They’d also demand a bit more room if they were in bed with Mick.

The council granted planning permission in 2002 Mr Morrison appealed this decision to Mr Byers who was secretary of state for transport and local government who then called the proposal in for public enquirey.

Agree with the vast majority on here that a one year sit out and start at the bottom would be the most sustainable way forward for (semi) pro RL in Bradford. But at the moment the people making the decisions are the RFL and as I see it they have two main objectives;

1) fulfill fixtures
2) get out of their odsall lease as it's now a liability with no sub tenant

With the councils buy in for development the best way for RFL to fulfil the above objectives would be to sell odsal to a developer at market value less the cost of fielding a semi pro league team for a year.

The thing that terrifies me about the above is that a developer couldn't give a t0ss about 'Bradford Phoenix' and will happily run it on a shoestring, see them get walloped week in week out, relegated and then sell the club for a quid at the end of the season.

Whilst this gets us to the exact same place as starting 2018 in C1 it will see a further season of fans leaving the club as no one wants to watch their team get mullered week in week out.

FWIW an alternative for the RFL to the above could be to form a barbarians team full of loans and lads playing for contracts - only have to play every other week, don't need home games, and points don't count to the league just exhibition games. Blue sky thinking I know, just trying to think of a scenario other than not winning a game all year.

Took Bomgser a day and a half to catch up on this and the previous behemoth thread. But all he can say after reading all of the above is that he's gutted for Bradford's fans, staff and what are left of the players. Looks very bleak but best of luck you Phoenixes.

This could be intriguing............................. do tell!

Didn't Byers leave his post under a cloud not after? not saying that was part of the reason but I always wondered................

Yeah I think that's right Blotto.

Yes, but just his personal version, which we know from experience can completely gloss over the things you'd want to know, totally ignore or sidestep others, and contain much utter bollox.

Unfortunately your blue sky thinking or any other alternative to a full fixture list does not solve the resulting Blackpool problem.

Whatever the "Blackpool problem" might be, I can guarantee you nobody on here is remotely interested in it.

He was under a cloud throughout. Remember the civil servant who sent an email saying today is a good day to bury bad news? And that day happened to be a certain Sept 11th? That was his dept, and the preceding five months had been about whether he put her up to it or not.

Something rail related did for him but he was toast by that point anyway. It was just the final straw.

The general world view the government had about "out of town" developments came from Prescott though. It would have happened that way anyway once it got called in.

Fwiw, I still blame Byers / government and not Mr Ken.

It's not our problem. But the RFL are using us to solve it.