Congratulations to Barrow by the way.
Just shy of 2k in attendance and they had a full compliment of matchday sponsors in place as well as a matchday sponsor for the ladies game earlier. Entry for a fiver if you came for the ladies game and their twitter feed was awash with pre-match information then score updates with graphics and pictures.
When comparing Barrow, who were in L1 last year to London who were a SL club not long ago, it's worth noting that they have a community partnership program in place which actively works in the immediate Barrow in Furness community, whilst last week our mascot Buck was at a school in West Acton, 3 miles down the road from our old home at Trailfinders but 12 miles and across the river from our new home.
I've never been to Barrow, but according to the office of statistics, it is a town with a declining population due to socio-economic pressures and was voted the most working class place in Britain in 2008. From the pictures and video I've seen, Craven Park isn't up to SL standard and only has a capacity of 3,000 with a great deal of that terracing, but they have an average attendance of 1,900 this year and they have assembled a pretty competitive squad.
and seem pretty happy with where they are.
We on the other hand a forking out on a SL standard stadium with no chance of seeing SL standard football from a bargain basement squad assembled by a coach who won 3 games from 18 in the 3rd tier last season and has now had 7 games as London Broncos Coach without a win. Joey Grima won once in 19 outings as London coach, Powell had a slightly better 27% win ratio...you have to ask how long will it be before Hughes loses patience?
I've just quickly scanned over the 13 Twitter accounts of the other sides in our division and they ALL have regular match updates with graphics and sponsor information on try scorers........so it would seem that only London Broncos have neither the staff nor the willingness of volunteers to keep this key channel of communication updated.
Still...well done Barrow. A small community focussed RL club showing how it can and should be done