vbfg, the last pledge was more of getting out of the clarts. This would be putting the Club on a prosperous financial footing and would help to ring-fence our young talent - too much of which is already in the other team's colours.

Fair enough, Smith strikes me as a man of his word, so would be logical, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors.........

I think he's a great prospect, and hope he stays with you guys, but if he did come to us obviously that would be a great signing for us.

Do you think?

I'll be fuming fi we sell Bteman after i've pledged. The main reason i pledged was so we didn't sell our young players.


I do feel sorry for Hood inheriting Caisleys mess and then taking all kinds of flack, but is communcation skills are appalling. Talk about fuelling a non-story. Expect the Wigans, leeds, Hulls, to start circling.

I realise that mate but it was heavily implied that there would be the remaining 500k to follow by both Duckett and Hood in the papers. Maybe they lied, maybe they were overtaken by events. Don't know, don't care.

Many people have given more than they could afford in a time of financial strife for all and sundry. I personally wasn't but I know some that were convinced by those heavily trailed implications of outside sources of funding in the papers to pledge in the first place.

I'm afraid that bolt has already been shot.

Selling your best home grown players only postpones the agony and is not a sustainable way to run a club. If the club can only pay it's way by selling whatever decent players it develops then what's the point in pretending to compete in the top flight? Fact is we need a backer or some big sponsorship deals to compete in SL. Without one we're finished.

Yep

john bateman‏@johnbateman1

Paper talk nowa days, lol love to no who's writes these things

Retweeted by Bulls Media

As has already been said, Peter Hood says these things then Journos write what he says. Are you getting this John??

I wouldn't quite agree with that, what is true is without a backer or big sponsors we can't compete at the top level. But on crowds of around the 10K mark we could certainly compete in the bottom half of the table, it's just that that's not our own self-image nor what we want.

Speaking of what we want, if you become a selling club then the slide into obscurity becomes inevitable. The gates quickly dwindle from 10K to 6K to 3K to less and the lower leagues would become the only option. It may be a bit chicken and egg, but ATEOTD it would not take long to get to a situation where only the hardcore few turn up to see us getting embarrassed by top teams full of our own ex-stars and starlets.

It's bad enough even now what with the ex-Bulls legions of the likes of Bridge, Atkins, Menzies, Pryce etc etc etc but at least we have some outstanding young lads of our own. If we start getting rid of them, then there is, ultimately, no hope.

As a concrete example, what you would make on a sale of (say) Bateman now, you would more than lose on 2013 season ticket sales.

As you say crowds of 10k would dry up fast if we became a selling club (some might say we became one in 2005/6) and our status in the bottom half of the table would quickly be in doubt, we've certainly been on a steady decline since then.

The point about season tickets is well made. There's a terrific sense of all being in it together at the moment but that could be blown out of the water if we start selling the club's future.