Although this means another few days of stressing (it's a good job I have no hair to lose!) and has been handled in a very "Bulls" way, it has to be a good thing. As I said - I know one person who pledged LAST NIGHT, and two more I am confident are going to over the weekend.
Let's keep strong, we can do it. Come on you Bulls.

Fair enough and really deserves a bit of credit for this considering the flack gone his way (not totally undeserved in a lot of cases).

I reckon the delay has more to do with spending the weekend telling potential investors to put up or shut up. Given the fact that that amount of cash has been raised in such a short space of time I think we will have companies wanting to get involved with us because the support is there that's been proved.

You know, as long as you stay off the cherry brandy and macaroons, and leave those Polish amazons alone, you don't half talk some sense.

You should maybe go to the Chapel Allerton branch of NatWest then and show them how to accept £230 in cash to be paid into an RBS account, because they said it can't be done, I didn't believe them but they insisted.

While you're at it you could ask them to refund the £1 it cost me to park in central Leeds to go to the East Parade RBS bank to pay the money in



If you like I'll give you the name of the company who's account it went into on Fri 30th Mar and they'll tell you how it didn't appear on their statement until Weds 4th Apr, I'd have preferred not to have used the banking network at all because its not the first crapola experience I've had with NatWest (and all of my business, personal, insurance, pension, ISA banking used to be done with them).

Am I surprised RBS have dropped your team in the dog-muck ?

No

Anyway, I truly hope the pledges do come in and I hope that HMRC (if they are the main creditor) take them into account when demanding whatever they are owed, hell as a taxpayer I should be insisting that they do because they'll get zippo if they don't.

The only overdues are Jan and now Feb PAYE -due to the RBS debacle. Great how one arm of HMG seeks to screw another, eh?

The big bills are the end of March VAT quarter and the first instalment of the image rights tax settlement - both not yet due but due shortly.

It makes a lot of sense for the Board to take the weekend to review where things stand. The daft thing was not announcing the pledge extension yesterday.

Ideally they'll announce on Monday that they're selling the club to an investor(s) who is willing and able to match the fans cash. But they should also be prepared to put the pledge on ice and go into administration if they're not very confident of raising the second £500k

I'm sorry you guys are having to go through all this at the moment, but have a little respect for the rest of the rugby league who have also tried to help you.

I'm a Hull fan and know there was a collection made for Bradford's plight at the KC last week. The fan you took a swipe at had also pledged to support your club.

I can understand the situation is stressful, but if other clubs/fans money isn't good enough for you then you could always give it back.

Good luck with raising the rest of the money, I hope the Bulls come through all this, I'm sure they will. Hopefully, upon reflection, you'll beecome a little more gracious in how others have also helped the Bradford fans efforts.

I apologised to the guy at the time - as you surely saw - because he came across to me initially as one of those (most seem to be from Wakefield, mind) seeking to lecture us from outside. He promptly demonstrated why he had every right to make his point. Had he have made that clear before then there is no way I would have reacted as I did.

Just like (unlike the fans of some clubs) Bulls fans generally have never sought to portray Hull FC fans in a bad light (any going back a few years may recall I personally was very supportive) because of the actions of a small minority, I would ask you not to judge all Bulls fans by an isolated mistake made by a single Bulls fan, subsequently apologised for! Come on now!

If you read through these threads, you would see universal appreciation from Bulls fans for the pretty staggering degree of support received from outside.

And If you scroll back a bit through your own forum, you will see a post from me specifically thanking Hull FC fans for their support and good wishes. In fact [url=http://viewtopic.php?f=34&t=523677&start=10=#800000Here it is[/url

I fear you will hate me for saying THIS though: in my haste, I read "East Hull..." and stopped there. I assumed he must be a Robin...

FWIW, from what I've read, I think the answer to that is no.

My understanding is that the bank cleared our debt (the presumably up to then, agreed overdraft) by taking funds from the cheque we received from the RFL for the sale of the lease, whilst at the time they reducing/ending the overdraft facility. As the RFL had already taken some due payments from the amount before they sent the cheque, it left the club in the position of being unable to pay various tax bills.

I'm sure I'll soon be corrected it that's not, at least basically, the case...

Whats that based on them perception or evidence, FWIW the Wakey fans I know me included are very sympathetic to the Bulls plight having gone through a similar process last year. If you do want some home truths as an outsider looking in the constant moving of deadlines is not good, what revenue BTW would the 21000 crowd bring in if 11,000 were ticket holders and did not pay and 2000 on top were kids with free tickets, then that leaves about 8K paying supporters minimum at £20 each that makes about £160K to me the pledge prior to the game was approaching 400K I'll let others work this maths out if you are 20K short and extending deadlines the maths doesnt add up unless they have accounted for a percentage of pledges that will not be paid.

Its not a £160K profit in that example though is it, so deduct VAT and other costs and it'll come closer to adding up.

...and breathe.

My reference was to the various Wakey fans, on here but especially on the VT, who have been lecturing us not to support the pledge but instead sit tight and wait for administration. I agree not every Wakey fan, but a number nevertheless.

Incidentally. I have checked with East Hull FC fan, and he was quite happy with my apology straight after he clarified, so there wasn't really any need for Rugby Raider to take issue. (In fact he was rather more generous that that, and much more so than I deserved).

As already said previously, only the attendance over 16,000 counted. Taking into account kids, family, students oap's tickets etc and the tax, extra stewards etc you are looking at a minimum of around £12 return on 4,800 people which is £57,600!

Season ticket holders were asked not to pay in and to buy a virtual ticket inside or before the game if they wanted to pay in. I would say fitting in another 5,000 would have been an achievement as whilst we had a few gaps, I wouldn't have said it was enough for 5,000 people!

I genuinely hope that Bradford Bulls remain a Super League team.
On the outside looking in, I chose not to comment upon the merits of the pledge plea. I felt that it was none of my business what the loyal supporters of the Bulls wanted to do however, I like lots of other supporters were under the impression that Friday was D Day. You can waffle on for page after page and argue about the minutiae of the detail however, my impression now is that its clear that the loyal fans are being taken for a ride. Chemical Hoody is still fiddling, figuratively and literally and will continue to do so until the very end.

The issue I have with the pledge is the unknown. Yes getting the first 500 but no idea where the next 500 is coming from and worried that the pledge has been made for nothing. The PR from your club has been dreadful not handled well at all. Also worried they will take my pledge money then go into admin anyway. (we have made a pledge incidentally. Yes we are Leeds fans but unfortunately have bulls fans in our house as well!)

I think it's easy for supporters from outside to say you are throwing bad money after bad money and that you should go into administration. But if it was happening to my club (Leeds) then I would probably be doing the same thing. Didn't attend on Friday chose to work double time instead as my brother not old enough to work, and my double time went on his pledge.

Hope you survive and hopefully the result will go Leeds way next time we meet!!!

If you read what Hood is quoted as saying in the Grauniad, it seems quite clear to me that they will only call the pledges in when they are sure that the future is secured. I took that as meaning that they want to be very sure about future funding requirements once they had the certainty of the £500k, to be honest, and if that means a day or two more to be sure, that makes perfect sense to me.

I cannot conceive that they would take the pledge money if there remained any risk of administration - the personal exposure, especially with the legal vulture waiting in the wings, would be too great. So when they DO call it in, I'll not be worrying. And I'm one of the most cautious sods you could meet.

That's what I would imagine, however I too am probably far too cautious, particulary when it comes to my money!!

What are the thoughts on off loading players for the second 500k. Personally wouldn't see to much problem in it as at least you would have a team to watch. But would like to see the homegrown good young tallent kept and try and offload some of the Aussies if you have to. Sadly if it comes to selling players to survive those players (Bateman,koppy, etc) are probably the ones in demand.

So, after receiving pledges/cash for 480K out of 500K you would have just said, "Sorry, that's it, let's all go home"? Seriously? With the banks not open until the end of the Easter break that would have been sheer lunacy, imo. With money still coming in, a couple of extra days may be just what is needed. Sheer common sense from the club.

There's the problem isn't it? The players that clubs would want are Bateman, Whitehead, Crookes and a couple of others. Few, if any, will be queuing up to buy out Kearney's or Purtell's contract. And, of course, nobody is going to want the likes of Platt, Sibbitt, Pryce etc.

If we get our best four or five players 'cherry picked' then the club is going to be in pretty serious long term trouble. We've watched a lot of dross in recent years, bolstered by the promise of 'youngsters coming through'. Now that they actually have come through, it would be incredibly dispiriting to see those players go, leaving us with the dross.

I could see a lot of people simply losing interesting in the Bulls if that happened, which would have big knock on effects on future income, next years season ticket sales etc. It's all very well saying that we should be glad just to have a team to support, but having to start over with developing young players - and there doesn't seem to be a lot coming through the U20s at the moment - could really cripple us in the medium term

If we have to sell our young players to stay afloat then it looks like the game is up long term. The only way to survive is to bring through young players from the academy. If we can't hold onto them we're admitting we're not a sustainable business as not enough people will come to watch a team that's made up of average to poor players to make the business survive.

It reminds me of the 80s in some ways when we were living hand to mouth and lost players simply because we couldn't afford to keep them.

Why was the deadline not Tuesday or Wednesday then. I think deep down we all know the answer.

Do we?

Or is it more to the point that Caisley's intervention on Thursday, timed to perfection if you were looking to try to sabotage the campaign, means they have to be even more sure about the future before calling in the pledges than they already knew they had to be?

Incidentally, just which clubs do we think all these players supposedly to be offloaded cold sign for? Given that the only ones they would be likely to want to move to an could pay a fee will be up to the cap?

The risk in the delay was always that people would start ruminating on the "what-ifs", and, maybe get cold feet. Encouraged of course by those whose agenda that suits perfectly.

Lets all be careful we don't talk ourselves out of saving the club?

I imagine any deals of substance would be on a buy now and loan back for the rest of the season.

Can't affod 'em thanks to the pledge.