I'm not about to go into some bitter tirade as thats how it might come across. They have massively pulled the rug from under us by this switch. At short notice at that too. All I will say is I will not spend another penny with the club until current ownership has gone. Absolutely disgraceful how they have done this

Are you saying that West Bowling to Horsfall has now been scuppered by the Bulls going their with reserves etc? Or am I misunderstanding?

Is from a Dudley Hill perspective, Pimp007?

Feel free to elaborate, mate. I feel the time for having incomplete facts is long past after all we've been through in recent years.

Certainly not. id say the two are a lot more hand in hand

Ahhh. You know what I've done. I've forgotten which one of you scamps is Dudley Hill and which one is WB. Apologies.

Yes it is mate. Top and bottom Mark Sawyer agreed with our chair and vice chair that most games would be at Dudley Hill. We were wanting to charge £3 in for season ticket holders, which are mainly the majority of people in attendance. Bulls wanted to us to charge £1.

The Bulls when the agreement first started were supposed to maintain our pitch for us. Theyrolled and cut it twice last year. So we pay for someone to come and keep up to the pitch.

£1 was just not feesible. The Bulls contributed nothing towards in essence. We had to pay for staff (as committing to something like this you will never live on volunteers at all) The floodlights cost around £50 an hour (not exact) to run. Theres club electric, theres aftergame food for players, plus all utilities int he changing rooms for lights showers etc.

We get nothing from te council in way of pitch help and pay 8k a year to play on the ground.

Also the RFL said our pitch was too wide for it so one of our committee members had to take half a day unpaid to be at the club with th RFL in preperation for the season starting.

Lets be honest it gives the Bulls a chance to play out of the same base as Bowling now which has never been able to happen because they have never had the facility for it. Would have happened years ago if they did have. Easy to see why with a lot of staff affiliated with Bowling.

Again very much dissappointed with the club who still havent got their way on what they wanted to charge

Ultimately it shows a disregard again for a community club. I wasnt going to go this far as lke I said n=dont want to sound bitter but the are facts

I’m the west bowling man mate.

To be honest, I think Steve(pimp) has a very valid point and yet another own goal from the Bulls. It really doesn’t matter who is the owner, they keep cocking up along the way. Ask Dudley Hill to put games on and they don’t seem to be interested in where the money comes from to this as long as it’s not them. The shambles continues.

Regarding the news today the council are no longer planning on selling the Richard Dunns land, is this the next step for big Nigel’s big plan. Get the lease back off his mates at RFL, do a deal with the council, get the ownership of odsal back, sell the land for a extremely large profit, land over the road for someone to fund a new stadium.
Who said his involvement in the shadows when he put Chalmers in charge was all part of his plan?? I said it.
Chalmers job done, now over to big Nige to see the plan home and line his large pockets

Let's not call it bitter then, let's call it 'duly disappointed' at the way they have not pulled their weight, nor I suspect given DH any notice that they are shifting?

It does sound a little shoddy.

The last thing we want to be doing is alienating the community clubs around us whether by being cackhanded or by design. They need to be seen as our foundations.

Thanks mate. I totally agree with the rest of your statement.

Also its a fantastic move for Bowling in my opinion they need a facility of that kind if they want to carry on progressing

The notice was short considering all the provisions we had put in place like work with the RFL regarding the pitch and staffing at games.

The thing I think is obvious is West Bowling have more juniors in their system than any club in the city. Its obvious the Bulls would want closer ties with them, I dont mean staff but I mean share a facility where Bowling kids and the academy are on top of each other, this is no excuse by the way.

Until this ground share its never been possible as in honesty we are still the only rugby league club in Bradford with the facilities we have to accomodate.

We do feel a little alienated and to be fair feel if they had given adequate reasons other than a £1 difference to fans and ample notice to switch it wouldnt have been as bad. Like I have said I am totally put off the owners/ownership model now and wont attend any games unless an away game in the home end, I wont line their pockets now.

One thing I will say is while Chalmers did whathe did, the relationship between ourselves and the Bulls was the best I have ever known it in my 17 years of being involved at theclub. He was always there always paid in as did Kear, there was only one person when I worked the gate to complain about paying, I wont mention names but shouldnt be hard to work out, Chalmers and Kear on the community club side when working together were fantastic to work with and enjoyed when personally asking them, watching the games down there

Surely its the Bulls prerogative to get the best deal available to them for staging the games.

If they have got a better deal with Avenue rather than Dudley hill then obviously they are going to take it.

We have all been craving for the club to be more financially savvy and stop pi55ing money away. Seems like Sawyer is much more shrewd opporator.

I can 100% understand the frustration at the short notice though. No one likes business deals being pulled at the last min no mater what industry you work in.

How can they get a better deal when it didnt cost them a penny?

Also maybe if they had been professional enough to explain properly there may have been understanding from both sides. They did not though, said we want fans paying £1. They still arent paying a pound.

If you are saying share bar takings etc, let me tell you I have worked that bar and very little people drink beer. One or two regulars.

Also the club should be trying to keep links with community clubs intact whether its our club or not. No professionalism which I know has been a massive point for years but no matter who it is it seems things dont change

But only at Horsfall until May. Then they’re looking at Odsal potentially...