for what its worth here's another hull kr fans view, I have always loved my away trips to london to see my team and have always made a weekend of it with the mrs as a lot of people do but over the last few years as an outsider you can't get away from the fact that your club appears to be in a spiral of decline.

Obviously money is tight, the playing squad seems to get weaker every year and the crowds seem to have hit rock bottom. It seems to me the move to twickenham is doing you no favours. The ground is excellent for a superleague team, the facilities are excellent but nobody seems to want to go there, if you could pick the ground up and plonk it in central london you'd be on a winner. Having seen you in griffin park and at fulham all those years ago as well as chiswick, you need to be in a more central location where more casual supporters might give league a try, being stuck out on a limb in the middle of a Union stronghold just isn't working. It seems like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place as any ground share in central london is going to be ridiculously expensive and there aren't that many options (loftus road wouldn't be a bad option but obviously is never going to happen).

It seems to me you've got 2 real options for the future, a rich warringtonesque sugar daddy takes over or you move to a better location, the olympic stadium wouldn't be bad if west ham get knocked back and it is scaled down as per the original plans. Moving to milton keynes or dropping into the championship will be the death knell for your club.

I do wish you well though, not because of some "rugby league needs a london presence" rubbish, but because of the die hard fans who go week in week out.

Of course you can't force any sport onto any community unless you're totalitarian, and nobody has been trying to do that.

So, what's your rethink?

Quins fans would no better than me but I have always thought the location was killer. RU heartland and outside of London!

Could a move to back to SE London be an option again, Charlton or Millwall?

Charlton was not that great but we started a lot of kids playing from there. West London seems to have been best but unless we get results on the pitch it's immaterial where we play - the fans won't support a losing team.

As much as most want the Quins club to succeed, this is just simply unfair. As a sport, all clubs have to start on a level playing-field. Most SL clubs could do with extra finances but these cannot be given to some clubs and not to others. Cas/Wakefield/Salford could do with the RFL offering financial help to build new stadia, how is this different to financially backing Quins. Ridiculous.

There is only 5% of the population of The Metropolitan Borough of St Helens interested in Saints and that is a Fact! and you think a new ground is going to turn the world around? look at the population of say Castleford and their crowds in a rubbish stadium much better than Saints and with no success.

Sky will reduce their funding if it goes to an M62 sport there is no doubts and then it will become a 10 team league and that may end up with Sky pulling out!

But judging by your comment it is ok to give Quins or any other expansion club less funds than others in the full knowledge that the buying power of what they have been provided with will actually buy less than the same amount of money given to others located in the heartlands. Similarly it is ok for an expansion club to have to use a disproportionate part of their funding in order to promote the game, market the club and develop players in a new expansion area.....whereas the heartland club has a much easier ride because the local community is already sold on the game?

Because of its size and the amount of competion for punters liesure pounds, London is an incredibly hard place to get new people interested.......Quins marketing attempts are not the best and their scatter gun approach has reaped little reward........but you could argue that their job is to produce a rugby team not directly sell the sport of RL.

If the RFL are serious about expanding the sport they have to invest in building, promoting and selling the game, you cannot seriously expect the expansion club to do all that from the same funding allocation as everyone else (plus whatever extra DH has contributed), as well as producing a competitive team on the pitch. It all amounts to spreading the available funds too thinly, DH has done it for years and he is now saying enough is enough, I am funding a club, I am not here to do the RFL`s work in promoting and developing the sport.

Some good points. The only one I disagree with is your point about 'RL needs a london presence' being rubbish. As someone who loves rl & who lives in London, I can see how much having an SL team does make a difference to the awareness of the game here. Its great to see people getting more involved as a result - & especially how many youngsters are playing the game with local amateur teams. & because I love the game so much I dont want it to be confined to the M62 corridor in this country. In this day & age of sport needing money to thrive, sponsorship is essential - & a company like Sporting Bet is more likely to sponsor HKR because they anticipate getting exposure for their brand beyond the confines of a relatively small part of the country. Expansion - especially in the lucrative market of London - is very important for the long term health of the game everywhere.

I agree with you on the problems with the ground. Having tried taking friends to the Stoop, after going once they tend not to go again - largely because it takes such a long time to get there & they dont want to spend the best part of a weekend day doing that. I live in London but it takes me longer to get to Quins games than it would take me to travel from East Hull to Leeds, Bradford or even, sometimes, Warrington.

However, I think the problems go further than the location of the ground. I'm not in favour of Quins being given special dispensation by the RFL & despite the fact that it is more costly for people to live in London its not been a major barrier to players coming to the club, so dont see why Quins should be given more from the Sky purse like some on here have argued. If that happened, we could then start arguing that clubs with a greater portion of their catchment area on the dole should have their season tickets subsidised by the RFL because their supporters cant afford them, or clubs who's councils give less to them than others should get more from the RFL etc etc (tho that certainly shouldnt stop the HKR supporters lobbying their council for some investment in the stadium - I admire what they've been doing). There will never be an even playing field & nothing can stop that.

What would make sense would be for the RFL to support a marketing campaign that promotes the game (& with it Quins RL) in the capital, plus help ensure that whatever other issues are going on that those deeply involved in the club keep alluding to are resolved.

The major sponsor of Rugby League SKY wanted the game to expand and have a presence out of the M62 Corridor, do you fully realise how much money BSkyB have invested into the game and I still think the majority of it wasted! grounds were left to crumble and become so dated, but meanwhile average players could command £50,000 salary easily, so I feel your presumption that the game does not need a team in the capital as much rubbish!

It would have been so easily for me to have supported and followed St Helens, born there and lived here all my life, supported West Ham from the age of 6 and attended the first game at Fulham and been loyal ever since, but I Believed in the development of our great game, it is a credit to the South how strong the amateur/school game is now much more popular than many Northern heartland town's.

I supported the name change, but it has not worked, I am unsure about the area and travelling time, but nothing compared to an home game for myself. I still think the game can work in London, but it needs marketing something even top clubs like St Helens can't even get right and the correct area which will build a fan base, the game has to be sold at a competitive ticket price which makes it affordable for families and so much cheaper than football. I still remember sitting in the stand for that debut game Fulham V Wigan with families including grandparents and they enjoyed and loved the game so much.

The game in the North is far too parochial people are only interested in their own clubs, these fans the ones who write the letters to the weekly rugby press need to accept and realise lose London and Crusaders, even Catalan which many would love and Sky will either reduce there money to a minimum or withdraw their support full stop, then who will pay the players wages and the costs for these new stadiums, the game could go like Wrestling did!

"I must point out ... that the British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst, and like to be told that they are very likely to get much worse in the future and must prepare themselves for further reverses."

I'm quoting Churchill here; this is how bad we have taken a few comments, when the real line from Hughes is that he wants another Lenagan to come in and relieve the burden. Does anyone here seriously believe that there will not be a Super League club in London next year?

here! Here! - it is a worry, but a few comments do not mean its certain death, i am going to start buying a euro lottery ticket and when i win 80 squillion i will happily back Mr hughes................................

It may be worth noting that QRL probably (actually do) have to pay a london weighting to players which is included in the salary cap. Say this was £10K per player, straight away have to pay out £250K of the cap!

Yes, frankly I'm beginning to wonder.

If there are no issues why haven't details of season tickets for 2011 been released? We are only two weeks from the last home match at which I would guess many fans would like to renew.

The promised fans forum has never materialised and given the deathly silence from the club one can only wonder if they are avoiding the subject.

It could be brinksmanship on DH's behalf as he cannot be happy funding the clu and yet being the minority shareholder, but that is not going to help keeping the fanbase up if yet again the club manages to put people off rather than persuading them to buy tickets.

I am sure many from the likes of Widnes, Barrow, Halifax, Wakefield, Castleford and Salford would gladly kill off a competitor for a Super League place - probably any competitor - just as anyone would be happy to knock out someone else if they threatened a loved one.

Rugby League is the people's game and this means the people of England be they in the North or the South.

The Harlequins Rugby League team represents not only London but an entire half of our great nation.

I ask all people who love Rugby League - Would you genuinely divide the nation into two halves, in a West Germany / East Germany style?

What do you think the impact will be on our beloved sport of having Rugby Union as the only national code of Rugby to add to the fact that it is widely perceived as being the only credible international brand of Rugby?

I know there are many commentators with a 'small town' mentality living within the same 5 mile radius of their parent's home, and who see a trip to London as a hassle, so I do not expect to sway their opinion in any way.

I am not sure why unsupportive commentators wanting a cheap jibe knowing their SL place is guaranteed are on the Harlequins board, they are most unwelcome, after all who has not enjoyed the hospitality at the Stoop?

If you have, consider this when you make your comments. If you have not, then consider I have been to 52 of the last 54 games and I am in Kent. Do you make even a once a year effort to travel an inconvenient distance? If not, why not?

With kind regards
Mark

With all this talk of will we or wont be a round next season or season after that. Or where we will be playing. what happened with Brentford and the talk of them getting a new ground at Lionel Rd(i think it was), and that they might like to share the ground with a rugby club(union or league).

I'm not sure what your point is. My 'presumption' is the complete opposite. My point is that I agree with Sandy except for Sandy's comment implying that RL needing a team in London was rubbish - or put another way: I disagree with the view that its rubbish that RL needs a team in London. My argument is that without expansion, RL will not gain the income streams it needs to thrive in the long term etc etc & London is a key part of that expansion.
I even comment on the positive development of the youth & amateur game in London. I do not agree with some on here that the London side should be given more Sky money than others because of the costs of living in London - there are plenty of other issues that disadvantage other clubs & there's no way that everything can be evened out for everyone. But I do say that what the RFL should be looking at is supporting the marketing of the game in London. The RFL already does a fair bit with its support to the development of the youth & amateur game (& Quins RL do too), but if it matched that with support in marketing, the senior game could take some big steps forward.

Sadly I dont see that happening, & sadly I fear for SL in London - even for next season. I hope my fears are wrong, but the writing on the wall seems to be getting larger & larger with every bit of news that comes out of the Quins camp at the moment.

You seem to be saying more than Quins at the moment and the only thing they have said was said 72 hours ago then you must be in very close with a club whose present owner who ideally wants to scale back his outgoings on the club. I don't know where you go to read your writing on walls, or why you are reading what's written on walls, but please continue with the knowledge that Harlequins RL press or media releases are not written on walls. (Unless that is the way to save money in the future.)

Harlequins RL unlike many Heartland clubs has no overdraft and no bank loans.

You may have hit on way for Quins to spread the word. Lets be honest most men read whats on certain walls then any where else...just leave the name Quins and a phone number



sorry i know not a subject to joke about with whats happening but just a little note to lighten the mood.

That is not how I interpret what you said! and your response is even more confusing at times. As Londo06 says clearly! you seem to know more than we do who are closer to the reality of the club.

But it is funny how many Northern supporters always seem to know something, often if it unclear what they do know?

let me just say this in reply, the "rugby league needs a london presence" theory is a line constantly trotted out by sky tv and it suits them as they are southern based, its a view red hall have adopted because sky are the paymasters after all and basically whatever they say the RFL will do. The london based press don't believe in this strap line if their coverage is anything to go by. I can also understand why you lads down there seize on it as a lifebelt when it comes to franchise time. I don't buy it, rugby league is alive and well and thriving in the south due to the many number of volunteers, enthusiasts and helpers who run the amateur scene, and in answer to the other poster if sky one day decide to pull out and take their bat and ball home (not to mention their cash) rugby league will carry on after all it has for a hundred and numerous years, with incidentally teams from other parts of the country than the M62 corridor!

Now having said all that I really do hope you carry on due to the fact regardless of where you are in the country you have as much if not more legitimacy of any team who might want to replace you to be in superleague, widnes, leigh, batley, barrow and featherstone don't offer more than you do to the competition at the moment. I do think going forward you'll need to move though, someone said people wont watch a losing team wherever it is but its patently obvious you wont improve your squad without bigger gates and more income.

anyway good luck for the future.

Cas/Wakefield/Salford have had anything up to 120 years to sort themselves out and find a good financial model. Quins have had 30 and at present things are tough. If they need assistance to bridge the gap then they should be given it. Quins are not on a level playing field at present because they do not have the long history the northern clubs have; a history which ensures that people are aware of their local rugby league club even if they choose not to support it. People in London are often not even aware Quins RL exist. If they need support to change that then that's fine by me.

Meanwhile, Wakey and Cas should ground share, otherwise it is likely to end up in tears. In the Championship.

Its all good people saying rugby league will continue if sky pulled out but it is not as easy that. Yeah the game will continue but not like we see it!

You can forget the high salaries, new stadiums and would it would lead to top players going to the NRL. Rugby League in Europe needs sky, the RFL and every single club know's this.

Expansion has to continue people!!

Do you not think that crowds will improve though when the new stadium is built.
You only have to look at the likes of Hull and Warrington to see that this is the case.
Saints at the moment are averaging roughly 11,000 so I would say that with the new stadium I reckon we will average 13,500 at least.

Okay fellas, let's be honest, Rugby League as a sport is failing.

Horrible thing to say I know, but since Union went professional, they have learnt how to get in a new fan base and League has just faded away to the point where the sport is a joke. International League is like international NFL - an oxymoron.

If League is serious, then QRL has to be supported, but calling it QRL is wrong. The club is London Broncos - as LB means something, QRL doesn't.

The RFL has to support a Professional SL London Team, otherwise the sport will die. The RFL should spend money on promoting a London Based SL club, all we need is more bums on seats and then the current problems will dissipate. Expecting the current set up to do this in isolation is not only unfair, it is wrong.

Also, News International could easily run promotions through discounted tickets, competition etc., but it doesn't which begs the question is NI interested in League any more? Union gets better crowds, better advertising revenue so what's in it for Sky?

If London fails, the sport professionally will die. Support a London side or see your teams fade away as well as Sky could easily drop the sport and plug in more Union.