But this is just drunken pub talk, with respect. What on earth is the point of demanding "capital being put in"? There are vociferous numpties in all clubs from the soccer Premiership down to lower leagues and they all incessantly demand "investment" by which they mean they demand whoever owns the club just spends all their assets in buying buying buying buying, until there's nothing left. And yes we all know we'd be better if we filled the key positions with world class players but we have about as much chance of buying the world's leading players as I have of landing on Pluto. Maybe more.

If you can find Roman Abramovich or a Korean magnate this may work but we are in Bradford and you are wasting your time as IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. You need to get the shoite about "investment" out of your head. You are dreaming.

No it isn't, the shelf-life is highly limited. We will not survive long in the Championship. I can already feel the vaseline at the edge of the slippery slope under my toes. It can work for small town clubs. It can't work for us.


Beg to differ, we have had a successful season last in, oh, when was it Ah yes - 2015.


As I keep saying, in my own way

what I am saying is unless a few more quality players are brought in next year there is no chance..

thats not ed up pub talk thats standing on the terraces watching drivel like Featherstone at home.

we need to get 20% more out of players isn't going to cut it if the players aren't good enough in the first place.

buy a few better players you will sell a few more tickets, turn some performances out you will get better gates, get back in super League you can expect a lot more turn over its not drivel its business.

So now you have dropped your suggestion that from somewhere we magic up "capital", and now you're saying we need to sign "a few more quality players". Because this will sell "a few more tickets". You haven't really thought the maths through, have you?

Eh?

So the same person that recently said that he would "not accept, accepting failure" is now trying to tell people that 2015 was a success????

In what way exactly?

Seriously FA, have you any idea how much you insult the intelligence of your fellow Bradford fans when you come out with this claptrap? Given that you want them to accept this view is ridiculous.

How was 2015 a success exactly? If 2015 was a "success" then we are saying that the brief for the season was less than what we achieved. Despite none of us knowing exactly what the expectations were, it is safe to say that finishing second in a two team league then failing in the play-offs was a bit less than what the club were looking for.

Success? Lay off the bevvy FA.

It is my considered opinion that if we'd had a coach with a Scooby Doo we'd be up.

Can we at least look on the bright side for a minute. We didn't have a spare 150 grand to spend on Joe Westerman

You seemingly cannot grasp that "successful" is a relative term. By any reasonable measure, 2015 was a successful season, despite teh crushing disappointment of narrowly falling at the last hurdle.


I simply state my view, which is fair do's, even raving nincompoops like you have just the same right. "Want"? Rubbish! I say my piece, people can ignore it/take it/leave it, I really don't care, it's just a random discussion ffs


So many ways. Some random examples
Eh? Success is indeed 'relative'. That is relative to the context of the competition. Not replacing a pathetic Wakefield team in SL has to be the first measure of success/failure.

Very entertaining but you're trying to sell a bucket with hole in it on the grounds that it's lighter to carry.

Your post suggests that we [iought[/i to have beaten Wakefield and not to have done so means we failed. Surely, that can only be the case if the means by which we would be replacing them in the higher tier were fair and equitable, when in truth, they were demonstrably not so?

I would say that we did exceed expectations. At the start of the season I wouldn't have thought we'd be favourites to beat Leigh on their own ground to make the MPG, but that's exactly what we did. At the start of the season I wouldn't have thought there was any chance of thrashing a SL team in the playoffs, but we did. We put the millionaires of Salford to the sword.

You keep repeating "it was not a success" but omit that this is because the definition of "success" that you are using is a weird one, where only "promotion to SL" can be success, and anything else is failure.

I think the measure of a successful season is what I and others have explained, and clearly we did have one. Equally if you take the view that not being promoted means our season was a failure, then by your peculiar definition, you are right too, at least in your own head.



What a breathtaking non sequitur! Last season was what it was, and can be judged (must be judged) once it finished. Things that may or may not happen in the future will not retrospectively alter a single thing that we did or that happened in season 2015. It is what it was, and forever will be. Like the Norwegian Blue, it is finished.

None of the things you predict have either happened yet, but if they do, it won't retrospectively make us less successful than we were. and if they don't, it won't make us more successful than we were.

Nobody says Lowes is the world's perfect coach, but overall and with qualifications, think he did very well, and indeed achieved the main "must-do" - getting us to the MPG.

Whatever mistakes he (undoubtedly) made, and whatever failings he (undoubtedly) may have, he proved himself the best in the Championship, in his rookie season. That doesn't qualify (to a reasonable person) as being "incapable of the job".

I'm getting tired of this. Look, all the people who say" promotion=success, not getting promoted = failure" please leave the discussion.

We DID have a (very) successful season, which of course could have been better, and yes it was spoiled by failing to beat a vulnerable Wakefield on the day. Does that draw a thick black marker pen over everything else we achieved on and off the field in 2015? I think not. If you think yes, then great, but why are you in the discussion, if you genuinely believe that all those things are totally irrelevant to the question of to what extent we had a successful season?

I have ghost-written a book

The Bulls Season 2015 Review
by mystic eddie and maislebugs

Didn't get promotion.
The End.

You seem prepared to totally ignore a raft of decisions vis a vis signings and selection. I'm not talking about the MPG in isolation but over the whole season key areas were in dire need of back up and key decisions were clearly not working. We signed the wrong players when better options were available, played props who even the coach thought unworthy of being on the pitch and let's not start on the 1 hooker f^£k up. None of this had anything to do with an unequal/unfair comp. Haifax weren't complaining about finances when a well drilled, energetic part time team beat us twice. We were lucky to beat Batley and Dewsbury.

By your analysis we are simply unable to judge because Wakefield may have spent/recieved more money, even though they also survived what looked like internal meltdown with players getting drunk, getting sacked, walking out or a combination of all 3. Down this route lies Mcnamaraland. A place where irrespective of what's on the pitch we have suffer deconstructions into it's tiniest parts and then herald the few positives (focus on youth???)

And finally, here's the bigger problem and the real point of this discussion. We seem divided into roughly two camps. The first, you, FA, Blotto finding positives out of the teams efforts on the basis that promotion is not really possible.

The 2nd that promotion was possible but that Lowes messed it up and has demonstrated that he is extremely unlikley to achieve promotion under what promises to be tougher circumstances. Sorry FA, this is the crux of the analysis on our season. What can we take from it going forward? I think on this we agree.

The club needs to face up to one key issue here. No matter your perspective on what happened last year we're 100% united in our expectation that we are NOT getting promoted next year either.

What are we going to say about crowds, financial stability etc in this context? They had one option to sell next season and they missed it.