Why was the deadline not Tuesday or Wednesday then. I think deep down we all know the answer.

Do we?

Or is it more to the point that Caisley's intervention on Thursday, timed to perfection if you were looking to try to sabotage the campaign, means they have to be even more sure about the future before calling in the pledges than they already knew they had to be?

Incidentally, just which clubs do we think all these players supposedly to be offloaded cold sign for? Given that the only ones they would be likely to want to move to an could pay a fee will be up to the cap?

The risk in the delay was always that people would start ruminating on the "what-ifs", and, maybe get cold feet. Encouraged of course by those whose agenda that suits perfectly.

Lets all be careful we don't talk ourselves out of saving the club?

I imagine any deals of substance would be on a buy now and loan back for the rest of the season.

Can't affod 'em thanks to the pledge.

Good point.

The obvious effect of Caisley's intervention at that precise moment was to sabotage the Pledge, regardless of his reasons for doing it and irrespective of his actual intentions.

If his intervention put off 200 of the remaining thousands of season ticket holders from pledging then that's your shortfall right there.

I would like to think that of those, many were at Odsal on Friday and were convinced to pledge. We have a lot of unpledged to go at. If that didn't persuade any waverers then nothing would.

we lost the likes of Skerrett because other clubs with rich benefactors wanted to offer them more.
And who came along and took us out of that? Christopher Caisley! Ultimately after a 20 year journey from the point of Skerrett leaving for Wigan, we are left in a very similar situation. Rebranding, followed by massive success followed by a realisation that it wasn't sustainable.

Our initial success in the SL era was down to selling our best player in Newlove, as that enabled us to build a squad. Nickle, Dwyer, loughlin, lowes, McNamara and spruce all came in on the back of that deal! So perhaps being a selling club can work? What we need is a scouting system that identifies the best players for the budget we have available.

What is clear is that as a club there is a finite amount of fans willing to follow the club thru thick and thin. And that budgeting for success on the field can and will lead to massive problems if you don't get that success. Even Wigan have struggled with this.

Getting through to may is crucial, but planning for the future is more so!

Having said all this, would we swap financial stability for any if our titles won?

Sorry but there's no evidence to suggest Caisley's intervention 'was timed to perfection if you were looking to sabotage the pledge'.

Depends what you mean by "sustainable".

If you mean that the success was not sustainable - it never is. A team can have a short time, or an extended time, in the top echelons but sooner or later it will fall from those heights. 'Twas ever thus and always will be.

If you mean financially sustainable. I have said many times that in my view, if we had not spent millions on buying Harris, signing on fees, agent's fees, lawyers fees and compensation to Leeds, then we would be in a reasonable enough financial situation. I have seen nothing to contradict this view, and nor has a single person argued against it.

I mean, just the compo itself. Of course, nobody knows how much it is, but the £600,000 was paid in cold hard cash (a pure guess on my part that figure) and if we instead had it in the bank now, would you think we would have a problem? What if you add back in all the legal costs too?





Trading Newlove didn't in any way shape or form make us a selling club! He had taken his bat home and was never going to play a decent game for us again so it made perfect sense to cash in. However we did not cash in, which is what "selling clubs" do. Because they need the money. We did not cash in. We used the money to - as you rightly point out - build a cracking squad with some very shrewd acquisitions and a couple of top class ones.

Ultimately, we'd have spent the extra cash on players wouldn't we? Wod that have given us success under McNamara? Who knows.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that we can look back at ifs and buts all the wy back to 1907, but what is important is getting on the right track now. Any thoughts of success on the pitch in the short term need to be replaced with how we make the club financially viable. This may not be in its current form, at it's current home or in its current division. What we need to do is ensure that if we do survive the next weeks and months, we have a proper long term plan that is realistic.

I've read on here that someone thinks that if season ticket prices go to £200 w wil still sell 10,000! Dream on! We need to get real and make sure whatever we have is built on solid foundations, not guesswork or projections!