Well, we've had a bit more success than a Batley or Hunslet, even discounting the SL years, but that is, more or less, what we have been for most of the club's life - it may be a shock to some, but it's the glittering success of latter years that is the aberration, not the current position. Hunslet were once efore my time] one of the great clubs of the game btw, but nothing is forever.

IIRC, we were only ever getting crowds of 300ish in 1963, an earlier bad time which led to collapse. No-one wants to go back to part-time rugby, with gates of that size, and certainly not me, but is infinitely preferable to [ino[/i rugby though, so if that happens, well, qué sera sera. I suspect gates would remain a fair deal better than that though, given a reasonable side for its division.

Of course, you're correct to think a city the size of Bradford should be able to support a top division team and I'm sure it will again. Though I do confess to wondering just when, to be honest.

Steve Ganson has certainly helped us out in appointing James Child.

Anything and everything will happen on Sunday, mark my words.

Dewsbury were going toe to toe with Leigh for about 60 minutes until Leigh up'd a gear and blew them away.
Expect a similar story when we play them, only for Dewsbury to be the one to up a gear and destroy us

Quite possibly

From the interview with Morrison I heard on Radio Leeds on the way home on Sunday, he argued that it was the combined effect of being short-handed due to injuries, and the effects of the Easter programme on a small squad of part-time players, that led to Leigh basically running away with it.

With a full week of rest - together with their desire to put one over on the (perceived) big boys from up the road at Odsal - will doubtless mean that they'll come at us all guns blazing on Sunday

It's all very laudable to say you want run the club as a business but you have to realise what that business is. To a certain extent the laws of supply and demand do not exist as the supply is fixed i.e. the number of games.To be a successful business therefore you have to increase demand i.e get more spectators, and/or cut costs. Increasing demand is done in one of two ways, being successful or playing exciting rugby or preferably both. It is clear that at the moment the Bulls are doing neither. Perhaps the Bulls should realise that there is more to it than 'Build it and they will come".

At the moment it seems to be "knock it down and they will come!"

Sit down for this but I get the feeling we could get a really committed performance and a good win on Sunday. This is not a new found optimism or change of heart on Lowes, I just wonder if last week might have engendered a backs-to-the-wall mentality which, coupled with the slightest bit of humility from Jimmy, might combine on the field and deliver.

(No I've not been drinking.)

I wouldn't underestimate Dewsbury. A few of their young lads and reserves look like decent players, and given a chance to step up from reserves footy to play a once mighty team will be motivaton enough for them. Likes of Brad Delaney and Jack Teanby especially that have come through their reserves look very good players.

Unless we show significant improvement, I think Dewsbury will turn us over.

I've been thinking - what is the best we can hope for on Sunday? I’m not sure of the answer actually, but the above would be a start. Ideally we’d absolutely wallop Dewsbury to give everyone a bit of faith – of course the problem with that is I don’t think it’s at all realistic and it would be completely papering over the cracks. The game against Sheffield was the culmination of a lot of mini problems that plenty of fans of been highlighting here and there ever since the start of last season – it seems now that the floodgates are open and a competent performance against Dewsbury would be a welcome start, but now more than ever we need to find a level of consistency that has been missing our entire stay in the second tier. (Yes, we won plenty of games last year, but how many were the performances we felt the team were really impressive, barely a handful and we’ve gone backwards from that. We certainly didn’t seem to string two or three consistent performances together).

From a fans POV, yes we want to see some good performances, but I think this is one time we are justified in asking for the club to do it’s talking [ioff[/i the pitch, as limping over the line against an injury hit Dewsbury simply isn’t enough. As far too many people have said, the silence is deafening.

Very well put. Agree 100%. The point about the Sheffield game being a culmination of of problems that have been apparent since the beginning of last season is bang on.

I'd like to think that last week was rock bottom and we can draw a line under it. I'm doubtful.

Oh, where to begin?

I'm not sure what your first question is - if you mean in a future where we remain in division2, which is maybe the most likely, I'd guess we could get around 2k, for a reasonable team [ie middle to top] but obviously it's a guess and, I admit, we're in the land of who knows?

No, I'm not really doing anyone a disservice. For the greatest part of Northern's existence there were no divisions, just Yorks and Lancs leagues all shown in one gigantic, 30 to 32 team division, in which the club, like many others went up and down like the proverbial bride's nightie. Truth is, over many years, whilst we certainly had our moments, we were never a Wigan, Saints or whisper it softly, a Leeds. We were in good company, of course, as neither were anyone else, even though teams like Huddersfield and yes, Hunslet, had their shortish periods of dominance. There was a brief flirtation with two divisions in the early sixties, but it never really took on until the early seventies when we were promoted to the first division in its second season.

where did I suggest we shouldn't try? I only mention that as a viable way of running the club for an owner who may not be keen on actually investing sufficient money to make improvement possible. I would never suggest that it [ishould[/i be done. I am a fan, after all! My personal belief is that you can only get back to the very top by investing cash though our owner talks of being businesslike - I'd rather carry on as we are than risk losing the club [again] though.

I can't think of many or any instances where a team has been in terminal decline under a coach & the coach has turned it around. Sure, you are good enough to paper over the cracks.

Its a difficult one to call.Not the place to go looking for gaining consistency.The pitch dictates the game 70/80 meter sets will have you over the try line not short of it.Requires a gameplan that must be adhered to,stray away from it and it will be costly.

Not a place for performances,its a grind out job to get the victory. The victory being the goal regardless of performance or result.

Good luck.

Away against Dewsbury, on paper at least, we should win with ease.
Dewsbury did push Leigh for a lot of their game but fell away towards the end. However that team has been hit with injuries and are down to bare bones. The question is "do the Bradford players have the mental strength to get out of their current funk" and I'm not sure they do and a lot of that's down to the coach and his staff and I really think there needs to be a change for any real improvement to happen

Thanks for the motivation. Been meaning to do this for a while.



The top ten most winningest sides of the [iwinter era[/i.

League games only, no play offs or cup competitions of any kind.

No Super League included at all, lest anyone think that unfairly skews the results our way. No lower divisions included at all, so time outside the top flight is thrown away as irrelevant. Bradford, who spent TWO seasons outside the top flight (one in the early sixties and one in the early seventies) are the team in that top five to have that happen to them the most.

I got the data from the Wikipedia season summary pages.

(And I had to write a program to do it. They got most of it from a bloke called Jim Smith who ran a website called The RL Vault in the nineties, and he got it from me after I tore up my 1995 Rothman's Yearbook as a young(er) 'un to scan the data and OCR it - there's a moral about backups in there somewhere).