I said that anyone daft enough to give HIM money, not, as I thought the pledge was for, the CLUB money.

One should learn to read.

So, that's practically the whole of the core Bulls support, and many people from outside the club, including Steve O'Connor. Nice one.


Or, the direct quote you replied to was thisBradford Badger wrote
BB was obviously talking about, and only about, people who pledged and paid. Therefore, so were you, unless despite quoting that comment, you weren't talking about pledgers, but about hypothetical persons who for unspecified reasons might give money to Hood.

In fact, we got what it said on the tin. We stopped the club from closing the doors. If we had not been "daft enough" to do so, then the club wouldn't even be here for you to pen your poisonous comments about.

And as Adey says, no-one will now ever know what would have happened without CC's last minute intervention and call for EGM.


Act, yes. The issue is, act in what way. One option would have been for all to temporarily bury their grievances and differences, and get around a table to solve the crisis. So far as we have been told, that did not happen, indeed it seems the two camps simply refuse to meet. If I had been CC, that's what I'd have been looking to do. And that's also looking further back than just recent weeks; Coulby suggested there'd been no dialogue for at least 2 years.


I'd sadly agree with that. When I heard indications of our total capitulation and the breathtaking numbers involved, it was obvious to me and still is that these numbers were too much for us to cope with. And the weird statement that the payments were "covered by the Sky money" is sheer bravado, but bollox. Like being fined £25K, but saying to the wife, "Don't worry love, it's covered by my wage".

It would surely have been better to fight on, and I remain of the same view that we had a decent chance. The arguments ranged at my view at the time was that we [ihad[/i to settle, because if we lost, it would bankrupt the club, and that was a gamble we couldn't take.

Can anyone now see the flaw in that logic, albeit with hindsight? Now we may have the worst of all worlds. We may go down the tubes, yet Leeds have all our money.

I haven't been following this in much detail, but tell me if this is a fair reading of the latest information:

The financial situation is "worse than first thought", according to the group who had long-term full access to previous accounts and plenty of opportunity for due diligence, and motive to hijack the second part of the "pledge", stage a boardroom coup, take the club into administration, and come out of it with free ownership of a debt-free new entity without even having to reach into their own pockets to pay the biils and wages of the lead-up period, because even that had been covered by the fans.

The previous board seem to have done that ok though. They had us all convinced that once we had raised £500k, they had sorted the rest. You even believed it, did you not?

Lies, lies, lies and more lies.
How very depressing.

When talking about administration - (which now seems to have become the sport's world equivalent of business as usual - yes we have been living way beyond our income but that's OK because we can give the finger to our suppliers and obligations) there are a few things to remember:

Though various contributors can work themselves into a frenzy about the past and present management making misleading statements and trading while insolvent it is virtually unknown for this to lead to any sort action against directors as it is normally impossible to actually prove they were acting a bad faith.

You then need to look at what could trigger administration: an inabilty to service existing liabilities - or the inability to cover existing costs. I suspect that the Bulls situation is the second of these so we should not imagine that if it did come to administration that things could or would be able to continue just as before. Though we might not like it the current support and sponsor base does not allow us to be as competitive as we would all like. So however you might re-arrange the deck chairs unless you have a base support of around 12000 paying market prices and at least a couple of good sponsorship deals we cannot go toe to toe with the top clubs.

So you can have as many "root and branch" reviews as you want but if we cannot get more feet through the turnstiles the aspirations will remain apsirations. And this is not just a problem for the Bulls, or the RFL but every professional sport in the UK.

Does not seem good to me sounds like all us fans have been taken for a ride once more and the talk of an investor does not seem to be going well according to the report

I cannot see how administration was an option at that time? The £3.2m was a claim against us, but not an actual liability that the club had to pay. At that time, the accounts showed the club was perfectly solvent. Whether the underlying position and prognosis was worse than the accounts suggested is of course a different question, since personally I am sure that was the case around 2005.

I understand CC was advised as soon as the pledge was decided upon, but yes I can see he would be more than marginally interested! Whether the actions he took were in the best interests of the club, or of CC, is probably the issue. If you believe Coulby - whose statements have not been repudiated, as far as I am aware - then CC may well say that engagement with Hood was futile? Whether a public statement of no confidence in Hood just before the pledge deadline was the most appropriate action he could take is pretty academic now anyway.

And I have no idea whether Hood WOULD have been able to deliver the required further investment had CC not intervened how and when he did. IMO he very much implied at the time that he would, and it sounded convincing enough for me to feel the cause was not lost. My point is that we'll now never have the opportunity of finding out. Whether Hood is incensed or relieved about that, I guess only he will know?

How do you know it was lies? And not, at worst, naïvity (that would not surprise me...) or even negligence? Saying it was "Lies" is treading pretty close to defmamation?

How do you know that Caisley's intervention did not stymie their plans?

The simple answer is that you do not. None of us do. Any more than any of us know whether Caisley's intervention was deliberately aimed at derailing the pledge or was just unfortunate timing, and whether Caisley has always had a plan to wrest 100% control by forcing administration (which, btw, would probably have been my professional advice to him if he DID want full control AND had funding in place and was prepared to clear the creditors) or just wants what he believes is best for the club.

Its all speculation, so I don't think anyone can state whether any of the parties to all this sorry sad debacle were telling actual lies, as opposed to saying what they genuinely beleived or being disingenuous or spinning like tops. My guess is that we have seen - from all parties - some combination of the last three but nothing major of the first. But the history books may paint a clearer picture.

a couple of things strike me about the articlethe obviousness and immeadiate willingness to blame the old board before the actual review is finnished, the lack of credit to the good things they have done ie the tong training,harris settlement gone(althoufh that would implicate them) etc but moat worrying for me is the confirmation from the rfl that caislwy could come back and play an important role in yhe future when he so liked.not good for coulby and agar unless they already want to be the fall guys.


also why should these potential investors believe that once the present board is not to be trusted and we will noy input wour cash until a review is done and we can see finances? caisley had only admin in mind and whilst using previous boards lies and half truths to his own means has spun an even bigger lie to show he is not a fit and proper person acting in the clubs own interest.

I know we'll never know, I'm just suggesting on the balance of probability (to me at least) it seems extremely unlikely.

With regards to FA's point I wondered at the time what Coulby was doing waiting 2 years for a meeting. Clearly each side believed that the current problems were the making of the other and this was irreconcilable.

With regards to Harrisgate, Hood could have accepted liability for the full amount and rang the administrator that afternoon. It was only a claim until he signed his name.

I hate to say this but the whole tenor of the story in the T&A does give the impression of stage managing the 'root and branch inquiry' to suit some desired outcome. I hope I'm wrong, I [iso[/i hope I'm wrong, but it looks very like we are being prepared for the last rites.

Or alternatively, CC could have got them off the hook, they had no investment in place, yet can now blame CC for scuppering their plans.

As you said, noone knows the truth. So we can draw our own conclusions.
If someone wants to prove that it was not lies to me, then I am happy to see the proof.
Otherwise, I will keep feeling that we have been lied today.

Six points minimum.

This is the bit I don't understand, and if someone can clarify, please do. I thought Administration was to deal with liabilities/bills/winding up orders that we can't pay, we have cleared the debts and loans with sales of players, lease, soul, kitchen sink and begging for 500k I thought? The problem now as I understood it, is cash going forward to meet our upcoming "normal" liabilities such as maintenance, wages, tax etc - matching our outgoings with our incomings. How does administration help with that? We could slash the playing costs by selling players out of adminisatation.

Surely, coming out of administration we'd be in the same situation cash flow wise except being a few players lighter, which we could do today without administration. Unless there is a creditor we can't pay that we've not been told of? Am I missing something?