Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:13 pm  

sogspurs wrote:

We have to swallow it this year an hopefully it won't happen again when they see the results.

The Fixture list and the way it throws up ties, together with the scheduling of SKY TV coverage should not make one jot of difference to the club......now that they know the dates for the games, they should be planning how to market them and how to attract crowds to these games.

How anyone can say it's 'the fixtures' fault that we are the worst supported team in the league, even after a straight 17 years of top flight RL is beyond me.

Our attendances are not the responsibility of SKY, the RFL, the other 13 teams in SL or anyone else other than Gus MacKay....

January 2012 from runningrugby.com

He said: "I’ve been with the club 12 months and I straight away saw much confusion over the Quins rugby union and Quins rugby league names. I think the original concept of Quins RL was a good idea, but it didn’t work.
"We have key obligations under the terms of the licence, but we have made our own fundamental priorities in three key areas. We want to be commercially successful, increase attendances to 10,000 and see success on the field. For us that would be to at least achieve a place in the play-offs each season."

1. Harlequins Rugby League was never given a chance. Mistakenly, they assumed that Union fans would come along in their droves, so they AGAIN neglected anything like promotional work. There was never any confusion......I suspect that sales people failing to sell boxes were blaming this on their ineptitude....and it was swallowed as the reason.
2. To cover up for his misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about running a minority sports club, the CEO pulled the name change rabbit out of a hat....
3. Because that failed, he tried to extract a "move rabbit" out of the same hat, but was thwarted for now...
4. Obligation wise, we are 33% into this licence period and we have gone backwards.....


Sorry if it's tedious to you sogspurs, but whilst you're happy to shrug your shoulders and attend Skolars games, the fact that the only top flight RL team in the SE is being butchered beore our eyes, is an issue to some.
Believe me, I'd rather discuss the roles of 6/7 and 9 this coming season and hoping that Witt, Lee, Randall and Gower all stay fit, giving us a real chance of the 8.....but every thime I think of the fiasco at TW2 it makes my blood boil.

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:31 pm  

You say the club assumed that RU fans would turn up but were they ever the target for any of the club's marketing? I honestly can't remember seeing any...EVER.

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:36 pm  

Moe Lester wrote:

You say the club assumed that RU fans would turn up but were they ever the target for any of the club's marketing? I honestly can't remember seeing any...EVER.

Free entry to all QRU ST holders to our first ever game as QRL.....we got spanked in front of about 8k.....double header that year that we reported as a 12k gate .......about 2,500 watched the RL.

Other than that, it was all down to assumption......IL became distracted, DH doesn't undersatand or want to understand Marketing, our then CEO got sick and stepped aside only for a brewery guy to take over.....nobody with any of the right skills and talents was hired........I refer to it as "Field of Dreams" marketing...

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 9:07 pm  

gutterfax wrote:

Sorry if it's tedious to you sogspurs, but whilst you're happy to shrug your shoulders and attend Skolars games, the fact that the only top flight RL team in the SE is being butchered beore our eyes, is an issue to some.

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:00 pm  

It would seem that even though the SL season is spread over 8 months, London Broncos fans will only see activity at the Stoop for 62.5% of it, or 5 Months, with no home fixtures in September combined with 2 OTR games

No SL games at the Stoop in May, July or September would seem to blow the whole concept of 'summer rugby" right out of the water.....there can be no re-seeding the pitch bollox this year either.

54% of our home games will be completed by April...actually, 64% of our games at The Stoop, so by the time "summer" arrives, the choice will be 2 games in July and August each, as well as 2 OTR games, 1 in May, the other in July. As I have said, 2 other games should have been chosen IMO.....Easter game v the French and maybe the Cas game in June.....then we would have had a game in all but 1 of the 8 months!

For most London Broncos fans, the season ends on August 17th....

The decision to take 2 OTR games away from the Stoop is flawed on many levels, but none more so that the concept of a one-off game at Venue X would point to their being an appetitite for 13 games a year in 2014. Furthermore, given the idiocy that nearly saw us move to kent last year, the suggestion that Oxford could be on the cards beggars belief......London Welsh aren't getting 5k there, there is not one social or demographic linking RL to the town or region....and we would be about 60 Miles away from London.

Gillingham, wich may well rear its ugly head again, would be another monumental mistake IMO. If the club are adamant that they must move in 2014, it must only be with a number of cast iron initiatives for the fisrt season in our new, new, new, new, new, new home:

Sign a 10 year lease agreement: No more moving..it's killing the club as an entity worth following
Tennants with Power. No 're-seeding' breaks....a full season played at the ground
RFL play ball: Home and Away....week in, week out. Regularity is key to building a fan base...2013 is over before it starts with that fixture list.
Spend 250k-300k less on players and employ decent staff in key areas off the field. People who understand our sport, the minority standing and the sheer amount of effort required to make it work.
SPEND SOME loving MONEY ON MARKETING: Time and time again, the club have moved, put up goal posts and expected people to turn up.....it doesn't work.

For me, an agreement with Brentford is the ideal scenario. They will look to move into a new stadium in the next few years (2016/17) and may welcome some form of investment from us.....as part owners of the stadium, we would be more likely to encourage cross sport fans IMO. As tennants, we're just the people who mess their pitch up. A move to somewhere further out than Twickenham is the end of "London" being relevant in the name.

Any discussion between Brentford FC and the Club needs to involve the RFL as well, because the current "management" of the club are incapable of organising a pi55 up at Fullers Brewery, so it may be that the RFL need to take control of a portion of our club, a la Bradford Bulls. DH can bitch all he likes about lack of or perceived lack of support from the RFL......on his watch, the club have shipped million in wasted cash and opportunities and we are not an attractive proposition at present.

As it stands, I reckon 2013 will simply be a year to forget off the pitch....the important decision on where we move to has probably already been made and therefore, very little effort will be made to attract fans to games other than the OTR events.....the team may lift the gloom over the first half of the season with home wins, but any attendance momentum built up over these 11 weeks will see the wheels come off with trips to OTR venues....the only constant will be the CEO making excuses and suggesting another name change for 2014.

Gillingham Gladiators? Oxford Orcas? Brighton Bulldogs? Milton Keynes Storm?....kit designed by Gus and supplied by his mates at MKK

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:24 pm  

You missed the word Nomads in the name

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Wed Nov 21, 2012 1:47 am  

daftdad wrote:

You missed the word Nomads in the name

.....damn, such negelegence on my part......there again, I could be heading for the CEO's job they way this club seems to reward failure

Would anyone here like to wear this in a pub?



sorted...now where's that number of my mate at the association of Blind tailors

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:13 am  

gutterfax wrote:

.....damn, such negelegence on my part......there again, I could be heading for the CEO's job they way this club seems to reward failure

Would anyone here like to wear this in a pub?



sorted...now where's that number of my mate at the association of Blind tailors

And to think I thought the pastels were bad!

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:39 am  

GF have you ever offered the club your services on a commission basis- ie a % of increased ticket takings etc

Gus cant have anything to lose I wouldnt have thought

Re: first fixtures - Widnes at home, Huddersfield away : Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:03 am  

gutterfax wrote:

Sorry if it's tedious to you sogspurs, but whilst you're happy to shrug your shoulders and attend Skolars games, the fact that the only top flight RL team in the SE is being butchered beore our eyes, is an issue to some.

But what can be done?

Hughes and Gus aren't going to wake up this morning and have suddenly turned into marketing genuises, are they? They won't employ a competent marketing manager who'll get 10,000 on the gate for the Widnes game.

Hughes and Gus will still make the same mistakes of years gone by and continue to make these mistakes as really there is nothing the fans can do.

There isn't enough fans to even have a half sensible thought about buying the club. And fan owned clubs aren't viable long term but even so, there simply isn't enough numbers to even begin to think of a sensible bid.