Quote: Graham Richards "The issues as I see them (I have lived in and around London since 1990) is simple. They are not a community team. They have fallen into the flat cappers trap of seeing London as a whole with 7m population.
Someone has mentioned the early 90s in Barnet. I recall 1990/1 when they played at Crystal Palace. They then moved to Barnet which is similar in terms of time if not distance as Hull moving to Huddersfield. They were in the lower divisions then not in super dupper league and were hardly attracting the great and the good of RL. Tim Wilby was involved at the time, thats the calibre of player they had. Not really the type to entice the good folk of London.
Since then London's demographics have changed massively. Your "cockney" has generally moved out and the city has become the bus stop for the world. A growing but transcient population is not easy to attract.
The only constant in that time has been the city's obsession with football and its many professional clubs. Compare London to Paris in terms of pro clubs and you see what I mean. Thats not easy to break for any sport let alone RL.
But with SL came Richard Branson, world class players and a runners up place in SL. Since then due to still trying to attract ALL of London they have failed, and various owners have come and gone. The current one being the worst of the lot. But despite that the grassroots work has been incredible. At a time when I see amateur clubs in Hull struggling for players, more and more are playing the game in London and the SE. This is not work that can be passed off and completely disrgarded.
When I moved to London there was a fantastic test series against Australia, which DID capture the imagination of London. Its what people cried out for, it was live on the BBC and the country as a whole watched as former RU stars and the talented RL players went toe to toe with Australia.
An opportunity was completely lost when this was not followed up. London Crusaders should have been dropped into Division 1 at that point. But that was a different era and we were in the oh so successful promotion and relation period.
In terms of media, can we stop comparing us to RU. If we go through the national papers on a daily basis you will find that they are 80% football, then of the remaining 20% you will regularly get horse racing, cricket, RU, F1, Tennis and RL. I don't ever see gymnastics, netball, swimming, darts blah blah moaning about lack of coverage in the national press. The fact that we are often in the papers is good imho. Then you have BBC ceefax or whatever its called now and their website which always have RL stories on. For a insular localised sport we don't do too badly. I am not saying its great so don't try misquoting me.
Here in London there has barely been a day when the World Cup has NOT had some news in the Evening Standard, which given that nobody knows about the sport in London is an odd thing for the editor to print.
I have asked before which RU clubs have been successful in London since professionalism? With the exception of Quinns they have all either gone bust or moved out. So its not all rosey in their garden either. Saracens pack Wembley full of toms dicks and harrys for £5 who then fail to go to a normal league game. Imagine if the Broncos had 70,000 at Wembley but only 4000 turned up at the next match. Saracens now play in Barnet and as you enter the borough all the signs have Saracens name on them. People have to notice it. Now do they go, I don't think so but a seed is sown. They are becoming a local community team NOT a London team.
If the Broncos did that and started from scratch in a local area they might just start to make progress. If they played at Barnet I would call them Barnet or North London. For this year they should look to get all the fringe players from SL clubs in to get them going. Players of the calibre of Jamie Shaul who were scratching around for a match last season or drifting in and out of squads on dual reg. They might not be the best yet, but they would have a point to prove. They would be cheap and would allow some stability short term. They would also be playing SL week in week out and not championship football. This would be invaluable experience for them.
This would give time to market the club and the game in the new local area and you never know it might start to succeed.'"
You basically have agreed with my earlier point that they are not part of the community, they have no roots.
I would love to know however if you have lived in London since 1990 how you know that Hull amateur clubs are struggling for players. In fact since youth rugby switched to summer, must be 15 year ago now there are more kids playing the game than ever before, from under 8's right up to open age it has increased nearly every year.
