score is defined as the population of the Local Authority District where the club’s stadium is located divided by the total number of Tier 1 and Tier 2 clubs in the same area.

Ealing alone would have gained the maximum 1.5 points for catchment since population is above 260k. Richmond and Merton have relatively small populations (for London Boroughs) both falling within the 130k-260k bucket that awards 1 point.

Even if points were awarded on a sliding scale (rather than in rather crude buckets), we might get a more sensible score.

Just be thankful we aren't playing in the City of London.

I bow to your superior knowledge Buzz, but it's still bonkers. Mind you if we played at the HAC regularly, we might not be short of money.

In fairness to IMG it is a bit tricky.
Ideally we like to claim the whole of London and indeed some of the outlying counties. We could probably make a decent fist of providing ST holder evidence that fans come from all over. I suspect LB Merton doesn’t figure in the top 5 of hives of Broncos support but I’m not sure where does. I suspect they feel that the whole of London is too big a weighting anomaly for such a modestly supported team so they have picked the areas we are based in and are targeting with player/staff interaction. I think we could make a case for Merton and Richmond on the basis we train at the latter and perhaps if we stepped up our community engagement there with a nod from them we could capture that catchment area but let’s be honest we are likely to be doing much, much less so, basically we’re stuffed.

Quote: BigTime "In fairness to IMG it is a bit tricky. Ideally we like to claim the whole of London and indeed some of the outlying counties. We could probably make a decent fist of providing ST holder evidence that fans come from all over. I suspect LB Merton doesn’t figure in the top 5 of hives of Broncos support but I’m not sure where does. I suspect they feel that the whole of London is too big a weighting anomaly for such a modestly supported team so they have picked the areas we are based in and are targeting with player/staff interaction. I think we could make a case for Merton and Richmond on the basis we train at the latter and perhaps if we stepped up our community engagement there with a nod from them we could capture that catchment area but let’s be honest we are likely to be doing much, much less so, basically we’re stuffed.'" I doubt think they really think about how the criteria affects one place of another. The criteria has to be written so it applies anywhere in the country. Not sure what could be used other than local authority district. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... population

Quote: BigTime "In fairness to IMG it is a bit tricky. Ideally we like to claim the whole of London and indeed some of the outlying counties. We could probably make a decent fist of providing ST holder evidence that fans come from all over. I suspect LB Merton doesn’t figure in the top 5 of hives of Broncos support but I’m not sure where does. I suspect they feel that the whole of London is too big a weighting anomaly for such a modestly supported team so they have picked the areas we are based in and are targeting with player/staff interaction. I think we could make a case for Merton and Richmond on the basis we train at the latter and perhaps if we stepped up our community engagement there with a nod from them we could capture that catchment area but let’s be honest we are likely to be doing much, much less so, basically we’re stuffed.'" I doubt think they really think about how the criteria affects one place of another. The criteria has to be written so it applies anywhere in the country. Not sure what could be used other than local authority district. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... population

The London Borough of Wansworth has a population in excess of 300,000. A Professional Rugby League player is capable (I think) of kicking a conversion at the North End of Plough Lane (when Kicking from slightly the right side of the posts) into the Borough of Wandsworth. The Corner Pin Pub and Tescos Local are in Wandsworth. Two of the three roads around the stadium are in Wandsworth.

Local Authority is an illogical concept for catchment area. It should be based on population within a certain distance. Two clubs near each other should have a midway divide for containing the catchment area in that direction.

Whilst you could argue the Broncos catchment area should include South England, I'd agree that wouldn't make sense. But not counting people living a minute from the ground is stupid.

That would make sense if such data were easily available but almost certainly isn't.

Which ever way it is looked at, there is an inbuilt disadvantage to some clubs based on this metric.

Leeds for example could have 5 tier 1 & 2 clubs in the Borough & still get full points. Warrington & Saints are in smaller LA areas then us & the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan with 330k bodies includes both Wigan & Leigh. No idea whether they were marked down or some loophole found. I'm sure there would be more of a row if there were closer to 12th.