London Facsimiles......WELL, If my numbers come up this weekend

I think you'll find that although close geographically the Wimbledon of tennis,strawberries and cream is a million miles from the Wimbledon of Plough Lane (old home of Wimbledon FC and the dog track)!

The All England Tennis Club is actually on the outskirts of Southfields.

Not sure if this thread has drifted or not......

And old home of Wimbledon Speedway. Chris Brown will be back.

It's not prejudicial to state that you don't like your club playing in an area where it is dominated by another sport.

My statement was based on fact. The club does not seem to be well loved locally and the crowds are terrible.

Time to move on

far be it from me to be pedantic about your pedantry, but surely the outskirts of Southfields is Wimbledon itself? I should know - I used to live five minutes from the All England Club.

I await any credible ground alternative with interest, but I for one will be very disappointed if we leave the Stoop. Good ground, accessible, nice location. It is hardly because of the shirt we play in and the place where we wear it that few people come and watch the team.

True. In the end I hope we stay at the Stoop as it's a cracking ground.

With no fans, no identity and no chance of ever developing. So many fans have stopped going nowadays (many never went again after the move from Brentford which had a far better atmosphere - especially when the club had the gumption to open 3 sides up)

So if you moved to your own permanent home in Wimbledon you'd be disappointed?

Granted the Stoop is a great stadium but it's someone else's, having your own base that no one will ever dictate to you must surely be the end goal in terms of stadium?

Yup, amazing atmosphere at Brentford. They opened that terrace once didn't they? And about 10 people stood on it?

I forget the season but we played Broncos 1st game of the season at Brentford, i stood on the terraces and nearly died of hypothermia* it was that cold.

*[size=85slight exaggeration[/size

The away terrace was decent. Some supporters lobbyed for the use of the terrace at the other end of the ground though.

Listy do you remember when they opened the other end for home fans

Yes. It was a complete failure.

No it wasn't.......250+ people in there including 2 very large and very peed off Leeds fans when Botham kicked a last minute conversion to get the draw after we had been dead and buried with 10 minutes to go. the 2 leeds fans only came in for the last 15 minutes,,,,,,,they thought they had the game in the bag



I took 4 new fans that day....2 still go to the stoop a few times a year.

The thing with the Brook road end being opened was about getting an area where 'noisy" fans could get together.......many a time I was told off by a certain poster on here for being too vocal when in the breamar road stand

Yes Brentford was a great ground for Superleague rugby. In the same class as Knowsley Road, Wheldon Road, The Willows etc. Under current legislation we'd have dropped out of Superleague after going bust there, and if we hadn't gone bust we'd have a much better chance of losing our Superleague licence because it's a relic from a bygone age.


I'd be delighted with a permanent home of our own (or one that is genuinely at least 50% ours in partnership with another club) anywhere in an easily accessible part of Greater London. It would have to be of similar standard to The Stoop though, and I don't think we'd be in a situation to pick and choose exactly which part of London it was in, so all the musings about which districts or quarters of the metropolis might be most conducive to pulling in thousands of new supporters seems a bit irrelevant to me at this stage. In the meantime I think The Stoop is an excellent home for our club unless, or until, something which offers us much more favourable terms of tenure arises. Squatting at QPR, Millwall, Leyton Orient is not the answer for me, and I despair that anyone can even make such suggestions.

How about [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestfield_StadiumHERE[/url then

Well I think we all agree that London is dominated by Association Football so back to the M62 it is.

Man Utd and Liverpool are on the M62

(1) It's in Kent, not London, I doubt if any of our current supporters will go and all the developement work will go up the swanee as it's mostly being done miles away.
(2) For all your deranged rants about marketing, I can't see the locals being interested, whatever the club does.
(3)Apropos 1 and 2, this would effectively be a new club being parachuted into SL, bypassing all the licenceing requirements. I don't see Red Hall , for all their aloofness regarding the views of supporters being prepared to face the explosion of anger that that would cause!

1. Don't shoot the messenger
2. Deranged rants.......

Managed to keep a roof over my head with said rants, but eh, point and laugh at the things you don't understand.....how very british of you

Sorry Dave but you are totally wrong on this one, and I can't help but think why you are being so negative. Is it because you are opposed to London fans being in more than one stand?

I was part of the group of fans who negotiated this. There were several hundred home fans on the Brook Road terrace on the two occasions I recall it being opened, and it had a great atmosphere. I know because I was in it. I'm sure it helped London stay up with the draw V Leeds and vistory over Wigan. the players also enjoyed it and came over to pay respects.

For London fans who didn't want to sit in the main stand, or stand with away fans, it was great while it lasted

Had the club followed it up and marketed it properly for home fans it would have been full, but they failed to do this instead relying on us to do it via word of mouth

It was successful, and at least we were trying to improve the match day atmosphere

However the club were short sighted, instead trying to save money. It had the opposite effect because your less likely to get new people in with only two sides open and less atmosphere

Completely wrong - Well over several hundred on the home terrace (away terrace was already open)

Would you prefer it if only one stand had been open?

Back of envelope look at the economics of our own stadium.

New 10,000 seater stadium will cost between 10 and 20 million to build.
Interst/Mortgage on this amount at 4% between 400,000 and 800,000

We pay about 250,000 per year to Quins RU holding company.

So Quins RL on their own = no chance
Quins RL + Football club like Wombles = possible
Quins RL + Football club like Wombles + Council like Merton = Good deal
Quins RL + Football club like Wombles + Council like Merton + RFL = Kerching