A template for a successful London rugby league franchise

Martin Offiah remains the most iconic Broncos player despite only playing 16 games for the club           Pic: Getty Images

There's some debate as to the exact definition of a 'sports book'. For many David Storey's This Sporting Life is one of the great sports books but as far as I'm concerned it does not qualify. This Sporting Life is a novel, a work of fiction, and whilst I'm not suggesting it is impossible for a work of fiction to qualify as a sports book, this one, in my opinion, does not. Yes, it is a very good book and well worth a read and yes, it is about rugby league. But much more it is about the life and relationships of a young man in northern England in the 1960s. That Arthur Machin plays rugby league, and that this affords him celebrity status, is merely part of that tapestry. In many ways the story would not be radically different were Machin to be a celebrated cricketer, or footballer, or pop star. Except of course that, in the industrial north at the time, it was as a rugby league player that one's status as 'gladiator hero' (as the book's cover describes Machin) was most credibly realised.

And in some ways not a lot has changed. Wigan Athletic may now grace football's Premier League (and share a ground with the towns rugby league team, the Wigan Warriors) but for town's like St Helens, Hull, Bradford, Widnes, Warrington and, to a lesser extent, Leeds the true sporting heroes are rugby league players. Football remains prominent in the north but it is a place where it is equally legitimate to grow up dreaming of being a barnstorming second rower for the Huddersfield Giants as it is of scoring goals for Manchester United.

Which is what makes the London Broncos such an oddity. Despite some speculative attempts in the 1930s rugby league has never had a history London. Whilst a professional club has been a fixture in the area since Fulham Football Club branched out in 1980, the Broncos have gone through a number of manifestations (and bases) since that time, the most recent as the ill-fated Harlequins Rugby League. 2012 saw the return of the London Broncos name and the Broncos 'brand' was relaunched amid some fanfare in November 2011. However, as yet the bright future that was talked about is yet to materialise with the Broncos finishing the season in twelfth place in the table only two points ahead of joint last-placed Castleford and Widnes (and nine points behind the Bradford Bulls, who went into administration half-way through the season and famously made all their staff, including their coach, redundant).

As a self-professed rugby league fan I ashamedly admit that I only attended two of the clubs 2012 fixtures - against St. Helens and Leeds (on both occasions largely due to an interest in watching the visitors). Maybe it's just that I've been spoiled by watching to much of Australia's NRL competition but quite honestly the prospect of watching the listless Broncos get absolutely trounced by teams who, despite their superiority, rarely played high-paced enterprising entertaining rugby league wasn't sufficiently appealing to get me to show up more regularly than I did. I live five miles and an easy half-hour bus ride from the Broncos home ground.

When I mentioned this to my dad his response was: "They need to give it away. Rugby League's a northern game. Put another team in Leeds where it actually matters." But I refuse to accept that Rugby League cannot be a success in London. Whilst 32 years of failure (the club has never won a major trophy, with losing finalists in the 1999 Challenge Cup being their crowning glory to date) are hardly encouraging, the fact that the club lives on provides hope. What they need is a template, a successful team upon which to model themselves, a team that faced and overcame the same sort of challenges a rugby team in London is currently enduring.

Of course, the clubs current name harks back nostalgically to probably the best period in the clubs history when in 1994 they were bought by the Broncos of Brisbane. At the time an Allan Langer-led Brisbane team had just won back-to-back Winfield Cups and it would have been difficult to find a more successful template in Rugby League on which to base oneself. 18 years on though the differences between a rugby league franchise in Brisbane, where rugby league rules, and London could not be more stark. Instead, a much better model for the 2012 London team exists in the form of the Melbourne Storm.

The Storm have established themselves as a championship pedigree team in Australian Rules heartland, and whilst they have had some significant (and at times dubious) advantages along the way, they are the organisation which the London Broncos must seek to replicate. Here, in no particular order, are just some of the ways how:

1. Exploit uncertainty at other clubs
The inaugural Melbourne Storm benefited from the demise of the Perth Reds and Hunter Mariners enabling them to sign foundational players of the calibre of Glenn Lazaridis, Robbie Ross, Scott Hill and Brett Kimmorley. In recent years both the Crusaders club and the Bradford Bulls have struggled enormously financially (with the Crusaders being effectively disbanded at the end of 2011) with financial difficulties plaguing a number of other Super League teams. So far the most noteworthy addition London have been able to recruit from either the Crusaders or Bradford is Michael Witt, hardly the sort of signing to set pulses racing or build a team around. With Bradford players so disenfranchised with the last season that many of them are choosing to retire London must be able to offer them an attractive alternative.

2. Find a committed owner
It's pretty difficult to offer a viable alternative to players at clubs suffering financial hardship if you're not financially secure yourself. While I don't claim to have any knowledge of the London Broncos current financial situation I think it's safe to assume there's not a enormous amount of coin floating about. Melbourne of course have benefited enormously by being owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. London, who Murdoch "fast-tracked" into the Super League when it was launched in 1996 on "commercial grounds", could do with hitting up the media mogul for the same sort of support. And let's face it, the bloke could do with some positive publicity in this country right at the moment. But even assuming Murdoch has enough on his plate at present and can't foresee Londoners signing up to Sky in their droves to watch a rugby league team (surely a large part of his motivation for his initial support), one mustn't forget that the London Broncos have attracted hefty financial support in the past. In the late '90s Richard Branson's Virgin Group were briefly majority shareholders only for the club to be sold to supporter David Hughes in 2002. Such support, if it can ever be replicated, can not be allowed to slip through the Bronco's fingers again.

3. Build partnerships
One of the keys to Melbourne's success has been their relationship with Brisbane-based feeder club Norths Devils. Such a relationship has played an important role in the club securing the likes of Queensland and Australian representative players Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Greg Inglis (amongst others). Rugby league may not be established in London but that doesn't mean the club can't benefit from where it is established. By building partnerships with clubs in Britain's next tier down, the Championship, London can exploit some of the emerging talent from the north and encourage it to make it's home in the nations capital. Similarly there are plenty of players knocking about Australia's reserve grade who are just shy of making the breakthrough into the NRL but could have a massive impact in the UK Super League. Even better, given the Storm's occasional necessity to offload players who they are no can't keep under the cap but wish to retain (Ryan Hoffman for example) why not sign up to some sort of (legal) agreement that sees them come to London as a first port of call rather than Wigan.

4. Find a niche and invest in the grassroots
Partnerships are important in getting established but it should be complemented with grassroots investment to make a career in rugby league a realistic ambition for London-based kids. There's nothing like a homegrown hero to galvanize a club (see point 5). An essential part of that is finding a niche. Basing yourself in middle class south west London - sharing a ground with Harlequins no less - puts you in direct competition with rugby. Rugby league has always been a working class game, and a sports' alignment with a certain class is even more entrenched in Britain than in the relatively egalitarian Australasia. For the Broncos to thrive they need to find themselves a working class community, on the outskirts of London (preferably in the north of the city), with a relatively uninspiring football club and invest in that community. Afford me a slight departure from my Melbourne model here: the Auckland-based Warriors are the template for this. By basing themselves in south Auckland the Warriors ensured they were not in direct competition with rugby and offered a relatively deprived community (in a sporting sense, as well as in other areas) something to get excited about. The Broncos needs to establish good training facilities, do lots of community work, and provide encouragement and support to schools to the point where they develop a reputation like the Gold Coast's Keebra Park Secondary School so end up attracting aspiring rugby league players not just for the local community but from all over the south of England and beyond.

5. Continue to cater to away fans
If either of the games I attended this season are any indication (and I have no reason to believe they were in any way exceptional), away fans continue to make up a significant proportion (if not the majority) of the attendance at London Bronco's games. But they bring so much more than ticket revenue. They bring atmosphere, loyalty, dedication and passion which is a spectacle in itself. London needs to do all it can to encourage away fans to keep attending and make the away trip the highlight of their season. There are a number of ways this can be achieved but the obvious one that springs to mind is to cut down travelling time and expense by basing the club somewhere north of the Thames.

6. Sign a marquee player
In the short term it's important to give the fans something to get excited about, a reason to turn up on a Saturday. The Storm are fortunate enough to be stacked with marquee players and it was arguably this more than anything else that led them down the track of their salary cap indiscretions. The temptation to add the freakish talent of someone like Israel Folau to an already stellar core was too much. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world it says a lot that many people still associate the glory days of the London Broncos with Martin Offiah. London-born winger Offiah was 30 by the time he returned home to play for the Broncos and his best years (for Widnes and more famously Wigan) were almost certainly behind him. He only actually played 16 games in three seasons at the club but the combination of a hugely charismatic local boy with the capacity to still occasionally turn it on ignited something in supporters and opposition fans alike. The London Broncos need that again, preferably over a slightly longer period of time, but a 34-year-old Craig Gower, who would have been quite a card about eight or nine years ago, isn't going to provide it.

7. Sign a decent coach
Your chances of attracting a marquee player (and the rest of a decent team) expand exponentially if you can attract a coach that players want to play for. Attracting future Australia coach Chris Anderson as the Storm's first coach was a bit of a coup only really surpassed by tying up Craig Bellamy five years later. I remain perplexed that Australian rugby league players continue to choose to semi-retire (let's face it, for most of them that is all that Super League is) to Wigan or Huddersfield or Widnes rather than the bright lights of London. Sure your chances of winning the title aren't as great and you're not going to be noticed in the High Street but I would of thought that this might act as a positive given some of the scrutiny players in Australia face from both the public and the media. For whatever reason, I feel like this argument should apply several times over for coaches. What's more, high quality Australian coaches seem to be in even greater supply than players. Nathan Brown's success at Huddersfield was not deemed sufficiently impressive for him to attract an NRL coaching job and he has now signed with St Helens. Heck, Chris Anderson himself is currently available and with a decent track record in both Australia and the UK. It would be interesting to see if Bluey McLennan could replicate his Leeds success in London and Brian Smith could potentially be coerced into a London-based sabbatical having coached Hull and Bradford earlier in his career. These are all established NRL coaches and completely overlooked the up and coming coaches who are struggling to get a look in at the top level due to lack of opportunity. They could do a lot worse than spend a couple of years in London and they need to be reminded of that and remunerated in such a way that it makes it worth their while.

8. Win something
Melbourne's credibility increased out of sight when they made the finals in their first season and went one better to win the grand final in just their second year in existence. A lot of factors contributed to that result but London must target winning something, anything, to boost their credibility. The old cliche is that success breeds success but the Broncos should be entering every competition they can - local raffles and all - in the hope of building a winning mentality.

9. Overhaul their image
If, in the unlikely event that even some of the steps outlined above are followed, this may become more or less unnecessary. At one level supporters don't care what badge the players wear on their chest as long as the team is winning. On the other hand the most recent rebranding seems like an enormous missed opportunity. Perhaps it was done on the cheap - it certainly looks like it - but I have no emotional attachment to the new Broncos logo, shirts, brand etc. As a West Ham fan I'm happy to be seen proudly sporting merchandise for a team that loses more often than it wins but not if it looks crap. Give the supporters something they can feel some sense of pride in wearing in public. If I'm honest, the whole Broncos thing feels a bit old hat and whilst I'm reluctant to advocate further identity overhauls for one of sports most weathered franchises I think one final one could be in order. If the Storm do indeed end up acting as the model for the London franchises success why not go the whole hog and adopt their moniker too? Anyone who has spent any time in London would realise that in many ways a weather-based name couldn't be more appropriate. After all, I've been in London a year and am yet to encounter my first Bronco.

'A Life Too Short' is about so much more than Robert Enke's battle with depression

Will Robert Green be the latest victim of misplaced sporting conventional wisdom?                 Pic: AP/Bernat Armangue

I spent much of my 2500-word post last week defending Andre Villas-Boas (check it out below – it’s worth a read) but, only a week later I find myself resenting him for his role in scuppering one of the funniest transfer sagas of recent times.

American midfielder-cum-striker Clint Dempsey had excelled for Fulham for five years since joining from New England Revolution in 2007, so few could begrudge him his ambition of moving to a top English club, preferably competing in the Champions League, this summer. At 29, it was probably Dempsey’s last opportunity to make such a move.

However, showing up to the first day of Fulham’s pre-season training proudly announcing you are on your way to Liverpool was not the way to go about it. Particularly when Liverpool hadn’t even made a bid. In Dempsey’s defence, one can only imagine he’d received a tip-off from his agent that the move was already in train, but it didn’t stop him from looking any less of a big-time Charlie when a bid subsequently failed to materialise.

As the transfer window drew to a close with Dempsey training with Fulham’s reserves, and the West London club reporting Liverpool to the FA for unsettling a player who remained contracted to them, no offer was forthcoming.

If the newspapers are to be believed Liverpool did make a late bid on the final day of the transfer window of around £3m - a figure that could only be considered derisory for a player of Dempsey’s quality - but it was Tottenham and Villas-Boas who eventually came to Dempsey’s rescue by meeting Fulham’s £6m valuation.

Dempsey had, by the narrowest of margins, avoided becoming the latest transfer windows biggest loser (at least on an individual level - Liverpool's failure to sign Dempsey left them with only two strikers and a manager whose preferred formation features three up front - when it comes to which club "lost" the transfer window, it's a no contest). Instead, the individual title went to another player who, unlike Dempsey, was a relatively innocent victim in a situation not entirely of his own making.

As recently as May this year Robert Green was playing in goal for England (keeping a clean-sheet in a pre-Euro 2012 friendly against Norway). Now it looks as though he may spend the rest of this season plying his trade in the Championship on loan from Queens Park Rangers, who he only joined in June.

Green only played three matches for his new club (who he joined after his contract expired at West Ham United) before Rangers signed another keeper, Brazilian international Julio Cesar from Inter Milan, who now looks set to cement a place as the club’s number one goalkeeper.

QPR manager Mark Hughes described the situation like this:

"It is a challenge for everybody. What we're trying to do here is improve the quality of the group and that includes the goalkeeping position as well.

"I said I wanted to have two quality keepers this window if at all possible. Sometimes when opportunities present itself you want to pursue them.

"When you get an opportunity to possibly bring a player of Julio Cesar's quality, with his playing record and his mentality, then I think you have to pursue it.

"I think when we started the process we probably never thought there was an opportunity or chance he would be able to come here. If we are able to conclude it, we'll be delighted."

Hughes uses the word ‘opportunity’ three times in as many paragraphs, but what really sticks out is the ruthless way the club has pursued what is essentially only an incremental improvement.

Since Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes bought the club in August 2011, QPR have sought to improve their squad at every opportunity. Whilst this is not an uncommon strategy for clubs recently promoted to the Premier League (who often find the players that got them there are not of sufficient quality to keep them there), it is the complete absence of any semblance of planning that leaves QPR looking desperate (they signed 12 news players in the last window – more than an entire starting line up) and caused Football365’s Nick Miller to declare on Twitter that he hoped the club would be relegated this season.

If QPR appear desperate, it’s probably because they are. Staying in the Premier League has well-documented financial benefits and one only needs to look at the likes of Portsmouth to see how fragile many clubs business model’s become once the riches of the Premier League are denied them. However, their treatment of Robert Green seems counter-productive. It feels to me like going out and buying a new TV, only to upgrade to a slightly better, slightly more expensive one a week later. Although, given that Green was signed on a free, it is possibly more like being given an old TV by a friend, only to buy a brand new TV a week later when you see it on sale.

Nevertheless, the point is that the most stable and successful clubs in the Premier League rarely dispose of valuable assets quite so freely. I think of Everton, who have performed admirably for a number of years despite being subject to testing financial constraints. Everton’s keeper Tim Howard may not be the best keeper in the league and Everton could possible replace him with someone better if they were determined to do so, but he is more than serviceable (at least for another couple of years) and he has repaid the faith the club have shown in him with loyal service and a key role in establishing Everton as a challenger for the European places.

Reports linking Everton with a bid for 19-year-old Birmingham (and now England) keeper Jack Butland in the last transfer window seemed fanciful because of the fee involved (£6m was talked about - a lot of money for a club of Everton’s miniscule financial resources) but had a degree of credibility because it seemed logical for a club like Everton to look to replace Howard with a promising young keeper at some point. It didn’t happen this transfer window but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Butland join Everton at some point in the future if they’re not outbid by one of the big clubs.

To bring it back to QPR, I couldn’t help but feel for Green. In truth, Green left a very comfortable situation at West Ham despite the offer of a new contract, looking to benefit from the ambition shown by QPR, the same ambition of which he has now become a victim. However, it seems incredibly unfair that the best Green can now hope for is sitting on the bench or chasing promotion with a Championship contender.

What sort of a psychological impact will that have on Green? To a certain extent goalkeepers, by their very nature, have to be adept at bouncing back from setbacks, and Green has showed in the past that high-profile errors on international duty (with one of his greatest gaffes coming against Dempsey during the 2010 World Cup) haven’t massively impacted his form at club level. But the conventional wisdom about such things is not always accurate.

I have just finished reading Ronald Reng’s biography of another goalkeeper, German international Robert Enke (called ‘A Life Too Short’ and winner of last year’s William Hill Sports Book of the Year). Reng’s stirring account of an interesting, compassionate, talented professional who also happened to suffer from depression is one of the better sporting biographies I have read in recent times. It doesn’t throw up too many surprises – Reng doesn’t depart much from the formula followed by sporting biographers the world over – but its delicate treatment of the subject of depression is both timely and fascinating.

Enke’s story provides plenty of food for thought, but one thing that sticks with me is the over-reliance of conventional wisdom in sport. Enke was, I suspect, far from conventional even without taking into account his depression. What Reng makes clear is that depression as an illness makes life’s challenges seem insurmountable, sometimes irrespective of how great they appear to others. I therefore do not wish to suggest that Enke simply could not “hack” the competition and pressure of being Germany’s number one keeper and this is what “caused” his depression. It may have contributed to certain episodes but that is almost beside the point.

The way Enke was able to establish himself as Germany’s best goalkeeper at a mid-table club like Hannover 96 where he was the undisputed number one, following setbacks at Barcelona and Fenerbache, goes against the conventional wisdom that goalkeepers require competition to produce their best. Enke was the consummate professional and his own harshest critic. I suspect that many professionals are the same. Enke’s triumph over the conventional wisdom is remarkable (even before taking his illness into account). At the same time, such defiance was probably the secret of his success.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Robert Green is at risk of throwing himself in front of a train as Enke did. Green is his own man and may be more comfortable with the conventional sporting wisdom. He may relish the opportunity of dropping down to the Championship and enjoying playing football out of the spotlight. He may be able to turn this setback into motivation to become a better player and eventually displace Cesar as QPR’s number one. But I can’t help but feel that QPR may have benefitted just as much from letting Green know they had the opportunity to sign Cesar but declined due to their confidence in their recently signed England international. As a West Ham fan I wish Green all the best. I just hope that his career is not the latest victim of misplaced sporting conventional wisdom.

As for ‘A Life Too Short’, one hopes that its impact will be the most obvious one: deepening people’s understanding of the illness of depression, as it did my own. But I am also hopeful that stories of players such as Enke will help demonstrate that there can be success for those who defy the conventional wisdom.  Whilst Enke’s illness and untimely demise give Reng’s work a greater gravity, his story is compelling even without it’s ending. Amongst the saddest sub-plots in the book was the way Enke felt unable to share his experiences more widely during his life. Both Green and Dempsey could learn something from a fellow professional whose tragic death denied football an inspiring role model. And not just because he suffered from depression.