20 years here and I've rarely gone off message.

I do feel that the Broncos didn't do a very good job of marketing the match. Everything I heard is from the football club. Yes they have a major ulterior motive (money) but I do believe they see the Broncos as a benefit to the community. We get fixture Broncos announcements during the AFC Wimbledon home matches, plenty of articles on the official website, twitter etc. Free publicity for a very relevant target audience I would suggest.

Not convinced the Broncos made best use of the Fans Zone behind the South Stand. The pub was busy, but when I checked pre-match the two food stalls looked very quiet. My suspicion (but I'm guessing) was they had a bad trading day. I knew they were there and how to get there. Only Widnes fans would have passed them. Where were the PA announcements. The food is good, there has been plenty of feedback. Support those vendors as I suspect they won't be back if my fears are true. And you know what, you buy the pie and mash or vegan burger and chips, turn round and there are beers on sale. Perfect with some food. The beer is the biggest mark-up to the football club and my understanding is the Broncos get a share at the Rugby.

We stayed in our seats at half time. Not sure anything happened. Perhaps some score updates (engagement again, first many will hear about future opponents), some info on the club, an interview, a bit on the rules. Whatever.

How many of the 2,182 understood the fundamental six tackles rule. As such many would have been confused by what they were watching.

The best engagement I saw were the players at the end. They came over to the fans, looked approachable and were actually creating a link. Even following the news I struggled to relate to 17 individuals. Probably most familiar with Joe Edge as he kept taking conversions in front of us! For most it was 17 random players running around (in fairness the interchanges were announced). Plenty of pre-match to have announced a bit about the 17 players which should have been alongside at least a basic programme. Play on the different nationalities, that's fun and engaging to understand the variety of players at the Broncos and really fits with the inclusivity of London.

From my perspective I will do some more homework on the players, roles etc before the next game so that I improve my enjoyment. But why not do that for me and everyone else.

At half time I was honestly wondering how many more matches I'd watch. Credit in the second half. That was interesting, reasonably competitive accepting the winner was already known. Now I'm really looking forward to the Whitehaven match..

.

Really interesting to hear your perspective. I thought it was a good new compact ground and it was good to have numbers in. I definitely thought the pre/ mid match announcer that was much trumpeted was woefully underused and I couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was saying. Half time noth8ng happened and it should have- again that’s something for the Broncos management to consider. The players do seem approachable and it is a very regular sight to see them amble over to speak to friends, family and fans at end of game which makes it a bit different from football. The lack of LB branding, programmes or merchandise was baffling. This is probably go8ng to be the biggest crowd so why not exploit it. The real fly in the ointment is the quality and depth of the squad. 6 of the starting 13 were recruited from L1 a further 3 were young recent Academy prospects with minimal experience at this level. it’s really unfair to expect them to compete with seasoned Championship pros but for the club to succeed and thrive that is what is needed so I’m at a loss what the club intends to do about that. Haven should be a good game and I hope the club offers returning Dons fans a decent deal 50% off or some such, but my advice is to give the Fev Rovers game a swerve. That I fear will be a punishment beating and of minimal entertainment value.

I hope the club are reading Snithers99. He's handing them cheap
match day experience improvements on a plate. Sadly the first attempt to impress has already gone. Attempt two needs to show a substantial improvement to help everyone believe the days of stick posts in arca,new ground, announce kick off time and be confused when no-one shows up are gone.

There are some promising signs but must do better as many school reports used to read.

I hope you stick with it and that the club get to see these comments. Frankly, the Broncos owner David Hughes is nothing short of clueless when it comes to marketing.

To clarify, before anyone says "good effort/well done", this exercise in the polishing of a turd just cost the club £70,492.71 for 2 half page ads in the papers and the rent of the ground and delivered approximately £30,000 in gate and matchday revenue

Now....there's also the money that the Broncos will make of the sale of beer. Let us assume that of the 2,183 in attendance, they all consumed 3 pints of local ale and the club put 50p a pint into their coffers. 2,183 x 3 x 50p = £3,274.50

So, we're up to £30k on the gate............ah, but we forgot the RENT! 13 Home games/£200,000.00 = £15,384.61

As I say. Spending, £70,000 to generate less than 50% return isn't clever, it's laziness of the highest order!

Social Media activity during the games was 100% twitter with maybe a dozen people interactive. Social Media since the game has been zero......The club have lapsed into their marketing coma again.....Hughes will have signed off what I can only estimate was a £100,000 launch budget and the clowns have blown it.

Einstein and his definition of insanity seem to be the only thing you can rely on Hughes to do. The club need a 750 average paying the full £22.00 a game to pay just the rent at Plough Lane.

600 free tickets and 500 dons won't be back in 2 weeks time and neither will whitehaven bring more than 100.......so you're down 1,450 on yesterday already.

If the club get a sub 1,000 gate in 13 days time, it'll surely be time to show lobster and monkey the door....won't it?

They should have been shown the door before the 'relaunch'. Based on previous efforts, I think they would be very unlikely to deliver success.

I think everyone accepts most of the leg work was done by Dons and many people on this board have questioned the way Broncos chose to spend their advertising money.

The Haven gate will be of massive significance to the club. A poor gate won't mean it's time to write off the move to Wimbledon - the right people with the right money and strategy could still turn it around. The warning signs would be very obvious though.

I do hink Broncos deserve some credit here. The Social Media person has changed. That had to happen and as he gets his feet under the desk hopefully he'll have the confidence to change the passwords to prevent others dishing out pretty bans. I agree the post game silence is worrying.

They were happy to facilitate the work Dons did on their behalf. It wasn't the all too familiar no we know best, that won't work response.

The finally realise the club and sport need marketing in London. Yes the methods need reviewing but the penny has dropped.

The fact we are praising them for the above shows just how awful things had become. It is progress though and should be recognised.

Is good enough yet? Not even close.

Email from the club this morning

'Tough day at the new office
Widnes too strong for the Broncos as the club makes Plough Lane bow.



“I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.”

London Broncos coach Jermaine Coleman applauded the 2182 supporters who turned out on Sunday to mark the beginning of the club’s new era at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.

The attendance was the Broncos’ highest at Betfred Championship level in eight years as Coleman’s fresh-faced squad hosted Widnes Vikings in the league’s opening round.
Despite the outstanding local support, it was Vikings who left the capital with two Championship points after wing Ryan Ince registered four tries in the visitors’ 12-34 win.

Jude Ferreira, Dean Parata and Lameck Juma were on the scoresheet for Broncos as Coleman took the positives from Sunday’s fixture after the full-time whistle was blown.

He said: “I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.

“Long-term, we’d like to receive the same support game after game so the club can fulfil its ambition to expose more people in London and across the south-east to Rugby League.

“There were some positives to take from the game. I was pleased with the effort and work rate of individuals, and we handed debuts to several young players at this level which marks a new starting point in their careers.

“When the going got tough we never threw the towel in either, which tells you a lot about the character of this squad.”


The Broncos are back in Betfred Championship action on Sunday afternoon when travelling north to face Halifax Panthers.

Coleman identified some key areas he’d like to see the squad improve on ahead of this weekend’s fixture.

He added: “There was some naivety and inexperience in the squad, but that’s something we can work on in training. Our decision making in terms of trying to play certain shapes when we didn’t have players in the right position and control will be worked on too.

“It’s not an excuse but we were missing some senior, experienced, players too through injury and we hope to have them back in the squad too.

“Halifax will be another stiff test this weekend and I know the team are determined to improve on certain aspects of play.”

London Broncos are next in action at home on Sunday, February 13, when Whitehaven RLFC visit the Cherry Red Records Stadium.'

Well Jermaine to keep those crowds at about the 2,000 mark you and your team are going to have to do a hell of a lot better aren't you?
Apart from the diehards no one is going to come back week in week out to watch us getting spanked by bang average teams like Widnes, are they? Especially not when the club made zero effort to make it an event on Sunday!

Social media is all well and good but there was really no Broncos presence at the ground on the day! Nothing to make it feel like an event or occasion!
As I posted on the TRL form no presence outside or inside the stadium, no programmes, no mascots, no volunteers ( or non playing squad members) giving out flags or stuff for the kids etc.... no attempt at enhancing the match day experience. People seem to like attending events - with a little money and a little effort London could have made Sunday's game into much more of an event.
Lose at Fax this weekend and London will do very well to draw a four figure crowd against Haven.

Fax by 20

At least.
Unless Coleman picks a different set of forwards to start the game, has Curran and a couple of others available for selection, and he does something about the defence on our left side.