Hudgell slates Chalmers

Might Andrew Chalmers be about to become a reincarnation of Marc Green and others who went (and failed) before him with the Bulls?

Before we post, let us be clear. Me and my friends are long term, honest, hard working Bulls fans who want the club to succeed. We are not as has been suggested some nasty little trolls acting in cahoots with the likes of Hull KR's Hudgell and Wakey's Carter.

The words below we have good reason to believe is the truth. We do, however, say and report this with a very heavy heart.

To begin with a friend of ours has a local kid who works for the Bulls on match days. They haven't been paid now for over 2 months and when the kid's parents (and other unpaid staff) politely asked Bulls management why they were not being paid they were accused by the club of being trouble causers and threatened with the sack. Nice. The kid has still not been paid his meagre wages despite many (false) promises by the club that they would be paid. That is shocking and disrespectful to us fans and all Bradfordians. It is also immoral. To quote Andrew Chalmers' own words from his most recent article in last weekend's Telegraph & Argus ... "[iWhere has the respect gone for each other? .... We must not lose hold of old fashioned values, like respect, please and thank you. It goes a long way in life[/i".

Second, another friend of ours works for a local supplier to the Bulls and his employer haven't been paid their recent bills by our club. We hear that the Bulls cannot pay because our club haven't got the money to pay some, or maybe many, of their suppliers. Our friend's firm believe our club is now trading as an insolvent business and more worryingly they appear to have been in such a mess for the past 6-8 months. To quote again from Chalmers' own words in last weekend's T&A .... "[iWe must be mindful of how we act, and what message we want to send out." [/i

Mr Chalmers needs to practise what he (so patronisingly) preaches.

Key player signings may look good to us fans and boost Chalmers seemingly fragile ego, but such expenditure may be unaffordable. Recent signings are largely future, and not, current spend.

Third, another Bulls fan is aware that one first team player has suffered a real bad injury. Professional rugby league players are involved in a high impact, collision sport. As a bare minimum our players deserve to have the club pay for much needed medical insurance in case they suffer god forbid a life threatening injury or die on the pitch. The Bulls do not insure our players because apparently it costs too much. What kind of standard does that set to other clubs? We repeat what Chalmers said in his T&A article ..... [i"We must not lose hold of old fashioned values, like respect. It goes a long way in life[/i". So does medical insurance, Mr Chalmers; it can help save a rugby league player's career, or in the event of a career ending injury can give a player much needed cash to help them rebuild a life 'off the pitch'. Mr Chalmers talks of respect; therefore isn't it time that he respects the Bulls players by doing the right thing and paying for their medical insurance?

So we go back to the question posed above ..... 'Might Andrew Chalmers be about to become a reincarnation of Marc Green and others who went (and failed) before him with the Bulls?'. When Mr Green's version of the Bulls was on its last legs in September 2016 (and becoming desperate for cash to stave off the club's inevitable collapse in to liquidation), Marc in a last attempt to take advantage of the fans good nature (or to be blunt con us) started a sinister early sale of the next year's season tickets. If Mr Chalmers does the same then we believe that will only go to further show that our club is well and truly in dire straits no matter what fancy spin he and/or the club tries to put on it. We would not at this time use our debit cards to lend the club one single penny, and may we urge fellow Bulls fans to think twice about doing so. If Mr Chalmers will not pay his hard working match day staff then why should we pay our club anything? ... if we did, we believe we may risk losing every single penny.

Andrew Chalmers also says in his recent article and we quote .... "[iI know a large increase in trolling has arisen, because the keyboard army finds it too easy to slag off the opinions, views and actions of others from the comfort of their lounge, safe in anonymity. It’s all unacceptable behaviour[/i." Mr Chalmers, it is NOT unacceptable behaviour to say what one believes to be the truth; it is called freedom of speech, not trolling. Moreover, our club owner cannot for example be allowed to stop the T&A asking difficult questions of him. The truth and inquisitive questions may hurt Andrew, but it may be time that you faced up to it. As a result of his repeated acts there are an ever increasing number of Bulls fans starting to lose faith in Mr Chalmers as our owner. This post is not meant to be some form of AC character assassination, it is simply a plea after 6-7 years of abject misery for the Bulls to do what is right for our great club.

Andrew Chalmers, like Marc Green (and others before him) were, we are led to believe, inappropriately hand picked by the RFL to be the custodians of the iconic Bulls name when far better bids were on the table.

Chalmers is lucky; if it all goes belly up he can abandon the Bulls and head off back home to New Zealand with no more than a modest personal liability. However, as happened with Mr Green and Omar Khan before him they left many hard working and honest Bulls fans, staff and UK creditors (including our own Bradford Council) out of pocket for sums in the hundreds and thousands of pounds. It is us fans and others who then have to stay loyal, keep on believing and help pick up the pieces. Let us hope that such a groundhog day event will not be soon upon us. That said, given that Mr Chalmers has directly allowed at least two companies to go bust under his watch in recent times then regrettably things do not appear to bode too well for us, do they? The Bulls name is far, far bigger than you are Andrew. In any case, we sincerely hope that you can prove us fans wrong. We, therefore, challenge Mr Chalmers to disprove every one of the observations mentioned above.

Mr Chalmers and the club do we understand have some 'anonymous' alter egos who are also members of this excellent RL fans forum, and other forums. Such persons may well toe Chalmers' party line re the so called 'feel-good factor' which many Bulls insiders (and some rose tinted spectacle wearing fans) repeatedly claim presently exists at our club. We would, however, argue that it does not 'feel good' to be injured in a rugby league game and have no medical insurance to rely upon. Moreover, it does not 'feel good' to be not paid your salary when you have done nothing wrong.

Anyhow, all what has gone on before, and sadly very much looks like happening again, is we believe not just the fault of our faltering club owners, but blame must surely be also attributed to the RFL's former and current 'bigwigs' whose 'fit and proper person' test for Bulls prospective owners is in of itself we believe not fit and proper. On a wider perspective there have been rumours of wrongdoing involving the RFL for many years. In fact, it may even be possible that the RFL could ultimately be found out to be the rugby league equivalent of FIFA.

Isn't it time that all of us rugby league loving people (and independent club Chairman/ owners) got together for the good of the game and seek to remove if at all possible the RFL's handsomely paid hierarchy from governing our sport. This may be done via proper procedures and such a process may we understand be shortly about to commence in earnest.

Looking ahead we trust all members of this RL fans forum and all fans across the wider world of rugby league can be unified in agreeing that it would surely be good if a new truly independent group of competent persons could be appointed to run our sport with the help of the likes of Sport England and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Such a new governing body could then run and rebuild our great sport in a fair, open, unfettered, transparent and capable manner, and ideally such a body could be answerable to an independent organisation, and not just be answerable to themselves. Any such overseeing enterprise could ideally contain fans representatives who could (finally) hold the sport's governing body to account.

Apologies for the length of this post, but we are concerned about what appears to be going on and felt that it was time to air our concerns. Thank you.