. Our overheads at Odsal were already "significant extra costs" over and above VP - quote Mr Caisley - and he should know, and that was before we were paying rent. So any move to VP would achieve significant cost savings even paying the same rent. I said it 6 weeks ago and I will say it again. The long term issue is matching revenue and costs. And that has not happened at Odsal for a long time. If the current directors cannot attract the investment to keep the club going at Odsal, let alone turn it into a stadium that would attract people in the numbers required, then overheads have to be brought into line with revenues. However that is achieved.

The overheads caisley talked about were primarily the maintenance costs of odsal. It's never been clarified 100% bit under new lease if were paying a commercial rent then I'd expect landlord ( rfl) to pay for the upkeep.

Also if were sub- letting vp of city what happens to concessions money? If we were only getting the use of the stadium and they got the profits from the concessions then that's another revenue stream gone.

Just a couple of points having seen this thread develop and grow since yesterday:
1. Julian Rhodes is not in a position to be a sugar daddy to us as Moran, Lenaghan etc... are at our rivals. He's pretty much blown all his, and most of his Dad's cash on keeping City alfoat for the last 10 years.
2. The only reason he got involved at City is because he's a massive City fan and they were going under. He is not a BUlls, or indeed a Rugby league fan.
3. City have a similar type of deal at VP that Bulls have at Odsal. ie, they have pretty much carte blanche to do anything, and sub let to anybody, without the owner getting a cut / having a say. as long as the rent's paid on time!
4. City have not just paid out for new offices. A separate company owned by Julian Rhodes, his dad and Mark Lawn has just sold the offices adjacent to VP (which housed the ticket office and shop) that they bought last year from prupim to reduce the club's rent committments. This income, has already been promised to the manager to help build a more competitive team.

I do not have any inside information, but this hint of Rhodes' involvement as an investor seems pretty wide of the mark. I can imagine however, that there may have been some contact between the clubs regarding where a Bradford RL team might play in the furure.

As someone who grew up in a mining village I am not offended in the slightest.

at the moment, Bradford City dont get an income from the bars / concessions on a match by match basis. They have a lump sum agreement with the outside firms that run them that is an annual fee. I am sure that those companies would do a similar deal with the bulls should there be an extra load of matches. BCFC are very pleased that although they might lose out a little bit, they can budget on a fixed amount, and someone else carries the liabilities regarding stock etc...

DAvid Baldwin the Operations manager (effectively CEO) at BCFC is a very astute man. We could do worse than tapping into his knowledge. Remember, since the Lawn/Rhodes co charimanship of City came about in 2006ish, they have been in the bottom division and flirted with financial trouble a bit, but in the previous five years they'd been in admin twice!

If incineration, sorry energy recovery, gets the go ahead that won't necessary be the case. I was at a couple of waste treatment plants last week, one in Bradford, one in York. At one of them the amount of landfill is set to drop from c240,000t p/a to 20,000 as a result. This will extend the life of the landfill significantly, moving to almost zero landfill in the very short term. Still you can't burn asbestos, so possibility for that or nuclear waste I suppose.

They did but i think they have resold them on now as the running costs were eating into them, i think its something to do with a charity that wayne jacobs is involved with bought them to set up some sort of school

The office block has been sold on to be used as a school administered by the charity founded by wayne jacobs. Pitch sizes. Oodsal 88x68? Was64m tilltwo years ago. Vp 104mx64 reduced from 68m to allow extra advertising boards. Use of vp is in citys control flamingolandpension fund has no say in use orsublet.distance from touchline to boundry wall at least two metres more than at headingly. I personally dont want to see the bulls move. However. Objections shouldbebased on fact. That and the fact that one ofthecurrent shareholders is a totally untrustworthy 'gentleman'

ok, just to clarify.

The office/shop block at Valley Parade was sold to Prupim (part of prudential IIRC) when City entered administration c2003. they paid an annual rent that was a significant figure running to hundreds of thousands per annum.

in Summer 2011, Bantams holdings ( a new company with Lawn, Rhodes and Rhodes as directors, seperate from the football club) bought it from prupim and let the club use it at a massively reduced rent, thouhgt to be almost nil.

A few weeks ago the building was sold to the one in a million charity, and a profit was made which the directors are pumping into the club as a means of assembling a more competitive playing squad. The shop closed last weekend, and the building will reopen as a free school in September.

Gordon Gibb, through the Flamingo land pension fund, owns Valley Parade and charges a massive rent for BCFC to play there, and run the stadium. He will not negotiate a sale of VP as the rental income is currently a better investment than a typical pension fund, and he will not communicate / negitiate with the club whilst Julian Rhodes, or his father is involved.

Those figures are a bit misleading iirc. Figures for vp are total grass area hoarding to hoarding. Odsal figures are just the pitch size and don't include areas behind the tryline or between touchlines and hoardings.

The size of the Odsal pitch is irrelevant as it is an existing pitch which already meets minimun requirements. The issue is moving to a "new" ground we would need to meet the mimimum standards as laid out in the operational rules or we wouldn't be allowed to stage games (when we were there previously it was only allowed due to its temporary nature IIRC) When considering the length of the playing pitch goal line to goal (88m), plus minimum in goal areas (2x6m), plus safe distance to the advertising hoardings (2x3m) means an absolute minimum requirement of 106m. The Bradford city website lists the pitch as 113yards (103m) hoarding to horading. Its doable, don't get me wrong, but it would involve removing the front rows of some seats to extend the pitch, and even then we are getting only the absolute minimum length and not a full size pitch.

rlhttp://www.therfl.co.uk/operational_rulesrl
rlhttp://www.bradfordcityfc.co.uk/page/CoralWindowsStadium/0,,10266,00.htmlrl

Having said all that, if the work can be done I could see a move to VP in our future... if we have one.

Not sure about some of this. Thereisno minimum rl pitchsize. Max.quoted size. Post to post 100m x 68m. Pitch at vp is 104m x 64m playing area. Not total grass area. As for distance to boundry wall. It is still greate rthan headingy. The in goal area is a little small. However superleague passed vp as a suitable .ground a few years ago..
sorry for badprintng and gaps. Trying to write on tablet in spain

There is I'm afraid a very clearly defined minimum rl pitch size and playing area, the figures in my previous reply were taken staight out of the RFL operational rules and would be applied to any new ground move.

VP was only passed previously as it was a temporay situation, for a permanent move we would need to abide by the operational rules. Comparison to any excisting ground is irrelevant, it only matters if a "new" ground meets the rules or not, as vp stands I don't think it does, but we might need to get the tape measure out again.

No need to apologise for gaps and bad spelling (Im on a pc and has no such excuse ) But you should indeed however apologise for being in sunny Spain and not Yorkshire like I am