Just an idea. It's looking like west ham will be using the olympic stadium after 2012, is it not an idea to try and get a lease through the summer for
london rugby league? You could re-brand for the last time and finally get a home?

We have a home.

Plus we'd then pretty much be in Stratford......Yuck!!!!

better, in my opinion ,than the middle class dump that is twickers......as long as we`ve got holes in our ar$e$ the locals wont watch league.maybe a move to east london would find more down to earth /open minded people who`ll give us a go.

No thanks. Current stadium is just fine.

Maybe, but will they still have us if we end up in the championship? it is Fact it worked first time around but this time it has been a disaster and I see no chance of it changing short term.

2,500 folks rattling around a 15,000 capacity ground is for some heartbreaking. Can you imagine what they'd look like rattling around a 25,000 post olympic stadium????

Actually we don't have to do much imagining, we can just think back to the last time we were in Charlton.

Maybe Charlton has “down to earth /open minded” people, but it didn't do us much good crowd wise the last time.

I wrote a post a while back saying all this talk of location distracts from the real issues with regards to crowds. I stand by that.

charlton aint in east london.
how much longer are we going to waste time in the wrong part of london.
twickenham-nice stadium,locals not interested
stratford-fantastic stadium,locals ? interested
the main downside would be the youth development in sw london would suffer

I dont see how the class of the locals would effect attendances! The only reason we should move is if we get an amazing long term deal that improves on what we have.

i think class has a lot to do with attendances,being in a rugby union area has a lot to do with attendances.the two sentances are one and the same

I'm 200 miles away in Leigh, I don't want to cause any upset. It is just an idea, from the outside looking in, you have lost your identity since becoming Harlequins RL. Sport England will want the stadium used all year round, maybe this is your chance to get top notch facilities, and a home of your own, at hardly any cost, in London.

Sorry........Public Boarding School Educated poster here........and 100% league fan.

You assume that the locals know we exist......a very dangerous assumption. As for your working class target audience.....Thatcher saw to it that there is a very small section of the population that still consider themselves working class.....the sales of 52" flat screen TV's and Right to Buy council properties, together with the personal debt mountain in the UK would point to people no longer Knowing Thier Place


Londons Professional Super League Rugby League team will live or die in TW2........in my opinion that is. I am no fan of the public transport (or lack of it) around the ground, but whilst my 19yr old daughter is part of what I call the instant generation (they want it NOW!), a 10 minute stroll to the ground shouldn't tax too many people over the age of 25.....

...sell the product.....make people aware the club exists, show the local dads that there is somewhere to take their kids on a summer Saturday/Sunday afternoon where they won't be subjected to racist/foul mouthed chants on the terraces, they will se grown men hit hard and sho respect.......don't sell bands and cheerleaders.
RL is a family game...that's what makes it unique......sell that. The locations (TW2/Brentford/Charlton etc....) are not the problem. We could play in the middle of Oxford Street FFS.....you need to Market the Offering............

sorry Homer....I saw where I was taking this and have stopped myself.



Location is not the problem.............nuff said

gutterfax- what has tv size got to do with class.
you mention working class,i didnt. im a born and bred londoner from east london and i know that league wont take off in twickers or the surrounding areas.league has always attracted working, lower middle class people, categorize them with whatever name you like ,(you are an exception to the rule),but an area like twickers middle,upper middle class area breeds people not typical that watch league.it will never work there.we should cut our loses and re locate to stratford where i think people may come.
if you really think that the locals dont know we are at the stoop you are naive. they have had enough time to hear about us,if they aint interested now they never will be.
if im honest i gave up thinking we would get great crowds years ago.i think we missed the boat when super league begun .the sun offers ,radio publicity with jono ,a good team,exposure on sky etc.we failed to capitalise then and pi$$ed about moving to wrong parts of london.many wont agree with me but its my opinion.i desperately want to see us succeed but i am not convinced we are in the right side of the thames.

Made me laugh.

TV size and class? I dunno, maybe it's just that when B&W TV landed....upper class, and then upper middle got it.
Colour...Upper, uppermiddle, midddle then working class was the order of the upgrade.....50 years later and the world and his wife can afford a 52" screen from chavgos on the never never...the point was, TV was a yardstick!
Back to the thread

Charlton......hardly TW2 is it
Brentford, until recently a Labour stronghold and a predominantly white "working class" area.....
Twickenham.......middle and aspirant middle upper class........with a bit of council thown in for flavour



What have they all got in common? SHI7 crowds for Londons SL team. And, as others have said, an 70% empty Stoop is bad enough...do you really want a 90% empty stadium with 8 track lanes between you and the players?

I repeat (sorry homer)...situ is not the problem. The posh tw@s in Richmond and Twickenham don't even know we exist...MARKET THE GAME!

No they're not. Sheffield got very similar crowds in SL to us and had similar levels of success on the field. But their city's full of soccer fans. Working class people are no more open minded to RL than middle/upper class people. Its got nothing to do with class. We need people to identify with the club and in my opinion we can only do that with either a much more succesful team with top class players or a market that's easier to capture. i.e. a smaller town with less top sports teams and normal boundaries and town centre, like Milton Keynes or Oxford.

There are 2 things that I think have nothing to do with our clubs current failings, and they are the market, and the identity. The same arguments get trotted out over and over again, and we have the same discussions every year. In the short term, the club is trying, but still falling way short of the target. The club is still in its relative infancy, and the only real concern I have right now is our reliance on David Hughes. Everything else will take years.

How do you know that the locals in Stratford would be interested in a RL team?

My personal feeling is that we need to stop moving around London - we've been back at The Stoop for five seasons now and need to make it a long term thing.

First and foremost I definitely think we should stay where we and try and make more of a go of it.

I happen to agree with a lot of comments Gutterfax puts about marketing.
Has anybody at the club looked into having say, six London cabs done in livery ( suggest the use of this years away colours to distinguish from RU side ) thsi is something Wasps done with QPR when they moved to Loftus Road na d Saracens when first went to Watford.
Also there are a lot of national carriers ie TNT , Tuffnells ect who have depots in Heathrow are and serve the local communities around SW, W and NW London. Has anybody approached them to find out if advertising banners could be put across their fleets, they do it for missing persons ect (we could do it for missing supporters). I wouldn't know what costs are involved but if don't ask you don't get.

How do you know that the locals in Stratford would be interested in a RL team?

i dont,no more than anyone else.what i do know is it aint working at the stoop.
do you not think that the publicity of moving to stratford into the olympic stadium would be enormous compared to anything we have done before?would that not help in getting bums on seats.i bet saracens are considering this.do we carry on as we have been until david hughes gets the hump with losing his dosh,im amazed hes put up with our lack of progress for so long(youth development aside) a nomadic history hasnt helped us thats true,but maybe a FINAL move to a prestigious stadium might just be the kick start we need.we sure as hell need something to happen.

We've been at the Stoop for 3 seasons, heartland clubs have been in their current locations for decades and are still getting pathetic crowds. Expecting crowds to turn up overnight is impossible and naive. Again, many teams in the North have 100+ year histories and associations, yet can't even break 10k. I'd settle for very small growth every year. As few as 500 people. Aiming for 10k crowds within 5 years is ridiculous.

End of argument.

so your argument is to stay where we are for decades like heartland clubs and get pathetic crowds? very well thought out . not end of argument

Pathetic relative to their histories. I think 2.5k after 3 years is pretty decent going. See the rest of my post, I edited it. Let people get used to the club, bring people in gradually, and it'll work. We can't force it on people suddenly.