After another day of reading articles, seeing the pledges being made by former players, all the fund raising ideas and the fighting spirit being shown by all the fans I've made my pledge.

Still not anywhere near happy about the situation but I'm trying to look at it from the perspective that i've effectively now paid full price for a season ticket. I guess it is still probably less than a full price season ticket.

The response to this situation from the entire rugby league community and beyond is astounding and you actually get a sense that it could be done.

Here's hoping.

A question for you all.

Are we more optimistic, more pessimistic or basically the same since the news broke 36 hours ago?

Me? I'm optimistic. 103k by 5pm this afternoon is amazing, and with plenty of time left, plenty of fundraising planned, we can do this

BTW, I'm thinking of running from Odsal to Tong School (and back, if I can make it, i'm in training for a race anyway), sometime next week, almost certainly Thursday, if anyone fancies joining me as a partner?

Except...it wasn't really like that.

The "main asset" was the long lease with the council.

A bank will normally only be able to realise its security in the event of insolvency.

In the event of insolvency, the long lease would become void, and the site would revert to the council.

Therefore, the value of the long lease as security to the bank was, IMO, not a lot!

And the bank anyway did not have a fixed charge on the lease.


As I understand it, the club asked the bank for a modest temporary increase in its overdraft. This to plug a shortfall left by finding they were required to pay a certain other liability very much earlier than they expected or (apparently) were led to believe. In the event, the bank not only declined the increase, but also reduced the existing facility. Apparently. That led to the current crisis.

For the reason given earlier, I struggle to see that the explanation given by RBS is very credible.

I'll endeavour to get more to the bottom of this if at all possible.

RBS for whatever reason pulled the Plug, a good opportunity for a competitor(as long as it isn't Santander) to step in and bankroll the debt and also get a lot of RBS's local accounts as well, if only it were that simple.

So essentially, shafted by a bank.

Now where have I heard that before?

You could say the Club and the Fans have been RBS'd*

* Royally Bloody Shafted!

I hope to God you guys make it - losing Bradford would be an unthinkably awful blow to everyone in the game. I wouldn't miss getting soaked on your terraces once a season though which would be a small consolation

Sorry not to appear supportive but basically if you owe money and you have assets then sell them. Simples as the Meerkats say. I think you will make it but be pragmatic.

If the club went into Administration, wouldn't any new owner be able to negotiate a good deal on the lease? Who else would rent it from the RFL?

Or would it revert back to the Council? In which case doesn't the same apply?

Northumbria, sorry to butcher your post, but after what Hood has done, and the way we have been treated, isnt this company running our club alien to us already?? I for one would welcome Hood going so we can make it our club again. It is clearly not our club. we are treated as customers / consumers, not members. What real interraction do the club have with us that is honest?

The rubbish trotted out at the forums is insulting when you look back at it!

HOw can not paying the taxman for a decent chunk of PAYE cuase shock and doom when they ask for it???

It would be tough watching the team drop through the divisions, but there is no precident for this. In bfact the opposite is true. Wakey and Crusaders went into admin, and wakey are still in SL and crusaders chose to leave. Who would take our talent off us??? Who has space under the cap?
In fact, with Sykes going on loan today being another positive, we are removing some of the dead wood!

I doubt it would revert to the council, since the parties to the head lease are now the RFL and the council.

Whether a new entity could negotiate a sub-lease with the RFL on better terms than the present one (which, make of it what you will, I was assured was a good deal for the club...) can at this stage only be a matter for conjecture, I guess.

We had a long long debate at the Bullbuilder board meeting last night about the advantages, disadvantages and consequences of going into administration. It obviously helped that some of us have experience in this field. In short, we concluded that any protracted period of administration would probably (there can never be any certainty, so you have to look at the balance of probabilities) lead to the club in an ything like its present form never rising again. In particular, the administrator would have to start selling off assets pretty well immediately to generate cash to continue operating. You'd have to assume you would lose the very young, upcoming players that the club is depending on for its future.

The only way we could see an administration working would be if there was a 24-hour prepack - i.e. the new vehicle and financing is already in place when the administration order is granted by the High Court. Administrator is appouinted 3pm Monday, 9am Tuesday he announces he has sold the assets etc to NewBulls Ltd. Creditors are presented with a fait acompli, and (as with most prepacks) scream merry hell that they have been shafted (which invariably they have). BUT...such a prepack is invariably fronted by insiders - usually some or all of the management, sometimes a major shareholder. Without detailed inside information, it is very hard to put everything in place before getting your hands on the books and records and staff.

The prospective new owners will already have lined up all the necessary stakeholders (in our case those would have to include the RFL, the Council, the new players' union and maybe the GMB, maybe Sky, maybe Stobarts, maybe existing sponsors, the more important of the various other quangos and bodies the club engages with - as well as any external financing) before the administrator is appointed. And, of course, carried out the necessary due dilligence. We concluded it must be highly unlikely the existing management would be entertaining this option, and there has been no evidence that Caisley (the only other credible "insider"icon_wink.gif is well-advanced with such a project (although that could change, obviously). So, again on balance of probabilities, we have to assume at this stage that there is no "quick fix" on the horizon.

Speaking personally, as for what caused this disaster, it is obviously easy to point the finger at an inept and untruthful board. That is certainly what probably most people would conclude from how this all came out. And indeed, many many fans have made their views on this subject abundantly clear. For my own part, my immediate reaction was one of incredulity, and of feeling very badly betrayed. Followed shortly afterwards by anger at how we could be assured in January that everything was fine, and in March that we are two weeks away from being fed to the fishes. You could not make it up, could you?

But are things always as they first seem? So far, as we manage to piece together more facts and "information", a picture is starting to emerge that suggests that in January the club WAS confident that the situation was OK; but that events that they could not have anticipated (or have planned for) in the interim period have changed all that. Certainly that is the story coming out of the club, and at this stage, to me it seems to be stacking up. That situation could change, obviously, and whatever happens it seems Hood personally has lost the confidence of many of the fans by the manner of his communication and explanation over recent months. The extent that this is down to the man not the necessity of the circumstances may never be known.

But, as far as I personally can see, OK going into administration could lead to a new ownership and management, and certainly a resolution of the shareholding situation that Maislebugs so rightly points out is an enduring impediment to our future progress. Equally, it could lead to oblivion. But IMO it would very probably lead to the loss of the young talent we have coming through on which the future of the club needs to be built, whatever the outcome. And that is something I really cannot subscribe to. And in any case, even though I know others may not agree, I remain strongly of the view that Hood would stand down if a suitable successor would manifest himself. And it may well be that this will happen, if (as the club are suggesting) the commitment from the fans helps encourage a new investor to come on board. Guess only time will tell!

So basically unless there's a good chance of a prepack we're completely up the creek?

As for losing our promising young players that's obviously a great concern, however Wakefield were in the same boat, possibly worse off. They had a prepack waiting in the wings I take it?

Adey,
I was a player at a (fairly dire at the time) semi-pro club in the mid-80s. We went bust, all the players (who became free agents) & management stayed. We just carried on as normal literally the next day. I assume this was going into administration, as players we didn’t care about the legal side, we just wanted to play for the club. Have things changed legally or could it have been a different form of going bust? There was nothing of value to sell I suppose. Could all Bulls players choose to stay or could they be forced to be sold by the administrators? Thanks in anticipation.

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