Re: Home Next Year : Thu Jul 02, 2015 8:22 pm  

Partisan wrote:

anyway enough with the personal attacks...

They aren't personal attacks. They are a reflection of how inept Hughes is at the general running of a professional sports club.

We moved from the Stoop, where we spent 200k on rent, basically so Hughes could reduce the level of investment he was sinking into the club on an annual basis. The Administration costs were close to 1.6 million a year, the playing squad close to 1.6 million a year and the other running costs 200k a year......so 4 million a year.

Moving away from the stoop saved us 200k a year in rent........it didn't reduce the 1.6 million in playing costs.....relegation did that. It didn't reduce the 1.6 million in administration costs or the other 200k running costs, wholesale redundancies did that. Moving away from the stoop did cost us an income of about 30k a game in ticket revenue which more than covered the rent of the stoop........

So the question is, why did we move? What BUSINESS CASE was put forward as a reason for us to move?

I am sure David Hughes is a really nice fella and if you cut him, he would bleed RL, but as the owner of the London Broncos, he has done far more damage than he has done good. Yet again, we are looking for a new home and Blake Solly won't be giving our new landlord a "marketing budget" to get us in this time.

Re: Home Next Year : Fri Jul 03, 2015 8:27 pm  

And at the moment without Mr Hughes this discussion would not be happening as we would now be a note in the history books not a club that are still playing.

Re: Home Next Year : Fri Jul 03, 2015 9:45 pm  

Don't agree. One thing we know about this Club is it survives! It will do again if needs be.

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 1:08 am  

mickyb1234 wrote:

And at the moment without Mr Hughes this discussion would not be happening as we would now be a note in the history books not a club that are still playing.

Wrong.
We'd exist. Maybe not as a professional full time club but we'd still be in business.

If David Hughes had said NO when IL was told to go the rfl would have had to have acted to save us. If you doubt this, I suggest you revisit the issue of the marketing budget paid to the landlord to get us over the line in 2014. Some might call it a bribe......and they'd be right too

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:13 am  

nkpom wrote:

Don't agree. One thing we know about this Club is it survives! It will do again if needs be.

Over the years we have spent more time on speculation than on rugby itself, the whining bores people!

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:31 am  

If only we had a time machine to sort that one out. And as we don't it's rather immaterial to moving forward from where we actual are rather than where we prefer us all to be. It's a forum so you can hypothesise all you want about where we would be IF someone had done something different. Yes Hughes has made a good few mistakes and no I don't want them listed as we can find a myriad of posts by an alter ego called Gutterfax that highlights each and every one of them. But as is the queue at the ticket office on Sunday so is the queue of new saviours

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:22 am  

Oct a couple of years ago, the club consisted of 6 staff total, we were maybe a week away from liquidation, I didn't see anyone rushing to rescue the club certainly not the RFL why should they clubs have come and gone in the past.

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:57 am  

mickyb1234 wrote:

I didn't see anyone rushing to rescue the club certainly not the RFL why should they clubs have come and gone in the past.

I'm not sure if Hughes is any good at poker, but maybe they thought him walking away was a bluff. He didn't walk away in the end did he. Had London actually folded, who knows what would have come out of the woodwork. In my opinion, the best thing for London RL would be for Hughes to walk away.

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 3:03 pm  

I don't expect anything to be done for London by the RFL. But they answered the call when Bradford were in need.
Also as a matter of interest I note that the RFL are the leaseholders on Cougar Park. The freeholder being the CO OP.

Re: Home Next Year : Sat Jul 04, 2015 3:13 pm  

Aachen wrote:

I'm not sure if Hughes is any good at poker, but maybe they thought him walking away was a bluff. He didn't walk away in the end did he. Had London actually folded, who knows what would have come out of the woodwork. In my opinion, the best thing for London RL would be for Hughes to walk away.

And the evidence to support your opinion is what exactly?

I don't know if DH is good at poker but I do know that he makes his (very good) living by a form of gambling.