London Broncos News
The London Broncos are a professional Rugby League club from the capital city of London, who have developed a reputation of developing youngsters of international quality but who have sadly not been able to keep hold of those players.
That hasn’t been helped by their almost constant nomadic life since been formed in 1980, which has seen them play all over the capital and take on numerous names.
Despite been based in the country’s leading media centre, the Broncos often get overlooked and not just by national media but also by local and Rugby League media, but if you are a fan of theirs, the good news is that it is now easy to keep up with every London Broncos as we bring you all of the breaking news right here on this page.
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Stadium
London RL currently play their home matches at Plough Lane stadium in the Wimbledon district of south west London.
The stadium is capable of hosting around 10,000 fans when full and is a good mix of seating and corporate facilities.
Down the years, the Broncos have had a very nomadic since starting off at Craven Cottage in 1980.
Then known as Fulham RLFC, the club stayed at the Cottage until 1984 when they moved to the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre for a single seaosn before moving onto the Polytechnic Sports Ground in Chiswick.
London stayed there until 1990, when the club moved back to the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace before moving from South London to North London in 1993 as they played home matches at Barnet Copthall Stadium.
In 1995, the club moved to The Stoop for the first time, initially for 1 season but they stayed until the end of the 1999 season after spending the 1996 initially Super League season at The Valley in Charlton.
The club would move back to south east London for the 2000 and 2001 season before moving back to west London for between 2002-2006 when the club shared Griffin Park with Brentford FC.
In 2007, the club linked up with Harlequins RU to not only move back to The Stoop but to also take on the Harlequins name and branding, something that lasted until the end of the 2013 season.
Upon leaving The Stoop, the club reverted back to the London Broncos name and moved to The Hive stadium in Barnet for a couple of seasons before moving onto the Trailfinders Sports Club in Ealing between 2016-2021 before making the move to Wimbledon for the 2022 season.
Location
The club are based in the city of London and whilst most sporting clubs based in the capital represent a district or region, the nomadic existence they have endured has left them representing the whole of the city.
About
Formed in 1980, the club have been the beacon of expansion for many fans ever since.
Unfortunately the club have struggled to find a home for themselves and they have struggled to keep hold of a strong fanbase, which has in turn seen them struggle to keep hold of the young talent that they bring through.
There can be no denying that a strong London club would make for a stronger sport overall but that is something the sport has really struggled to capitalise on.
History
Professional Rugby League has a long and storied history in the capital going back to the 1930’s when London Highfield, Acton and Willesden and Streatham and Mitcham all formed and struggled along until dropping out of existence.
The sport struggled to take hold in the city until Ernie Clay, the then chairman of Fulham Football Club, set up a new Rugby League club to play matches at the famous Craven Cottage.
The clubs first ever match took place on the 14th of September 1980 when a crowd of around 10,000 fans watch Fulham take on and defeat the mighty Wigan by 24 points to 5.
On the 15th of February 1981 a record crowd of over 15,000 saw the play against Wakefield Trinity in the Challenge Cup.
The club would enjoy lots of early success and gained promotion in their inaugural seaosn but after suffering relegation straight away was a reminder of the difficulties in starting up a new club.
The early yo-yo nature of the club continued as they gained promotion at the end of the 1982-83 season before been relegated at the end of the next season.
Those struggles on the field coupled with rising costs off of it led to Fulham choose to end the ‘experiment’ of owing a Rugby League club but thanks to the actions of fans, the club continued and moved to Crystal Palace.
That didn’t see an improvement in the clubs finances however and in 1986, the club withdrew from the RFL just 11 days before the start of the season but thankfully, they managed to regroup and restart by September.
After not playing in Fulham for some years, the decision was made to change the clubs name and in 1991, the name London Crusaders was chosen but the clubs financial problems continued and in the end the RFL stepped in and took over the club until new owners could be found.
That period finished with the news of new owners been announced just before the club played in the Divisional Premiership Final at Old Trafford and despite the club going on to lose the match 22-30 against Working Town, things were looking on the up for the club.
This new era, was speared headed by the Brisbane Broncos and the club changed name, once again, to the London Broncos.
The clubs performance did improve and the club finished 4th in the 2nd tier in 1995 but despite that, they were chosen to join the new Super League competition and they entered the sports new ‘Summer Era’ as a top flight club.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Group took a majority shareholder position at the club and things started to look up for their finances and that helped the club to improve on the field as well including reaching their first ever Challenge Cup final at Wembley- although they were heavily defeated by Leeds.
Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last for long at the Broncos as after a failed takeover by York, the Virgin Group sold their stake in the club to David Hughes in 2002.
In 2005, Ian Lenagan took a controlling interest in the club and the decision was made to form a partnership with Harlequins Rugby Union that saw the club take on Quin’s branding, name and move to their home stadium of The Stoop.
The partnership turned out to be anything but a partnership, with little to no benefit for either club apart from the Union club gaining some extra money and brand recognition and in the end Ian Lenagan jump ship, took over at Wigan and was forced to sell his shares in the club.
In 2012, the club returned to their London Broncos branding and not only launched a new badge but they also started to play in the new colour scheme of black, light blue and silver.
The club continued to battle against finish bottom in the Super League until the inevitable happened when the club dropped down to the Championship at the end of the 2014 seaosn, following a 72-12 loss against Warrington.
The club would adapt to the 2nd tier relatively well after some teething issues in their first seaosn and after a strong 2018 seaosn, the club heading into the Super 8’s in good form and made it through to the Million Pound game in Toronto where they ran out winners by 2 points to 4.
It was a short lived return however despite coping well on their return to the Super League and the club were relegated once again.
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