London's Rugby League Club: Old enemies buck tradition

They were the Broncos, but London's Rugby League Club has embarked on a ground-breaking makeover which involves joining forces with a union side... and even adopting their name

From this weekend onwards the club will share the name, the colours and the ground of the sort of organisation that reacted with such alarm when rugby league came to town a quarter of a century ago. The Northern interlopers were hardly welcomed with open arms.

Not everybody from a union background was instinctively against it, however, and therein lie the roots of this meeting of minds. Mark Evans was freshly arrived from South Wales and he went to Fulham's debut match against Wigan at Craven Cottage in 1980.

It planted an idea in his mind that has never quite gone away - that a union and league club working together in London could do more than either separately. It was a scheme he kicked around when he and the cross-code visionary, Peter Deakin, were both at Saracens, but it is only now, as Harlequins' chief executive, that he is able to put it into practice.

"It's the best shot that rugby league has had in London, or is ever likely to have," he says. "If this doesn't work... " Last season, as the London Broncos' financially parlous situation at Brentford threatened to put them out of business, Evans convinced his opposite number, Nic Cartwright, and the incoming chairman, Ian Lenagan, that his master plan would work.

"It is not a merger," says Cartwright. "Both clubs have their own boards and their own finance, but everybody already thinks of it as one club. They have given us their name." For the London rugby league fans to whom the unique selling point of their game in the capital has always been that it is not rugby union, that name is anathema.

Evans understands that reaction. "But whatever you think about it, you know the name," he says. "Whether you like the connotations or not - and I loathed them for 20 years from the north of London - you know the name." It is enough to put off some of the Broncos' hard-liners, who will inevitably be alienated by the move. Even Lenagan, Wigan-born and with deep roots in both codes, had his doubts.

"The name change put me off," he admits. "It stopped me in my tracks for two or three weeks before I agreed that it was the way forward." The club's coach, Tony Rea, believes that the profile the name has brought them has already gone a long way towards justifying the change.

"We've had much more publicity," he says. "When we moved to Brentford or The Valley, we were really excited about it. We were pumped up about it in the office, but nobody else was. No one in the outside world knew anything about it."

The firm belief is that they know about it this time. The club's promotional budget is far higher than it has ever been, with rugby league adverts in Harlequins' familiar colours springing up in newspapers and on billboards. Three words are intended to sum up what the new venture offers to potential supporters: "Speed. Power. Passion."

Season ticket sales are close to double last year's numbers and Lenagan is hoping for a crowd of 7,500 on Saturday afternoon for attractive opposition like Saints.

"We think we'll get that, which would be magnificent," says Lenagan. His calculation is that a modest increase to 4,500 - from last season's average of 4,000 -would cut the annual loss to a manageable £250,000. An average of 5,500 would put them in the black, as well as in the pastel quarters.

Except when television dictates otherwise, Harlequins RL - try chanting that from the cheaper seats - will play on Saturday afternoons, a time they are convinced will suit both local and visiting spectators.

"We've lost perhaps a dozen season ticket holders who can't come on a Saturday, but generally we think it will be popular. We think Saturday afternoon is the favourite time for watching sport in London. Our fans will create their own distinctive atmosphere, because rugby league is that sort of game," Lenagan says.

The problem with the Broncos in recent years has not been that they are not worth watching. A squad including crowd-pleasers like the Australians Mark McLinden and Luke Dorn - a heavy reliance on antipodeans still exists - made the Engage Super League play-offs last year and, on paper at least, look stronger this season.

Rea believes they can only benefit from having a settled base and far better facilities. He also points to some early benefits from cross-pollination with the other Harlequins.

"They're obsessed with league and I've found myself watching union," he says with faint surprise. "There are different skills, but there are some technical things you can work on and I find that I talk to the coaches about how they deal with certain situations."

There will not suddenly be a spate of cross-overs between the two clubs, but it was striking that Rea took three of the union club's young players to the South of France with his squad for pre-season training.

"There will be the odd player who is better suited to league and wants to give it a go," he says. On top of that, the two teams will be working together to attract the youth of west London to play rugby - and let them sort out the details later.

Evans believes that league can attract a wider range of potential players and spectators to The Stoop. That is what they get out of it, at a tricky time in their history as they work their passage back to their Premiership.

There is one theory amongst the more dubious Broncos fans that the Quins will not be half as interested in this experiment once they have regained their status. But Evans sees that as a springboard for making the twin-pronged operation the most powerful rugby club - using that term in its generic sense - in the country.

"The cultural fit is so much better than between rugby and football," he says.

The other legitimate worry is what might happen if Evans, with all his undoubted enthusiasm for the project, moved on and was replaced by someone who did not share his vision.

The league club has security of tenure for an initial three years, by which time Lenagan expects them to have proved that they are indispensable to their landlords.

"Another chairman who has looked at what we are doing here remarked to me the other day that Harlequins will be the biggest club in rugby league in five years. That's what we're aiming for."

Supping with the devil Super League clubs in cahoots with union

* LEEDS RHINOS

Share Headingley and all facilities with Leeds Tykes, as partners in Leeds Rugby. A handful of players have tried both codes and ex Rhinos coach Daryl Powell now coaches the Tykes.

* WIGAN WARRIORS

Owner Dave Whelan took over Orrell for an abortive bid for the Premiership. Now wants to return club to its members, but Wigan still use their ground for junior matches.

* ST HELENS

Bracketed with Liverpool-St Helens as part of Sporting Club St Helens. Saints have provided coaching in-put through their former chief executive Eric Hughes.

* BRADFORD BULLS

Made a short-lived move to take over Wakefield RU, but plans to leave their College Grove ground and play their home matches at Odsal never materialised.

* CATALANS DRAGONS

Will be sharing the Perpignan RU clubís council-owned Aime Girard Stadium in their inaugural Super League season. Already some signs of friction.