As I think you would be aware, Mr self advert considered an approach from that direction the season he decided we were no longer the right kind of train set for his nipper

York tabled a bid as well.

YOU DON'T SAY


I thought it was a genuine question

In my capacity as a Mod I have half a mind to lock this thread. Park Royal? Leyton Orient? Barnet? These are all terrible suggestions!!!

The consensus appears to be The Stoop is nice, but doesn't work unless we have a Lenagan-esque investor on board. As if Leyton Orient somehow works without that magical element. This is madness. We have a long-standing association with South West London - a fruitful link-up with St Mary's College, and good relationships with schools in Elmbridge, Kingston, Surrey etc. The club make quite a show of this on their website bigging up the Year 9 mini-tournaments etc. How many schools play rugby league in Leyton? Are there any roots or connection to rugby league in East London at all? It is fanciful. Oh and regardless of his business success, I would think twice before getting into bed with Barry Hearn - he's always struck me as a slippery character.

Let's move to Millwall then, to connect to the working-class. Except, LMS apart, they don't seem to have shown much interest in league. They're football people, through and through. If we moved to Millwall we'd die on our .

People are unhappy with the current state of affairs. I get it. But IMO leaving the stoop, changing our name, that is not moving up, that is not even moving sideways - that is making things worse. We can only forge an identity as a professional London club if we actually stick with a ground and a name for more than five minutes FFS.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment and I have been a ardent supporter of the Stoop/Quins RL thing, it is patently obvious that after 6 years (our longest term at any one place in the SL era) that the club have again missed an opportunity.
2006 was the year for marketing......new name, new colours, new ground, new opportunity. What did they do? Nothing........yet again, fans were supposed to roll up.
2011....2,500 fans is the average so far, so about £10,000 down on ticket sales per game......exactly how deep are David Hughes's pockets?
The comment about the name change and moving may well have been premature, but the CEO did say it...........

Basically you're fooked if you stay , and you're fooked if you move , I'd say you're fooked

Not if Gutters gets to be in charge!

From what I can see there are good valid reasons behind the thinking about a move that the board must be considering [even if everything was rosy, items such as this always need to be considered and discussed

When we moved back to the Stoop it was a partners, that is not the case anymore in the true sense of the word, we are back to where we were in '99 as ground renters, with all associated costs. Couple that with decreasing gates and it's throwing money down the drain season after season. Even with any increased gate vs marketing spend, it does not alter the fact that we are tenants with no opportunity to increase revenue outside of game days.

Should we move? ideal world no, facilities are great, but no chance of anybody coming on board to invest because there is no return on that investment while at the Stoop under current terms, so what other choices do the board have?

So you are in a similar position to Leigh at the LSV , great isn't it ?

I think some of thought that the club was growing at a nice pace with two affluent people covering the clubs losses associated with the running costs incurred due to having insufficient crowds to make ends meet. There seemed a decent balance between marketing, player investment and ruining what was two mens own personal wealth.

It feels doubly bad to lose to Salford with a limp performance when there are less than 2000 fans in the ground, I think there is a real sense in some fans that we are slipping on a slippery slope and that doing nothing with the name and ground, coupled with a lack of investment in the playing staff and still no sign of an external investor means that the club is down to its core 1500 fans, and that things can only continue to get worse. Now I believe that the core group would stay for Harlequins RL at the Stoop in Super League so from that point of view we have bottomed out, these 1500 are the core and away support is very noticeably down. Unless we hit Mad Max times with the economy things will not get worse.

They can however get better; with another investor to add their weight to the heavy burden that (Sir) David Hughes carries in actually underwriting the club to actually keep it going. He cannot do that forever, and our current av. 3k gates only just allow us to go to the Championship cap after paying rent on the Stoop, never mind office and matchday staff, academy, community activities and marketing.

The decision may be taken from our hands, not from the RFL who seem determined to not become a regional sport, but by David Hughes, it is his club and he can take it wherever he likes. I would welcome anyone onboard, even to return us to a solid platform and the aims under Lenagan and Hughes. If we stick and no-one comes in then Hughes is not obligated to stay as underwriter, moving grounds would not help this situation, but it does seem clear that Harlequins RL are not an investment that there is interest in, the name stinks of poor crowds and a weak team, and that has nothing to do with the kit we wear at the minute. A rebranding and move would help alleviate this, but would only further devalue the brand of London RLFC.

Lenagan style investor to come and board and the two people at the helm can choose where they want the club to play and under what name. No investor and the club will bleed David Hughes dry and we will end up with a team of Londoners on the national average wage. I like the Stoop and a move is not the magic wand, so lets hope that with Britain producing more millionaires than it has ever produced that someone at the RFL can introduce them to the club, someone can catch a glimpse of the game for the first time on Sky or the beeb, or maybe someone just wants to play football manager for real, and with soccer being the billionaires pursuit, maybe the second most domestic sport in this country can be the benefactor.

Londo06

I also have nothing against The Stoop, but we have to accept and admit it is not working this time around, first time it did, now what has gone wrong?, the game has developed great strides with young player development, but we have gone down, is it the name? it most likely is, along with the on pitch performances, Fact is it's simply not working, we can bury our head in the sands but all that is going to happen is we have no London RL club at all!

Something has to be done and quickly, if we do get a licence we can't continue like this and the RFL accept that as well, it may be out of our hands that a change name will mean a new ground, then Let it Be! but it has to be completely researched.

I think people are massively overestimating the amount of adults who are interested in multi-skilled sports that aren't football. We have turned off a massive section of those interested in attending sporting events because Harlequins RL has become synonymous with poor crowds at the Stoop and an uncompetitive team in the Super League.

We are making strides off the field throughout London and the south-east, and quite simply a better roster or a massively over-achieving team would see people who are interested in sport, rather than the sport turn up at the Stoop, as long as they are told that Quins are selling themselves; a hell of alot easier to do when you are winning than when you are not, as Saracens and Harlequins rugby union can attest to.

I believe David Hughes is both sticking with the Stoop at the moment and waiting to twist, and that twist is another investor that will either see us continue at the Stoop and drift or ramp up with a cash injection. The other option on the twist is for that investor to move us away from the Stoop and rebrand.

A comprehensive questionnaire of those interested in the game, with those completing the survey getting free match tickets would be worthwhile.

It is by no means guaranteed that Wakefield are the team to go down to the Championship, I hope for our sake that someone or a group of investors can share some of the burden currently carried by David Hughes.

I tend to agree, I suspect the only reason for us to move or rename is if it is associated with additional investment. Looking at the stats, I don't think that our name or location are a major factor in us attracting crowds. I think having a decent team is a much bigger factor but without investment that isn't going to happen. Also lets not lose sight of the fact that we will need to have a competitive team to retain any key talent we develop.

I wonder sometimes whether things would be different if the franchise system was not in place. The threat of relegation would make things more interesting at least.