Having only started to follow the game in my mid forties five years ago and been a London season ticket holder for the last four I'm not imbued with the history of the sport like others but also have a more detached view of Bradford's struggle for survival. I certainly don't wish the club or it's supporters any ill will but should they go bust and have to reform would the game be worse off? As a London supporter I regularly read and I am told that there shouldn't be a team in London due to low crowds etc. and that there are heartlands teams (e.g. Halifax / Featherstone) more deserving of a franchise that would bring home gates of 10,000 and away support of 1,000+ and make the sport stronger. If Bradford go then surely one of these clubs that are in position to replace London can replace Bradford next year. In two years time London will lose their franchise (unless there is a miraculous turnaround) and a reformed, regrouped Bradford given its significant and passionate following will be in a strong position to bid for a franchise. Am I being over simplistic?

It certainly seems more sensible than the hard working public of Bradford forking out a million quid to keep a failed owner in charge of their club.

Reality is we don't have a big city club waiting in the wings. Our game suffers as is with a massive perception problem about it being a minority sport, take out the cities and replace with small towns and it becomes a shed load harder to get corporate support, media deals etc etc.

A bit like a rowing race between two universities? Now that would be a minority sport. There's no way something like that would get 3 hours prime time on BBC or massive corporate support.

Nothing to do with a large number of Ex students from these two institutions running the BBC and half the Corporations in the country is it.

Quite, and yet some would have you believe the old boy network doesn't exist.

Serious question,

How long will the taxman allow bradford to collect these pedges? i'd be surprised if they could get even 90% in within a couple of weeks and there's bound to be people who've pledged but wont pay.

Depends how much of the amount has come from corporate donations of larger denominations.£300k could be from 50 businesses and the rest could be from 6,000 fans. So, people like Steve O and corporate donors will probably pay up immediately - so this may calm the taxman.

Hate to pi55 on your cornflakes, but it is a Minority Sport.........too many clubs trying to be Man Utd and Bradford being a good example of this..

The 500k has been pledged as just confirmed by Sadler. Full story in the paper tomorrow as well as confirmation from the Bulls.

Bradford have been living on borrowed Time for years, time to step a side and be replaced by proper RL club like Halifax, featherstone, Leigh etc, let's face it if we hadn't of nicked fans off Huddersfield and vertuelly put teams like fax and the one true RL club representing bradford, the mighty cougers, out of business we would have no more than 300 deprived souls at odsal every week, borrowed time I tell yer!!!