Email from the club this morning

'Tough day at the new office
Widnes too strong for the Broncos as the club makes Plough Lane bow.



“I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.”

London Broncos coach Jermaine Coleman applauded the 2182 supporters who turned out on Sunday to mark the beginning of the club’s new era at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.

The attendance was the Broncos’ highest at Betfred Championship level in eight years as Coleman’s fresh-faced squad hosted Widnes Vikings in the league’s opening round.
Despite the outstanding local support, it was Vikings who left the capital with two Championship points after wing Ryan Ince registered four tries in the visitors’ 12-34 win.

Jude Ferreira, Dean Parata and Lameck Juma were on the scoresheet for Broncos as Coleman took the positives from Sunday’s fixture after the full-time whistle was blown.

He said: “I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.

“Long-term, we’d like to receive the same support game after game so the club can fulfil its ambition to expose more people in London and across the south-east to Rugby League.

“There were some positives to take from the game. I was pleased with the effort and work rate of individuals, and we handed debuts to several young players at this level which marks a new starting point in their careers.

“When the going got tough we never threw the towel in either, which tells you a lot about the character of this squad.”


The Broncos are back in Betfred Championship action on Sunday afternoon when travelling north to face Halifax Panthers.

Coleman identified some key areas he’d like to see the squad improve on ahead of this weekend’s fixture.

He added: “There was some naivety and inexperience in the squad, but that’s something we can work on in training. Our decision making in terms of trying to play certain shapes when we didn’t have players in the right position and control will be worked on too.

“It’s not an excuse but we were missing some senior, experienced, players too through injury and we hope to have them back in the squad too.

“Halifax will be another stiff test this weekend and I know the team are determined to improve on certain aspects of play.”

London Broncos are next in action at home on Sunday, February 13, when Whitehaven RLFC visit the Cherry Red Records Stadium.'

Well Jermaine to keep those crowds at about the 2,000 mark you and your team are going to have to do a hell of a lot better aren't you?
Apart from the diehards no one is going to come back week in week out to watch us getting spanked by bang average teams like Widnes, are they? Especially not when the club made zero effort to make it an event on Sunday!

Minor point but not all AFC Wimbledon supporters had the £1 offer. For many it was £5. No idea of the split, but if 50/50 on your 500 could add another £1,000.

Beer is the biggest mark-up (profit) item. AFC Wimbledon get a commission on each Broncos purchase which suggest Broncos will get a nice earner. I have absolutely no idea how much although your figure overall seems on the high side unless the per pint profit is really generous.

My question though is this 200K. It is used a lot when discussing the Broncos finance. I know it's the correct figure (i.e. not made up), but I'm not convinced it's being used in the correct context. May I ask you Broncos fans how you were made aware of the figure and whether it was explained to you as a fixed cost or had dependencies linked to it.

Social media is all well and good but there was really no Broncos presence at the ground on the day! Nothing to make it feel like an event or occasion!
As I posted on the TRL form no presence outside or inside the stadium, no programmes, no mascots, no volunteers ( or non playing squad members) giving out flags or stuff for the kids etc.... no attempt at enhancing the match day experience. People seem to like attending events - with a little money and a little effort London could have made Sunday's game into much more of an event.
Lose at Fax this weekend and London will do very well to draw a four figure crowd against Haven.

Fax by 20

At least.
Unless Coleman picks a different set of forwards to start the game, has Curran and a couple of others available for selection, and he does something about the defence on our left side.

An elaspsed season ticket holder who did not go to the game as working i just searched London Broncos yesterday on twitter yesterday just to see what it was like on social media.
One person on twitter who was a developer at Google in London said he enjoyed his first game even though he had no idea of the rules.Like others have said surely even an eight page handout with squad profiles and rules would have been ideal for the first game.It could even have included a discount voucher for the next game.At the next game do it again including a discount voucher and continue for the season.

'Not convinced the Broncos made best use of the Fans Zone behind the South Stand.'

I wasn't aware there was one. Don't reckon I'm alone in that.
Again the Broncos could have had someone, mascots maybe, pointing supporters in that direction on arrival.

I'd have to do some digging, but I think its 200K in Champ, and if they get promoted they have to pay more. Also they have to pay for Richmond as well for the reserves, so whichever way you cut it, its significantly more expensive than Ealing was.

I live in a 2 bed house, on my street near me we also have 3 and 4 bed houses. Me and my wife would love to upsize, but if I told her that to move we would have to sell all the furniture, get rid of the technology (netflix, sky, disney+ etc), and all we would be able to afford in the new house was 2 chairs, one bed and one freeview TV, I'm pretty sure we would choose to stay where we are, than move but have no quality of life.

Wimbledon is suitable for Super League, but its too expensive for a struggling part time team. Thats the basic fact, and the only way he is going to get 5K fans is to be in Super League. Thats not going to happen part time, and gates will decline over the season unless they get results on the Pitch.

I said I would take a view in May at the Thunder game, so will observe the next few weeks closely.

Fax would need to have a bad game to only win by 20

Thank-you for your comments. netflix, sky, disney+ etc ... you only have yourself to blame ... hang on that's a subset of what we subscribe to !

Reading between the lines I don't think it's a straight 200K, that's an estimate that can go not only down, but also up. My suspicion is that the Bronco's are probably paying 30 to 50 percent of the ticket sales (and possibly the lower end) and the 200K relates to a base 2,000 attendance. If correct then pulling in say 1,000 is not quite the financial disaster portrayed. It's still an issue because of the additional costs still incurred, some of which your refer to. But I suspect the rental itself to drop to around 100K on a 1,000 average.

No idea of the cost to play at Ealing, but I assume it was also a "rental", but substantially less. Of course much of that cost may still remain for training, youth matches etc. I guess the biggest cost saving is moving to part time (the knock-on implications of that being a MASSIVE risk). Whilst I suspect AFC Wimbledon are anticipating a 2,000 average attendance, I wonder if the Broncos expect less and a driver behind the part time decision.

I still agree that financially it's a stretch, but I don't think the per match costs are quite as bad as being suggested. Put it this way, if they were then it is a guaranteed loss per match and even from what I've learnt about the Broncos, I don't think they'd get that so badly wrong. Equally AFC Wimbledon aren't going to enter into an agreement that is almost certain to collapse.

A nice honest and balanced report of Sunday’s game up on the LB website. I thought it was a good read but, going forward, I’d like the typos/ mistakes at the back end of the piece to be edited out.

Is this with Sunday’s starting 13 or a different line up? If the latter I think we could give them a game.

One suspects a team of Fax Machines might stand a chance of winning!

Smothers 99 who has never seen live RL has some good ideas, we've had some good ideas but it doesn't look as though the BOSG who appear to have something of the ear of Hughes & his menagerie put any ideas forward given what was missing from Sunday. Coach delusional if he thinks crowds will return to watch much of that sadly.

I’m sure as the players get used to each other and the tactics we will improve.
I’m sure we had quite a few missing so we’ll put out stronger teams. However, if our Plan B is to keep raiding Skolars, that would be a really foolish step.

Just to be clear DC, have these fax machines got Championship pedigree or are we shipping them from North London? One assumes they wouldn’t come from up North on account of the crippling cost of paper and ink in London!

I'd prefer it if we let a few of the ex Skolars back to their old club on loan if they don't shape up, and try a few of our more promising academy players in the first team squad.

They have been waiting in a container at Tilbury for entry visas direct from Wuhan. Never played league before so should give our boys a good run out. I hear they will copy a St Helens blueprint.

Agreed. Or if we are simply in the business of finding players for reserves, rather than ruining Skolars, perhaps we could get in contact with the players we signed for reserves back in the COVID hit year or some of the players we’ve leet go over the last few seasons and see if they are interested Matt Davies, Jonah Verula?

This sounds promising. Please don’t update the squad list on the website we can all play guess the player at the next game.

And Rosslyn Park for 1st team training facilities.

In a hand out they could of included the ref's signals to show the new fans why scrums or penalties are awarded. They always had a ref's page in the previous programs.

You might be giving Broncos management too much credit here. I suspect a guaranteed loss per match has been the norm.

They could have left a copy in the ref's dressing room, he looked like he needed it at times.......

Ha Ha. From what I read in the last few months, perhaps I'm being a little generous!

I was partly referring to this generally held view that I don't believe to be correct.

"The club need a 750 average paying the full £22.00 a game to pay just the rent at Plough Lane."

750 spectators paying top price does indeed cover a 200K/13. Of course not everybody will pay top price even with zero offers due to concessions, children, memberships, away fans cheaper seating etc. Certainly sub £20.

So yes we can roughly calculate ticket sales revenue, but I'm very dubious with the belief that 750 is the break even to directly cover the rent. I think the rent figure assumes 2,000 spectators. And probably it's a percentage of ticket revenue so yesterday won't require a circa 15K rent charge.

That was why I'm interested what the Broncos themselves stated about the rent because I'm pretty certain it's not a flat 200K for 13 matches.

Absolutely. I thought I'd easily count the number of tackles, but I was losing count (concentration really as I looked elsewhere such as trying to work out where players were lining up). Then remembered that the referee will signal the fifth tackle which mitigated me expecting a kick when there was no need yet. But that's based on a small exposure to the sport over the years. For many they wouldn't have had a clue to the real reason for a kick, and of course you don't have to kick after the fifth tackle nor do you have to wait until then too kick.

If you could only tell a new spectator one thing, I'd mention the tackle rule and the associated referees signal. Gives the first basic insight to what is happening out on the pitch.