I remember playing Albion from about under 15s to 18s, we beat them every year in every game we played against them. Same with Keighley Cougar Cubs, who seemed to fold and their lads went on to Albion from about u14s. I'm 29 now. They had some really good players down Keighley way that went on to play with the Cougars a bit. Matt Steele was probably the best, awesome player.

Unfortunately of junior clubs folded in the eighties. This may have been as many only had older age juniors and were reliant on schools to develop players and many schools gave up playing rugby at this time as preference moved to football (with the exception of grammar schools of which north Bradford had a large number hence union clubs survived although some did fold). Other clubs may have folded due to a lack of opposition to play. Even Albion folded.

Since being formed 6 years ago, Albion has gone from a handful of kids with no ground to over 130 and secured a lease on its own ground.

But back to my first point. Does the lack of junior clubs impact on Bulls junior support and through into adulthood?

You would think it would but then the Bull's glory ( and larger crowd years ) where 95 to 05 after the amateur scene had started to shrink.

Can think of lots of reasons for fall off in the numbers of youngsters getting involved: not being played in schools, health & safety regulations, adult coaches needing vetting, cost of insurance, playing fields lost to development, local pro-clubs not able to support financially, and the rise of the video game and general lack of activity.

But I would think if you had a bigger pool of kids playing the game locally these are the families a club could target to bring new fans to games - free ticket or half-time games on the pitch for the kids, and the parents come along. But when money is tight guess the spending isn't going far beyond trying to keep the 1st team on the pitch - short term fix as it is.

And it was widely acknowledged at the time that a lot of tickets were given out in schools throughout Bradford. The point being that for the majority of kids in Bradford after they went home they had very little contact with the game for two weeks until the next home match to keep them interested.

This is in no respect a criticism of Bradford as the club cannot financially support junior clubs but a point for discussion as how junior clubs are required to keep children interested in the game through teens into adulthood.

Very good point - and shows this is a real issue for the game as a whole not just the Bulls.

Also it would be interesting to know how central sports funding/lottery funding works and what share the various sports get. You get the feeling - and I am not knocking it - that large amounts of cash go to sports where a handful of elite athletes can bring back a bucketful gold medals. But just looking at Super league alone you need about 350 players of high standard to support a 14 team competition. So it would be interesting to work back to how many juniors you need to be bringing into the game to support this as maybe 1 in a 100 would have what it takes even if they don't move to other sports or careers