Quote: Maislebugs "So no mention of the decision to award Steve MacNamara a 4 1/2 year contract or any number of dumbfounding decisions on player recruitment and retention that the board, minus Chris Caisley, sanctioned in the last 5 years? The failure to sack Steve Macnamara 2 years after he was clearly not up to the job? The near constant spinning of information through unofficial channels so that figures like £3 million become accepted fact? The story about the club going bust but spending £100,000 on Solomona + Brett Ferres despite the club's policy of focussing youth? The loss of the world's best young forward because he couldn't get out of Odsal quick enough? The signings of Feather, Orford, Sykes, Glenn ? The utter capitulation in the face of Orford's agent? I could go on and on and on.
Why no mention of any of these decisions? How on earth is it Brian Noble's responsibility to balance the books of Bradford Bulls Ltd? It's an absurd charge to hold him responsible after all that has been totally ballsed up since he left? Was he the accountant? He was a good, hard working player who captained GB and never let us down and he is the club's most successful ever coach with the budget he was given which I would very much doubt was any different to Leeds, Wigan, Saints at the time. Your undermining of his achievements at the club is out of order and plain wrong.'"
I can't leave that as it stands, since I have to take issue with what you say. So I'll spend probably ten times as long on a reply as I spent on the original, quick post, which was in response to what seemed a genuine question about why the club had fallen so far so quickly. Readers who are understandably more concerned with how the hell we get out of the hole than how we got INTO it can skip this post.
OK. In no particular order. Do you know the full facts about what happened with Orford? if you know less than I do, then your statement about THAT is out of order and plain wrong.
Do you know how much it would have cost to sack MacNamara with two years left to go on his contract? And whether the club could have afforded it? If not, then you are as much out of order as you accuse me of being. I have argued repeatedly over the years not that Macca was a good coach and should be retained for that reason (I always said others were far better able to judge his coaching ability than me) but that the financial state of the club meant carrying effectively two head coach costs for two years could only come out of the playing staff budget. So it was the financial position that administration inherited that was the real issue. that was why I made no specific mention of the coach who succeeded Noble - and also since none of us will know the extent to which his failure (big time) at this club was down to his own inability or down to the wider financial problems - or, as I suspect, a mixture of both?
The board trusted MacNamara in his judgement regarding which players to sign. I know - from ftf discussion - that there was recognition towards the end that his judgement seemed to have been too often in error, especially over the likes of Sherriffe. But would we have been in the position we were in, and with the coach we had, if the financial situation was not so dire? Again, I blame the financial situation the club faced, and had to deal with, as being the underlying cause of much of the recent difficulties. I COULD have listed a whole stream of examples of WHY that financial situation so adversely affected the club, rather than what I saw as just some fundamental ones, and had I done so then I would certainly have stated the same point as you - albeit offering the board at least some excuse.
the £3+m figure? Er...that was quoted officially by Hood and widely reported in the media and never challenged or contested by Leeds Rugby Ltd. Which, given Leeds had recently retracted a statement by Hetherington that was otherwise libelous (the "coherse" affair) would surely have been open invitation to Leeds to demand retraction for defamation had it not been true? Given how badly if reflected on Leeds in the eyes of most non-partisan observers? I have anyway learnt enough about this affair over the years to have little cause to doubt the numbers.
We did not sign Brett Ferres. He was one of our youngsters who we managed to lose. Like a load of others, including Atkins and Reardon that happened under Noble, and too many since that SEEMED to be down to lack of money OR dumb signing decisions or both. IMO one of the most serious problems of the post-Noble era was our seeming inability to hold on to our upcoming backs in the face of offers from big-monies sugar-daddied clubs, and for whatever other reasons. I made this point in another thread the other day. When writing the comments that seem to have so upset you (and they were written as I said quickly and with no intent to be a blow-by-blow synopsis of the club's downfall) I mentally (again) attributed this big problem to lack of money. There may have been other reasons - I don't know and I doubt you do fully either - which, had I wanted to spend longer on my reply to the poster, I would have flagged up as an ancillary cause of us being where we are today.
Signing Solomona? Yes, with hindsight a huge disappointment. The guy appeared - like so many others - not to really want to be here. But that is with the benefit of hindsight. I recall at the time teh signing was almost universally applauded, and the RL Hacks almost to a man picked him out as a marquee signing for us that ought to make the world of difference. Would you not have us sign ANY senior players with clear ability as he had showed? Hindsight is all very well - we can all do that.
Regarding losing Burgess, if he could not wait to get out of Odsal quick enough why did he not go sign for Wire or Hudds or someone else seemingly with megabucks to spend? When instead he signed for Souths on what he suggested at the time was hardly a massively-better package than he could have commanded in the UK? No, he went because he had the opportunity of a lifetime, and took it! And was dead dead right to do so IMO - who could blame him for not? And, in the face of that, what would YOU have done? Forced him to see out the last year of his contract (and receive no transfer fee?)? Somehow found so much money to pay him that he could not afford to follow the lifetime's opportunity? Come ON now!
We can all point to what we may regard as poor signings, without crediting those that turned out better than expected. That is as out of order and plain wrong as what you accuse me of. Orford was a disaster with hindsight (albeit minor compared to Harris), but who could have known that at the time? Most of us were pretty excited at the signing. It is downright disingenuous to beat the club over it with the benefit only of hindsight.
Equally, how could anyone have known that Hall would not work out? It SEEMS much was down to the personal tragedy that befell just before he moved here. Recognise it did not work out by all means, but again it is disingenuous to beat the board up over a signing that again most people were content with at the time.
Feather I never expected to work out - too soft. Although he did better after he left us. Not a signing I would have made, but signing mistakes get made. There were worse ones than that made. By all clubs.
Sykes - the guy holds his hands up to play wherever they tell him to. Not the best player we have, but one that adds to our options. IMO he is the latest scapegoat, and not entirely justified. You clearly think otherwise.
Why no mention of the above? Either because I do not agree, or because I saw a more deep-rooted underlying cause, or because I wrote my reply quickly and late at night. And in a lot less time than this reply is taking. That is why.
In the same way, I never mentioned the oft-reported comments that Noble "lost the plot" second half of his last full season, hence our performances deteriorating, and that it was MacNamara who had to step in and motivate the players so we got to OT. If he DID (and I have been told that but have no direct proof) then I always attributed it to him being told that he would have a lot less funds to utilise in future than he had been used to. And so at least explaining if not justifying what happened. I did not mention it because it - like some of YOUR points - if true it seemed to me to be detail and symptoms not underlying cause.
Where did I say I hold him repsonsible for all that has gone wrong since? Or seek to undermine his achievements? All I said was that we had a head coach who bought success by spending (and I stated it was backed by the Chairman) beyond our means. You cannot argue that, with a team full of internationals, we must have bought a lot of that success? Same way as the sugar-daddied clubs have been doing in recent years? He spent the budget he was given; the fault with giving him a budget seemingly beyond the club's means lies eleswhere. It is my opinion that Noble is a very effective coach when he has a first-rate squad of players at his disposal, and I yield to no-one in saluting his fantastic achievements whilst our Head Coach and in that environment. I fear he would NOT be effective when the pursestrings - and the for the support functions not just the playing staff - are tight, and the club is no longer a big attraction for top players. For that, you'd be better off with a John Kear-type IMO. And that, plus the previous point, is why I would not want him back now as Head Coach - I just do not think it would work. Although yes, in fairness, as yet we do not seem to have found any solution that DOES.
But you are attributing to me things I never said, and THAT is out of order and just plain wrong.
I won't get into debates about the budget Noble had to work with, and how it compared to other clubs. I recall commentators in 2003 (in particular) posing the question how Bradford managed to afford a team full of internationals like we did, but that is a debate best not carried out on an internet forum.
The reasons for our decline in recent years will always be a matter of personal opinion. You clearly have different opinions to me, and in the past have come across as very close indeed to the Caisley camp - same way as the poster "Duckett" on the T&A, for example. it is of course your right and prerogative to express those opinions, although I would prefer you not to ascribe to me things I never said. And if you choose to use hindsight to justify your stance, as you have done above, I cannot complain - since my views on why it all went wrong were formed largely with the benefit of hindsight too (although the worrying financial signs were very apparent from the first accounts after our return to Odsal).
I would HOPE we all have the same aspiration for the future - a renaissance for the club on the sort of scale that was achieved under Caisley at the start of SL (which massive achivement has been, like those of so many other visionaries and leaders, overshadowed by the subsequent failure). The fact that things look pretty gloomy right now unfortunately only encourages people to spend too much time debating why it went wrong in the first place. I so hope it will not be long before we can recapture the optimism and buzz that were there a few months ago - and I am sure you do too?
