225 fans who prove a Super League team in London will never work
Last updated 11:34, Friday, 23 May 2008
HAD to check the date to ensure it wasn’t April 1 when scanning the RL press this week.
NL2 strugglers London Skolars have reportedly held talks about a move to the capital’s Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games.
The 80,000 capacity will be reduced to 25,000 following the Olympics, which means. on my calculations, the Skolars must find over 24,500 new fans to fill it.
I don’t wish to decry London Skolars. There’s nothing wrong with ambition.
They could go on the most far-reaching expansion programme in the history of the sport, earn promotion to NL1 and go on to win the Grand Final, with 15,000 crazed cockneys cheering them on to victory every week at the Olympodrome, or whatever it’s named. But I doubt it.
Skolars last home game against Hunslet was watched by 225 fans. Last season they averaged 479 in the capital.
If Super League was transplanted tomorrow to Whitehaven or Workington Town, for the rest of the season, I guarantee it would be watched by more supporters than if the same happened to the Skolars.
Londoners have little appetite for rugby league. Last term, top-flight Harlequins averaged just 3,395 at The Stoop, down a whopping 1,522 on 2006.
London rugby league is “crying out” for a second top-flight team in the capital, according to Skolars chairman Hector McNeil. I think not, when the city’s current Super League outfit struggles to attract support.
If accepted in to Super League ahead of long-established clubs with an eye on the prize, I won’t be among the gentle-men raising a glass to the Skolars.
