London Broncos

[Moonchild_Bee]

It would ruin the pitch.
In a recent cricket game at the Oval, Paul Collingwood said there were stud marks in the pitch from an Aussie rules game last November!
The only saving grace would be the lack of scrums in Rugby league.

A cricket pitch cannot be compared to a football pitch in anyway shape or form.

Playing on a dual usage pitch about 18 years ago I put a batsman in hospital when a good length ball hit a stud (an actual stud rather than a mark) and reared up on him hitting him flush on the temple and knocking him out.

Stud marks will impact a football pitch, but no where close to such an extent.

[WelwynWes]

Anyhow I just wanted to echo what some people have posted here regarding the game and the effect it might have on the pitch. There are many examples of Football and RL teams sharing and no pitch concerns to worry about whatsoever. The one exception being Wigan but actually you get the opposite there as the RL fans complains about the smaller football club messing up the pitch. They have a point too as Wigan RL play their last game in September and the pitch deteriorates typically around Christmas. The key issue is not what sports are played as such but the recovery time for the pitch.

As I mentioned in my earlier thread it all comes down to the pitch budget. Wigan will have their own machinery and significant budget to allow the extra required work and feeding regime to keep the pitch strong. Would we have such an increased budget? We certainly don't have the equipment. Having seen the Wycombe pitch which is a very high standard it wore considerably and was not looking in great shape by the end of the season.

Take this season as an example, look how the Underhill pitch was after clearing the snow and 90 minutes on it.....Add a couple of rugby games on it in the few weeks after that and we would have been left with a mudbath.

This is only my opinion and I may have a biased view but i'm dead against it.

[Joss]

No RL team shares with Wycombe. This comparison is nonsense.

[WelwynWes]

I only stated a rugby team., its still foot traffic and wear.

[Joss]

I'd be more worried about the wear and tear from the u21s and Arsenal reserves if they use the Hive's stadium. They'll be playing at the same time of the year as Barnet FC; the winter months where rain and snow can multiply the effects of their play.

Just because rugby union and rugby league are both called rugby does not mean they have the same effect on the ground.

Can anyone please report on the state of Rochdale's pitch when we played them away? That'd be the best comparison. I genuinely don't know what kind of a state it was in, but would be interested to know. I'm sure their pitchcare budget would be similar to our own (if not lower).

[jerroll]

We played them on september 1 so the pitch was fine.

[letchbee94]

We played them on september 1 so the pitch was fine.

Apart from the s*** on it.

[sheriffsam]

At the risk of looking ridiculous, I think there is every possibility I might be the only Barnet supporter currently playing rugby league. As such, I am in a pretty good position to judge what the sport will do to a pitch. Nothing!

My team recently moved in to a new ground in St Albans which had been used by football before that. We had to have a pitch inspection before the first game because the footballers had worn down certain parts of the pitch, namely the centre circle and the goal mouths. This would not happen in league. Many of the comments Ive seen seem to assume league and union are similar when they are completely different when you talk about pitch wear and tear. I would say league would run the pitch down less so that football as the same bit of pitch is not worked over, over and over again.

The broncos moving to Barnet would be like a bloody dream come true for me. Being a league player and fan, I have no local team to support but my own, and have to either watch the northerners of the aussies on the tele. The financial implications would also be huge as the RFL are so keen to get the game played in the south that they pump money into the region, and Barnet would benefit from that.

Cant think of a single negative of this happening!

[asprinwizard]

As I mentioned in my earlier thread it all comes down to the pitch budget. Wigan will have their own machinery and significant budget to allow the extra required work and feeding regime to keep the pitch strong. Would we have such an increased budget? We certainly don't have the equipment. Having seen the Wycombe pitch which is a very high standard it wore considerably and was not looking in great shape by the end of the season.

Take this season as an example, look how the Underhill pitch was after clearing the snow and 90 minutes on it.....Add a couple of rugby games on it in the few weeks after that and we would have been left with a mudbath.

This is only my opinion and I may have a biased view but i'm dead against it.

The comparison with Wycombe is meaningless as, firstly, RL and RU and totally different games and, secondly, the RU season is simultaneous with the Football season - and over the period of the year where the weather is at it's worst to boot. As I mentioned in my previous post the key here is pitch recovery time. If the pitch cuts up due to the weather and is then used again a few days later it will not recover properly. But the point is that it's quite possible this would happen if just the football club were playing on it as Football is the only game being discussed here which can have more than one game a week (or even 2 weeks).

I do concede however that British weather can be unpredictable (or perhaps that's predictable) in that bad weather could continue well into the RL season but as landlords Barnet would be able to request Broncos to move a game away from the Hive to allow the pitch to recover (this is nothing new for the Broncos!) or even, as 3G pitches are allowed for RL games, could move the game to one of the training pitches with some temporary seating or similar.

In any case that would be a last resort, but certainly there are no examples I can think of where RL has contributed to the destruction of a pitch. For example this weekend Manchester City's pitch is being used for the Magic Weekend - seven games of RL on one pitch in one weekend. It may not look it's best by the end of Sunday but it certainly won't be a mudbath.

[hoofer2]

At the risk of looking ridiculous, I think there is every possibility I might be the only Barnet supporter currently playing rugby league. As such, I am in a pretty good position to judge what the sport will do to a pitch. Nothing!

My team recently moved in to a new ground in St Albans which had been used by football before that. We had to have a pitch inspection before the first game because the footballers had worn down certain parts of the pitch, namely the centre circle and the goal mouths. This would not happen in league. Many of the comments Ive seen seem to assume league and union are similar when they are completely different when you talk about pitch wear and tear. I would say league would run the pitch down less so that football as the same bit of pitch is not worked over, over and over again.

The broncos moving to Barnet would be like a bloody dream come true for me. Being a league player and fan, I have no local team to support but my own, and have to either watch the northerners of the aussies on the tele. The financial implications would also be huge as the RFL are so keen to get the game played in the south that they pump money into the region, and Barnet would benefit from that.

Cant think of a single negative of this happening!

You play for Centurions then? Ironic that Hemel Stags have pushed on to a semi-professional level now.

[sheriffsam]

At the risk of looking ridiculous, I think there is every possibility I might be the only Barnet supporter currently playing rugby league. As such, I am in a pretty good position to judge what the sport will do to a pitch. Nothing!

My team recently moved in to a new ground in St Albans which had been used by football before that. We had to have a pitch inspection before the first game because the footballers had worn down certain parts of the pitch, namely the centre circle and the goal mouths. This would not happen in league. Many of the comments Ive seen seem to assume league and union are similar when they are completely different when you talk about pitch wear and tear. I would say league would run the pitch down less so that football as the same bit of pitch is not worked over, over and over again.

The broncos moving to Barnet would be like a bloody dream come true for me. Being a league player and fan, I have no local team to support but my own, and have to either watch the northerners of the aussies on the tele. The financial implications would also be huge as the RFL are so keen to get the game played in the south that they pump money into the region, and Barnet would benefit from that.

Cant think of a single negative of this happening!

You play for Centurions then? Ironic that Hemel Stags have pushed on to a semi-professional level now.

Yes I'm at Cents. Don't remind me, we are hoping to make the same jump in the next 5 years. To be fair to Stags they are having a great season.

[WelwynWes]

My comments were my own and as stated I'm biased as a volunteer groundsman. I am not a rugby fan so couldn't comment on the difference between league and union. My comments were simply from a groundsmans point of view. More foot traffic means soil gets compacted quicker meaning poor drainage and more work required to rectify compaction. The grass gets weaker quicker because of foot traffic meaning more fertiliser is required. If budgets and staff issues are increased accordingly then great, if not then its up for debate.

[Joss]

Yeah, but if its just a case of 'foot traffic' then why not get rid of the 'London Bees'. They'll only bring in 20% of the fans / revenue, and I can't be the only one alienated by their franchise-esque name.

[BeeBee]

Anyone heard any update on this? They took a bit of a battering and a lot of the comments on the bbc article are pleading for the ground share to happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/22768881

Spose with the silence since the rumours, it may be off.

[asprinwizard]

The future of the club is somewhat up in the air at the mo with the Superleague restructure around the corner and persistent rumours about David Hughes putting us up for sale or refusing to finance us beyond 2014. Then there's the Gillingham spanner in the works with some at the club (namely the CEO) thinking a marginally increased crowd for a one-off game last Saturday is evidence of interest in the game in Kent.

The bottom line is this really: The Broncos are being overcharged - £600k a season - at the Stoop - for 12 (actually 11 this season as one had to be moved) home games plus any cup games that don't clash with Quins RU at home. If TK offered them £200k a season rising to £300k after 4 years, plus an option to buy or be given a permanent lease if the Football Club moves back to Barnet at any point, they would be fools not to take it. The facilities at the Hive are excellent, just what RL players need for fitness and training, but also there are bars on both sides of the ground now which is terrific as you can drink in your seats at RL games.

I just hop common sense prevails.