That's my view too. They had that person 6 years ago in Ian leneghan, but the RFL made him give up interest in London and then Hughes took over.

There's a bloke on the VT who talks about Hughes' balls-ups quite often, makes interesting reading. I'm sure one of them involved him appointing one of his mates as CEO, this mate having no knowledge of RL or even running a business. He also reckons it has cost Hughes around £10m funding them since he took over.

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.

It may come as a surprise to you and maybe other good folk on here, but once in London you are allowed out occassionally. I often get a day / weekend or heaven forbid a week pass back north to meet with family and friends. I also have a wonderful device called a telephone which allows me to call home almost daily. I have something called the internet which allows me to read the HDM and I can also get on social media which I thought was a world thing but clearly it hasn't reached all the far flung places. This has allowed me to keep in touch with things both in the East Riding and also with relatives in Australia. Its amazing.

Twitter is out there. Whilst I have no followers it allows me to follow all kinds of people including clubs and organisations like amateur rugby clubs. It also allows me to read that players are constantly wanted and numbers are dwindling at some of the well established clubs.

I am as you can tell being flippant, but what on earth makes you think that just because I have left the confines of the M62 means I have no knowledge.

When I was playing there was no teams for players under 11 years of age (secondary school). There are teams certainly down here from U6. If its the same in Hull you would expect some increase as they are starting from zero. As for the other over 11 groups I regularly see tweets about numbers dwindling. Maybe they are wrong, maybe you are wrong. I can only comment on what I read.

As for agreeing with you I hadn't realised I wasn't. My post was general as opposed to specific.

I work in London full time, a lot of my work colleagues are Londoners and those that follow rugby follow RU, we have had this conversation a many times and although they watch the Rugby League on TV mainly when I am on shift and have it on, they also quiet enjoy it but would never go to watch it live.

Just the way it is, they are just not interested in RL just has its been said.

Shame but that is just how it is.

The RFL would be better promoting Milton Keynes or somewhere like that.

What is the amount of money pumped into London by the RFL?

1100 and odd fans at Londons home game against Catalans in 2013 that is very poor i have seen more fans at a BOCM boxing day final so in my opinion it is not enough income to fund a team in the top flight of rugby. That alone must be killing off the broncos never mind the players who are out jumping Greg Rutherford to get away from the place.

I'm in exactly the same boat re colleagues and friends. Still trying to persuade them to come to wembley.

I do agree with Graham Richards about making it a community thing. I've been saying for a while the broncos should play in the east end, Leyton/Stratford way. Thanks to the Olympics the transport links are excellent and far more accessible than the stoop. What's equally interesting is the demographics of the area. A predominately working class population and close enough to attract interest from
Essex folk, who are far more likley to watch RL than west London people. There really is genuinely strong amateur set up down here too. I've met people involved and whatever happens with the broncos RL will continue here as the Skholars are in good shape according to these very broncos employees I was speaking too a few months ago.

Terrible miss management and poor marketing yes but they just need to focus on one area and spread the message. And make it a working class one. But in my opinion this can take place while they drop down a division and rebuild ala Crusaders in wales.

Just the thoughts of an average fan anyway

i they do go under, i want there cone man to be ours, have u seen that guy, he's a legend. sorry if already been said.

He's brilliant! But wasn't he crusaders' cone carrier too? He's a jynx!

No mare he was with london from them been broncos then harlequins and now back to broncos he been there before crusaders came along

When did that happen?

Think the last time was back in the 80's wasn't it?

More to the original point, a merged Cumbrian SL side has been attempted twice in the Summer era and both times it was rejected by the clubs and fans. There simply isn't any appetite for it.

Think he meant Workington.

Think you're right. One season in SL, two wins all season, and relegated with crippling debts.

Definitely worth another try.