Anyone going/giving updates?

Cheers

Can't make it tonight, but I sent in a question asking for updates on the huddersfield loan player/s situation.
Hopefully someone actually turns up for this! It's sort of being swamped by world cup fever right now!

The question was asked but Ryan Whitcutt made it clear that there wouldn't be any loan players from Huddersfield. I think his exact words were 'that was never part of the agreement'

What he didn't expand on was what WAS part of the agreement!

Oh well, so much for that idea then

Seems like the T&A have got some serious wires crossed in suggesting the loan player scenario.

Anything else interesting said at the forum then?

Not really

In fact I've pretty much decided not to bother with Fans Forums anymore - the answers given are so generic and non-committal that its hardly worth showing up

Agreed. Last two I've been to have been like that. No real insight at all, and any real questions are deftly avoided.

When they first started, they provided a very good insight. Nowadays, it seems like a PR exercise.

The first one I went to Peter Hood told us the club was on a firm financial footing and he was confident we'd challenge for silverware.

At which point did Jeremy Beadle appear?

Only 2691 season tickets sold to date
Seems like the ratification process has really hit season ticket sales hard. That number needs to increase drastically over the next few months otherwise we are well and truly fecked.

The club needs to get marketing and quick. It's not rocket science. A lot of it doesn't cost much either.

Extending the early bird offer would be a start.

It's a shame Odsal wasn't one of the World Cup grounds as the games so far seem to be generating an extra bit of off season interest, and while we might not have any players in the England squad the Bulls contingent playing for the other countries are doing their bit. Kear always looks one of the best players in the Welsh team.

On the face of it, it probably isn't the best ground for the world cup though.

One of the reasons it's seemed so successful so far is that the stadia have been packed out. This is because they've not only picked well on location, but on size. If that Workington game that drew 8,000 or so had been at Odsal, they'd have been lucky to get 5,000. In a stadium that holds 25,000 (depending on what figure you believe these days). It would have look empty.

The only way Odsal would have looked packed is if it held a big game. Namely one of the England matches, or at least a Quarter Final that would have had Australia or New Zealand in. And even the latter there would have struggled to fill it.

They've very carefully selected stadia that will be filled or at least nearly filled, if they market them correctly. No amount of marketing could have filled Odsal, and the stadium just isn't good enough to warrant a big game like the England ones or the Knockout stages, over the likes of Hull and Huddersfield.

While it would have been good for the club, it wouldn't have been good for the World Cup.

Strangely, I've not met any 'fan', not a single one out of your "lot", who has told me [s]he is disillusioned, so I'm surprised that you make that statement. There has been the odd one who has told me they are pigged off with the RFL over the time it took to ratify the takeover, but none actually blames the people in charge at the club.

Fair enough, there's always the odd one or two, you only need to read these boards the hear them but there's never a "lot" and you have to wonder just how much of a 'fan' some people are when you read some of the stuff. That said, there is a recession on and money is tight right now - maybe the non-problems are being used by some as an excuse, not that one is needed, it's a fair outlay when you maybe have no job and Christmas is coming up.

Perhaps you're right, and maybe it is being used as an excuse. Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if some are using it as an excuse to actually cover up that they don't want to shell the money out to go and watch a team that isn't winning trophies any more.

Certainly it's none of my friends that are not renewing. I'm basing my comments on what I see on social media. I interact with a lot of Bulls "fans" (and I appreciate what you're saying, that the term may not apply to some of them), through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and allsorts of internet based media. I've met none of them except for people I already knew. But it's from that (very large) group that I'm seeing people being disillusioned.

I don't think many of the hardcore support will be that way. But certainly I think there is a fair size element who are in that frame of mind. On the plus side, I do think a couple of years of decentish results and no money issues should bring those people back and hopefully start building the fanbase up again.

No matter what the hardcore fanbase think of those sort of people who don't stick by the club through thick and thin, and no matter whether they are in the right or in the wrong, there is an element of that in every club, in every sport. And sometimes it takes a lot of good faith, and good results, to get them back.