St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 12:07 pm  

Broncos will play St Helens at The Stoop on 16 June.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 1:33 pm  

The Curtism wrote:

Broncos will play St Helens at The Stoop on 16 June.

I'm expecting the same outcome as playing Saints on our return to the Stoop last time, if not worse.

Good to be back at a rugby ground. Need to stay there & waive goodbye to AFC.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 2:03 pm  

Interesting choice of venue. The Stoop is, of course, where Hughes set in motion the decline of the Broncos from a team challenging for SL playoffs with half decent crowds to where we are now. By 2013, our last season at The Stoop, he had already turned us into a team who lost an awful lot more than we won. The game against Saints was actually our only home win of the SL season, though we chalked up 4 away wins. We finished next to bottom but only courtesy of Salford being deducted points for fielding 14 players during a game against Castleford.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 3:47 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

Interesting choice of venue. The Stoop is, of course, where Hughes set in motion the decline of the Broncos from a team challenging for SL playoffs with half decent crowds to where we are now. By 2013, our last season at The Stoop, he had already turned us into a team who lost an awful lot more than we won. The game against Saints was actually our only home win of the SL season, though we chalked up 4 away wins. We finished next to bottom but only courtesy of Salford being deducted points for fielding 14 players during a game against Castleford.

You refer of course to our first game using the Broncos name again, while I was referring to our first season back at the Stoop as Harlequins in 2006.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 6:33 pm  

I bet they're charging Hughes Double if not more for the rent!....,maybe they could locate Gus and ask him to organise the matchday experience?
What would be funny is if IMG helped them out with a bit of marketing savvy and they filled the place........I wonder what bar will be open and if the clubs main sponsor will be allowed sell their wares?

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 7:09 pm  

Still no ground confirmed for visit of Castleford w/e of 12-July.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 8:29 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

Still no ground confirmed for visit of Castleford w/e of 12-July.

I’d have expected us to be at Ebbsfleet again- unless Hughes has upset the club’s owners.
Wouldn’t be the first time, eh?

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:26 pm  

RfE wrote:

I’d have expected us to be at Ebbsfleet again- unless Hughes has upset the club’s owners.
Wouldn’t be the first time, eh?

Some suggestion that it’s not up to SL standard but I don’t think that could really be said with a straight face and as we’ll be back in the championship before we know it, it’s to be hoped that there will be some understanding that we need a ground through the summer months because of the deal we’ve done with AFC and ebbsfleet is a good option for us in quite a thin field. Or to put it another way we’ll probably go to the stoop again, xxxx off Ebsfleet so we can’t use again and be scrabbling around for somewhere to play for 2 months next year having thrown our ‘growing the game in Kent’ initiative in the bin. Happy days.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:44 am  

orangeman wrote:

I bet they're charging Hughes Double if not more for the rent!....,maybe they could locate Gus and ask him to organise the matchday experience?
What would be funny is if IMG helped them out with a bit of marketing savvy and they filled the place........I wonder what bar will be open and if the clubs main sponsor will be allowed sell their wares?

I'm not entirely sure you can draw that conclusion Orange. Stupid Hughes & useless Gus had to negotiate with super arrogant David Ellis as opposed to increasingly stupid Hughes & marginally less useless (close run thing though) Lobster negotiating with rugby man Laurie Dalrymple (former Wolves FC CEO) who is much more in the Mark Evan mould of pragmatism than Ellis could ever be.

I would imagine the attendance would be bigger than for Quins Women but for them they open the members bar in the west stand & have a few food & beverage outlets open + the club shop. They have also built an indoor fans area behind the North stand where you can take your food & drink to consume.

If this game is any sort of step to a longer term relationship then I'm all for it.

Re: St Helens at The Stoop : Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:31 am  

Deadcowboys1 wrote:

I'm not entirely sure you can draw that conclusion Orange. Stupid Hughes & useless Gus had to negotiate with super arrogant David Ellis as opposed to increasingly stupid Hughes & marginally less useless (close run thing though) Lobster negotiating with rugby man Laurie Dalrymple (former Wolves FC CEO) who is much more in the Mark Evan mould of pragmatism than Ellis could ever be.

I would imagine the attendance would be bigger than for Quins Women but for them they open the members bar in the west stand & have a few food & beverage outlets open + the club shop. They have also built an indoor fans area behind the North stand where you can take your food & drink to consume.

If this game is any sort of step to a longer term relationship then I'm all for it.

The trouble is 1000 rattling around at AFC or The Stoop is still 1000 rattling around and hardly inspiring and that unfortunately is where we are likely to be save the visits of a few club.