Just to expand upon the Broncos crowd and general situation - the club has all but confirmed they are moving to play at a venue in Ealing, which would be annoying in itself if it were simply yet another move. But this is worse than that because Ealing Trailfinders RU club essentially play in a field with a pavilion that has a few seats attached to it. They, like the Broncos, only exist because a rich owner puts in the requisite funding to keep them going as a pro club playing in a mostly semi-pro competition. The difference between the two clubs is that Trailfinders have never known anything else - the Broncos once had a hardcore of 3,000 and another 2,000 or so floaters who'd come and go depending on form, stadium, opposition, etc.
Over the last few years fans have been forced away (not left the club, but forced away!) by the actions of the owner. This season it's been down to the absolutely loyalist of the loyal, probably 5 or 600. With the news filtering through of the move to a park next season even more have finally given up the ghost. The 350 who attended on saturday is more or less all that's left.
There are some people who won't have a bad word said about David Hughes because of the money he's put in - something like £18/20million at this point. But the truth is that he's done an amazing job of destroying that club. For all that money there is absolutely nothing to show for it. Nothing. For a fraction of that money - perhaps 5 or 6 million - he could have bought a non-league football club (Hayes & Yeading / Tooting & Mitcham / Harrow Borough / Dulwich Hamlet / Sutton United / Staines Town) all of whom own their own stadia, and added a stand or two to take it up to 6/8,000 capacity. Job done, build roots in a community and let the club grow. Instead he poured all that dosh into players' contracts, sh** coaching appointments, Chief Executives who actively damaged the club, and yet not a single penny spent on marketing(!) and sat back to play Lord of the Manor.
Like I've said a million times before, you literally could not find a worse run sports club on the face of the planet. Everything you could do to alienate a fanbase and damage a club - they did it.
