I only meant that when they took over they must have had a plan they were going to follow to make us successful again unless they just bought us on a whim or at the request of a third party. I fully appreciate that the RFL threw everything up in the air by insisting we start in the Championship.

Agree, wasn't aiming it at people who will be there through love of the club and wanting to hopefully see the rebuild. It's the ones who cant see the wood for the trees that will never change. Slating people who dare question the club or a player. Slating for someone for giving someone a bit of praise too! Really hoping my self my son will be old enough to sit and watch so I can get us season tickets as I want to be there too but may be a year too early for him, as I think next season is what this season should have been and the start of the rebuild

I really don't think they did. As the RFL took until the week before kickoff to make a decision, and as apart from the name, (and AC's outsider knowledge of Bradford through having been involved in the game with Salford) they were effectively buying the business a bit like those guys that buy lockup storage sheds - no clue what's inside. Not sure to what extent you could plan anything in those circumstances. Well, let's be frank, you can't.

My presence at a game, assuming there's anyone around to put one on. I think my last was April, possibly as late as May.

There lies the rub for me, there was a significant amount of goodwill for the 'Phoenix' Bulls at the start of the season, witness the amount of support at Huddersfield for a meaningless friendly, which continued as we made a promising start to the season, but frittered away over the last 3-4 months. Some of those supporters wont be back, whereas if we had started in L1, had a fair season with a much higher league position, most of the goodwill would have been retained IMHO.

Yeah cheers for that Nige and Rimmer (a fitting name)..

You shouldn't say that about people who have given us unqualified support and favoured club status over the past 5 or 6 years!!!

But thats the bit that I dont get.

If you buy a lock-up and its full of crap; you buy another hoping its got treasure in.

But Cha-Lo bought a rugby league club (and I use that term very loosely, because it was really just a couple of pencils and a pair of used undies) - so if it turns out to be cr@p - you cant just write it off and buy another one.

I still dont get it - why - oh why - did Cha-Lo bother buying a club when all of us fans could plainly see that it was doomed from the start. We were all crying out to stuff the -12 points, stuff the RFL's summer-bash and start in League 1

Why didnt they just let the RFL squirm their way out of the potential fixture cockup and see if a re-negotiate of less points was brought to the table?

I still dont get what was in it for Cha-Lo - they're not multi-millionaires so surely they must have had a plan to at least break even?

To have a season where they essentially tread water and get the business side of things in place (sponsorship, bank accounts, credit card facilities, visa applications, pens...) and then start in League 1 as they wanted to in the first place? Rather than starting in League 1 in 2017 and having to try assemble a squad capable of getting promoted as well as doing all the business side of things with a week or two's notice, they have a year to prepare for that League 1 assault and get things in place in good time.

Makes sense to me if I'm honest. I just wish that if that is the case (and I'm convinced it is), that they'd been honest about it from the start so I hadn't wasted time and money earlier in the season thinking we were fighting something we really weren't.

How do you sell that to your fanbase and still expect them to turn up though?
Be honest, if you knew that to be the case, would you have still gone to as many games and spent as much money? Not many would have I don't think.
So by telling everyone at the start, they risk losing all of that financial support, which could quite possibly have been the death of us.
Bit of a catch-22 really.

I agree. And yes, that's likely what would have happened. But the alternative is to lie to all the fans in making out you're competing when actually you're not and lose all trust instantly. I know they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, absolutely. I wouldn't want their job for the earth. But I personally would still prefer honesty and would definitely be there next season in League 1 had I been told how it is. Instead of being where I actually am where I feel like a mushroom (kept in the dark, fed sheite) and think I've had enough of the club. And let's be honest, from other fans' comments on here (and these are long term loyal fans), I'm not the only one feeling like that.

There's always a plan I suppose, but it could range from a printed 6 volume full Businees Plan to a 4- word Mr Micawber ("Something Will Turn Up"icon_wink.gif. I suppose we may have been closer to the latter, whatever, I am still also not much wiser really as to why our owners took the job. The sentiments expresed by AC are I am sure genuine but still doesn't to me provide enough reason on their own.

I on balance therefore remain firmly of the view that there must surely be something somewhere in the background involving ChaLo and the RFL that ChaLo agreed to be a part of. If so, Odsal would clearly be a big part of it. As it's equally unclear why the RFL acquired it. Again, what they said about preserving the world famous Odsal for rugby is a laudable sentiment, but not on its own a business case for a company buying the lease.

Interesting that in the T&A's most recent "stick with the club" coming from Toovey, he mentions the owner. Singular. Presumably Lowe has had so little involvement (save for telling us what he had for his dinner in New Zealand last week) that some people have forgotten he even exists.

Or is it neither of them?

The trouble is, the silence coming out of Odsal is deafening.

"Stick with us, stick with us, stick with us" seems to be the only mantra that's coming out of there at the moment. But there is NOTHING to justify the fans sticking with the club. It seems that the people in charge haven't noticed that we have stuck with the club while it fell from being World Club and SL champions to what will shortly be a third tier club.

Quite frankly, and I don't think I'm alone in this attitude, I think I've stuck by the club enough with nothing to show for it and it will take something monumental for me to consider spending any more money at this club in 2018