Everyone was dreaming

I've been a loyal Northern/Bulls fan since 1986. I've supported them through the highs & lows and have loved every minute of it but I can't believe what's happening at the moment.

I can appreciate how cost cutting exercises need to be implemented. I work in the manufacturing industry and have seen more sets of redundancies than I care to imagine......but if it transpires that all these goings on are all part of Caisley's master plan then i'm afraid that I can't be a part of it. By plan I mean Caisley on the BOD in some capacity with his new regime in place and Nobby as head coach.

I've always had pride in the fact that Bradford is a family club with good morals. Manipulating these horrible circumstances to his own gains when peoples livelihoods are involved aren't true to the Bulls culture that has been built through years of hard work. BG claiming that no investors are coming forward when possible investors have been unable to contact him is the cherry on the cake for me.

I only pray that an independent investor comes forward or that everything that has happened to press has been purely coincidental. If this happens then I'll continue to back the club whole heartedly but I won't stand by and watch it being dragged through the gutter.

Which is why we need a new start. A new club owned by the fans in CC1 is the only decent way out of this whole sorry saga.

Yes with 2 massive Polynesian wingers, 2 nz half backs, 2 off the best props/ second rows to play for Gb/England in a generation etc

Plus the way this has been conducted leaves a sour taste

I went last night and what I saw made me deeply concerned we won't have a club very shortly. It may well be the case that Caisley had a plan - review by BG, then admin, Tasker and Noble to come in etc, liabilities dropped, share holdings clarified and so on. It was pretty much set out in the press when they unseated Hood.

However, I think the supporter response and admirable loyalty to Mick Potter and back room staff etc after yesterdays coup de grace has unsettled some - probably Noble - hence the cancellation of the players meeting. BG doesn't care - he's a professional IP and will make money whatever happens. But if you believe that Caisley will definitely ride in and that all this is pre-prepared I think you're vastly under estimating how fluid and contingent this situation is now. If Noble feels it will tarnish his previous history with the Bulls and if Caisley is completely demonised and walks away, BG may well shut up shop, take his slice and clear off, as there will be lots more insolvencies for him to make money on elsewhere.

I think there was a moment when we might have changed things and that was at the point of the pledge, we needed but didn't have, for a variety of reasons, an alternative supporters body who was constitutionally able and willing to mount a challenge to the existing board, to call for the money to go to the supporters body and then force some transparency from the Board and negotiate the possibility of partial supporter ownership. I understand the reasons why this proved not to be possible but regret profoundly the fact we weren't able to seize that moment.

We may well have to re-form the club and if that's the case I suggest supporters ownership is the only way forward, as it's becoming increasingly apparent those that live in the hope of some millionaire wandering in to save us, before subsequently being benevolent enough to invite supporters input are being somewhat unrealistic in their expectations.

Pretty much agree with most of that.

Why were your Supporters Trust not doing everything in their power to be that body? That is one of the main aims of Supporters Direct of which I assume your Trust is a member.

Having been through this with Wakefield 18 months ago, the Wakefield Trinity Supporters Trust was not set up and established at the time and by the time we were, Andrew Glover had rescued the club. Your Trust has been up and running for quite a while hasn't it? Surely they should have been liaising with Supporters Direct to help them achieve this aim.

I've taken a step back from all this while it's been going on as there's no way of knowing all the facts. I just hope there's a club left by the end of this week and into the future. The way the redundancies were handled and the subsequent confusion over potential investors and dealings with players sound like an awful mess but this is often par for the course with administration.

All we can do is hope it comes out in the wash. If we do go into liquidation, and it's a real possibility, then maybe we can pick up the pieces and start again in 2013 in a lower division? So long as we have a club I'll be there but having nothing would see me finish with RL.

Maybe we'll have an eleventh hour stay of execution, I hope so. An awful lot of damage has been done and trust has been lost which will take some re-building but we've been here before in 1963/64.

Here's hoping for some better news soon.

Where did you find this out from? Why would an administrator a) Not turn up for a players meeting and b) Not bother to inform of it being cancelled?? It's Ludicrous.

I am getting sick and tired of know-it-alls from Wakefield coming on here and telling us what we should have done. And we having to explain to them ad nauseum why what they "advised" was totally impracticable in our very different circumstances.

You guys really do not have the first idea of what was and was not practicable here. Do you think a fundraising effor on this scale could have been organised in the very few days we had between the catastrophe being suddenly dumped on us and the dealine to avoid winding up? Do you really think a fans' effort in those circumstances could have raised anything like the money the club raised (which incidentally included over £100k that was not directly from the fans, and of the £400k that WAS, not a small part came from outside the fanbase? And the first we fans knew of the looming catastrophe was when the club mailed everyone and announced it. Did you seriously expect the club to suddenly pull that whole operation because the fans said they were going to try and do one of their own? When the clock was ticking, and as directors they had to do whatever they could to stave off insolvency? Can you simply not see that the club would almost certainly have had to continue with their own efforts? Thereby dividing the income and demonstrating a schism between fans and club, in all likelihood
to the detriment of BOTH efforts?

What the hell do you think Supporters' direct could have added? Their rugby league operation, lacking any meaningful external funding, consists of one extremely busy lady who also has a range of other responsibilities? I was speaking to her only last week, about the current situation, and she said the same thing - just not enough time to resolve the immediate crisis, you could only look at a longer-term solution one the immediate crisis is over.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, where was this massive groundswell from the fans? I don't think we had one existing member urging us at that time to seek to intervene, and indeed even since then I think only one or two new members have put such proposals forward. Conversely, we had quite a few members saying they agreed that the club's pledge was the only game in town in the circumstances - something the society board advised the members and the wider community that it had concluded after considering all the options. Bear in mind we had no advance warning.

The society board comprises a small number of very busy volunteers doing what they can in their spare time. Something on the scale of what you propose - even if it was practicable in the timeframe, which it was not - would have required a massive increase in resources available to the task as well as a load of legal and other work. Just who the hell do you suggest was going to do this? And in the timeframe? There was no mad rush of people demanding action and volunteering their services. the nearest we managed was a handful of people for the leeds match bucket collection. And if the society board members had been crazy enough to try and attempt the task anyway, what mandate would we have had to do so? Alsmost certainly, as a minimum we would have had to convene an emergency EGM, given the major change to a remit reconfirmed by the members only two months before at the AGM, and we are bound by the notice provisions in the society rules and time was waiting for no-one.

Please, when you have managed to raise half a amillion for YOUR club, in a matter of days and from a standing start, come back and tell us how we should have done it. Otherwise, can I please ask you to stop giving us advice on a matter you are in no position to advise on?

EDIT: Its only fair that I add that if you WERE well-meaning in what you said, then you have maybe caught some of the anger I feel about the disgraceful situation what is left of the club is now in, and the way the head coach, players and other staff have been treated. If you did not deserve my anger, then to you I apologise. But please take on board what Mike and I have said, and maybe dissuade some of your fellows for flogging the issue to death?

I can tell you why. It's because we foresaw the consequences of administration that so many are bewailing now, and we wanted to help prevent them. There was one plan - and one plan only - on the table to achieve this, so we threw our weight behind it, while expressing our reservations. The plan failed anyway, but if we had opposed it, it would definitely have failed at the first hurdle, and we would have been handy scapegoats.

If, we had gone down the route of asking people to contribute to us instead of the club, as well as scuppering any chance of the pledge, we would have contributed to the confusion, brought the full weight of the club down against us, fragmented fund-raising efforts and been very lucky if we had raised a five-figure sum, let alone £500K. Bear in mind that, before the crisis, only around 150 people had cared enough to join. During the crisis, about another 10 or 15 have been galvanised into action.

Let's be generous and say that we raised a couple of hundred thousand (of which there was not a chance IMO). It wouldn't even have paid a month's wages. Even 500K would have been utterly inadequate to take the club forward.

Add to the fact that all the existing committee had volunteered only on the basis of meeting our initial aims of supporting youth development. All of us hold down full-time jobs. No one was beating down our door to come on board with the kind of expertise needed for what you suggest.

I appreciate your sincerity in asking the question, but suggest it would have been utterly impractical at the time. Whether it will be possible to use this approach to salvage things in future, or even to work alongside future owners, is of course an entirely different question.

While writing this, I see that Adey has posted something similar. I don't share his anger at Wakefield fans - I do believe that the advice is sincere and well-intentioned - but I do echo most of the other points he makes.

Hey, I am not angry at Wakefield fans! Don't forget I gave some help when they were setting up their trust, and like you contributed to their own fundraising. Lot of time for the vast majority of them as fans, always have had.

My issue is with the handful who keep lecturing us what we should have done, despite us repeatedly explaining why we as a fanbase could not. It's gone way past friendly advise, and is becoming both counterproductive and wearing now.