Quote: Adeybull "I could be here for hours on this - people who know me know it to be very much a subject close to my heart. Quick reply - E&OE!
What went wrong?
No rich backer and not enough income to cover costs once other teams (with rich owners/backers) caught up with the Bulls' off-field success.
Leading eventually to massive cost base reductions, including progressive loss of numerous senior skilled managers and inability to retain top-quality (expensive)m players.
Head coach who (backed by former chairman) bought success by spending beyond our means.
Attendances FELL by nearly 2k after the superb 2003 season, when the club budgeted for them to increase. This was a real killer blow - its all very well the fans complaining, but those missing fans left a huge hole in the finances that was never plugged. I know several of them who moaned like hell at the Bulls' demise, but did not like being told they were at least partly to blame.
Chairman who got into a pìssing contest with Hetherington at Leeds, and signed Harris when the latter was contractually obliged to return to Leeds. And in doing so invoked the wrath of Caddick and a £3m plus crazy lawsuit, the consequences of which cannot be understated and are with us financially for a while yet. Probably the single biggest disaster to hit the club since its reformation in the early 1960s. And totally and utterly self-inflicted.
Club running out of money fast, huge lawsuit hanging over us, big strategic review showed only solution was massive cost reductions. Vicious downward spiral from there.
Chairman and head coach went. A lot still to be said about that time, but from the things I hear and saw there is no way I would ever want either back. And go ask yourself why Fielden really went? One day it will come out in the autobiographies.
New administration had to settle with Leeds on undisclosed but clearly expensive terms, and even so eventually arrested most of the losses but at the expense of having sod all to spend on anything. Few fans realise just how close the club came to running out of money, with no sugar daddy to fall back on. Anyone reading the annual accounts and having a modicum of background can piece it all together and see where we were twelve months or so ago. Scary.
New Marketing director and a board cleanout mid-2010, and a series of strong initiatives including the highly-successful pledge campaign looked to have started the club back on the road to financial recovery. Change of head coach and big turnover in playing staff suggested the club was back on the road to recovery on the field. Optimism returned to Odsal.
That was then, and this is now.
In a word, money. Or lack of. That is what went wrong. And going back many more years than most people realise - just look at the accounts year on year!
Sadly, too many supporters don't see or appreciate this, and are therefore bemused at our fall from grace and seeming inability to spend what it takes to get back up again. Equally, those of us who watch the team increasingly wonder why we are not performing better, money notwithstanding since it surely cannot ALL be down to that?'"
So no mention of the decision to award Steve MacNamara a 4 1/2 year contract or any number of dumbfounding decisions on player recruitment and retention that the board, minus Chris Caisley, sanctioned in the last 5 years? The failure to sack Steve Macnamara 2 years after he was clearly not up to the job? The near constant spinning of information through unofficial channels so that figures like £3 million become accepted fact? The story about the club going bust but spending £100,000 on Solomona + Brett Ferres despite the club's policy of focussing youth? The loss of the world's best young forward because he couldn't get out of Odsal quick enough? The signings of Feather, Orford, Sykes, Glenn ? The utter capitulation in the face of Orford's agent? I could go on and on and on.
Why no mention of any of these decisions? How on earth is it Brian Noble's responsibility to balance the books of Bradford Bulls Ltd? It's an absurd charge to hold him responsible after all that has been totally ballsed up since he left? Was he the accountant? He was a good, hard working player who captained GB and never let us down and he is the club's most successful ever coach with the budget he was given which I would very much doubt was any different to Leeds, Wigan, Saints at the time. Your undermining of his achievements at the club is out of order and plain wrong.
