Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:47 pm  

FlexWheeler wrote:

The only good thing about beleaguered Bradford's demise is that it may help to raise employment levels in the cloth cutting sector.

As long as there are plans in place to make sure the requisite amount of cloth is going to be cut.

Cloth cutting.

Well Bradford is a former capital of the woollen industry - making cloth (and cutting it) should be like riding a bike!

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 4:19 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Well, anyone who thinks about it for a moment will say that the fans will not buy in.

You sound just like any idiot chairman, pontificating to the fans what they need to do if they are "true supporters". You forget that this is the 21st century and people apart from a (variable but small) hardcore couldn't give a flying fart about pleas and entreaties or appeals to their conscience.

Your post reminds me of the trolls who were on here back in the day when we'd get a 20K+ crowd claiming we were all "gloryhunters". It was bollox then and it is now, the crowd was just people who thought it was worth paying the admission, if yes, they paid, and if no, they don't. You can call them gloryhunters, or wildebeest, or pomegranates, it makes no difference. They pay if they want, they don't fancy it, they keep their money in their pocket.

In 21c terms the Bulls have a relatively big potential fanbase (as has been proved) but they will only come and pay if they choose to. Not if someone gives 'ema jolly good tickng off. Not if someone appeals to their conscience. Only about 3000 or so have even been interested in "relatively thin", and if we fall even further from grace into C1 then that number will at least halve. If we start from scratch it may be even worse.

I am almost as hardcore Northern/Bulls as they come so I can offer you an insight. At the moment I will take some persuading. If my club is effectively dead then I have no appetite for some back-street part-time semi-amateur operation, even if masquerading under our proud name. there are plenty of existing clubs in the area that do just that and i can get my fix of grass roots there.

Secondly, as I have been saying for a long time, if the Bulls fall to the bottom - as may be favourite now, unless Santa is real - there will be no way back for The Club Formerly Known As Bradford. We had a brief window to try to regain SL but failed. If you think any club can start from scratch and aim for SL without a wealthy backer then you really are in dreamland.

And, no club that cuts its proverbial cloth will ever succeed. There is always a prerequisite of a wealthy backer to push things along. Those who think you can make a club run as a business and be at the top, self-sustaining, are equally deluded.

The point which clothcutters somehow miss is that the fans will never settle for just the cloth you have. In order to progress, you need to buy in much moire cloth than you have. We did, last year and this. If it had worked, then we'd get the return of SL and so would remain for the time being solvent but then you have created a whole new cloth requirement and won't succeed in SL without funding yet more cloth acquisition.

If you fail, though, that's the problem. WE COULD NEVER have got to SL clothcutting, we set our stall out, and effectively bet the ranch. To get to SL you have to pay more than can possibly be justified for a Championship side. You can't guarantee promotion though, but you CAN guarantee that if you cut your cloth based on where you are, then you can forget all about that chance of promotion. THAT is the is the very simple and inescapable fact.

From your point though isn't there a risk of continuing to have admin issues until your day comes? What do you feel this does to your reputation as a creditable business?

At this stage forget Super league have a couple of years running as a break even business with youngsters, if no one goes to matches your done, however unless a rich chairman comes along what is the alternative.

I'm not going to call you names for having an opinion though. I respect people for their views.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 4:28 pm  

Dannyboywt wrote:

From your point though isn't there a risk of continuing to have admin issues until your day comes? What do you feel this does to your reputation as a creditable business?

At this stage forget Super league have a couple of years running as a break even business with youngsters, if no one goes to matches your done, however unless a rich chairman comes along what is the alternative.

I'm not going to call you names for having an opinion though. I respect people for their views.

In rugby terms iy would be interesting how a credible business is judged. It must surely be a business that can survive on it's own feet and be profitable. You would probably find that there are not many clubs that could do this without some wealthy backer and are therefore not credible either.

[Bullseye]

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 5:10 pm  

I'd say only Leeds manage it. The rest rely on their owners in some form.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 6:47 pm  

Whilst the focus is obviously the financial crisis at Odsal its fair to say that the finances of most RL clubs are not particularly rosy and the issue that the Northern Union/Rugby League has had to contend with is the 'soccer juggernaut' that dominates the press. In relation to RL the column inches for soccer have grown bigger with each passing year.

For anyone contemplating putting money on the table to rescue the Bulls it will not have gone unnoticed that Bradford City are currently on the rise and actively getting bums on seats with cheap tickets. Twenty years ago you would see plenty of kids wearing Bulls shirts/scarves but you don't see many now. Anyone looking at turning round the Bulls literally has to start at the bottom but ironically, it's been done twice before in 1907 and 1964.

Whilst I speak as a City fan I want Bulls/Northern to survive. I doubt very much that the Super League can be sustained and that before too long there will be an almighty crash. In the meantime, I think that you'd have a stronger club starting afresh and meet some of the other 'giants' - Leigh / HKR included - on the way down.

Anyone who wants to rediscover what happened in 1907 can find the full detail in LIFE AT THE TOP, currently on sale in Waterstones. The companion volume, ROOM AT THE TOP tells the story of the origins of rugby in Bradford. The two books also narrate what happened in the 1880s//1890s when there was a mushrooming of local clubs in the Bradford district and a dramatic financial collapse.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:00 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

I think hindsight shows he should never have taken the deal offered by the RFL.

Indeed, and the only reason he did was because the stark alternative was the Bulls being liquidated, which he wasn't prepared to let happen.

Is that your hindsight, then? That he "should not have" saved the Bulls? It was in my view an extreme act of selfless bravado by a man put on an impossible spot at the last minute by the RFL, and of course as a matter of logic or cold business nobody would normally do such a thing - but he did, yet he gets slagged off.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:09 pm  

The game is pretty much relying on Sky money and a handful of rich men. The quality of Super League has declined IMO and I wouldn't be surprised if the next broadcast contract reflects this especially when you also bear in mind the long term trend in viewing habits moving from dish to data. Live TV for all but the biggest events is declining. There may be new opportunities of course but all i can see is a slow decline.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:13 pm  

Dannyboywt wrote:

From your point though isn't there a risk of continuing to have admin issues until your day comes? What do you feel this does to your reputation as a creditable business?

No. What you must have to try to get the holy grail is a rich backer who if he has to, can reach into deep pockets.

But, and let nobody forget this, yes Green did take a huge gamble, BUT it almost paid off except we lost the MPG, and his second arguably bigger gamble, whilst not producing a good team, may still not have completely backfired but for one result at Featherstone. Now, there are those who claim he shouldn't have gambled, but the fans would not have stood for that, he HAD to make a genuine play to be the top club, and get promotion, because that was the whole point.

He didn't want us to be a low level club, and neither did the fans.

So I for one understand taking a big but calculated risk. And I believe we would probably still be afloat, if by the skin of our teeth, had we made the proper playoffs. How long it would have lasted and what we would have done next is of course a different matter.

Dannyboywt wrote:

At this stage forget Super league have a couple of years running as a break even business with youngsters, if no one goes to matches your done, however unless a rich chairman comes along what is the alternative.

Because there would be no such thing. An uncompetitive team of youngsters is another word for a recipe for closing down, the cl would never recover from being a low-rent low-level mediocrity. The income would mean a slow or even not-so-slow demise, as the downward income spiral would be nowhere near sustaining a presence at Odsal. Your outline plan is an impossible dream, pie in the sky.

Dannyboywt wrote:

I'm not going to call you names for having an opinion though. I respect people for their views.

Thanks, and ditto.

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 8:27 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

I'd say only Leeds manage it. The rest rely on their owners in some form.

Wakey don't and turn a profit. I understand that Wire, Wigan and Saints are all now self-sustaining, as are Hull FC and Cas, I believe. The only clubs actually bankrolled by rich owners are Salford and Huddersfield. I understand that they used big money backers to get them to that point, but I'm not sure how many are actually dependent on millionaire input any more.

[Bullseye]

Re: Administration 3 - now in technicolour : Thu Nov 17, 2016 9:00 pm  

I'm not sure about some of those clubs you mention Slugger. I'm sure McManus and Co have put plenty into Saints in the past couple of years. Also very recently I remember reading how much Cas depended on Jack Fulton (RIP).