Such a shame, but inevitable I suppose.

I'm sure everyone has a memory of great occasion at Odsal.

Great dressing up by Chalmers though, I've never heard the Tetley Stadium described as boutique!

i still have nightmares whenever i heard wooly bully, it takes me back to many 50 point batterings.

I certainly have, I went with me mate from school(Ings Road) and his dad to the 1960 play off final against Wigan, only highlight of the day was when entering the turn-style I looked down and found a half a crown piece, I did ask everybody if they'd lost one

What’s the issue with the RFL selling the lease and the land being used for housing then?

If Bradford can’t afford to stay there that’s fine. They just shouldn’t expect other people to fund their stadium/redevelopment for them which has been the tone of Chalmers press statements for a while now.

The only thing odsal has going is its size. Some great memories but unless someone with mega millions came in it would never be developed into a decent modern stadium.

If it's costing £300k per annum, plus "wear & tear" to continue playing at Odsal, it's easy to understand Braford's position in wanting something cheaper.
The difficulty comes in finding any decent alternatives.
Moving in with Dewsbury seems ok in the short term but, getting a new facility up and running in 2 years, especially on the back of walking away from their current lease, which will give both the RFL and the local council some headaches, is likely to be very problematic.

The deal for the RFL to take over the "iconic" Odsal stadium is going to leave a further hole in their finances and they are already, financially, blowing their brains out.

A bad day all round, although one does suspect that, this is still being discussed and there will be a different end to the story.

Well part of me did wonder (and I'm not being snide here) that this COULD be carter-esque brinkmanship. Sometimes it's a productive tactic in focusing minds. That said, this looks more firm than any of the Wakefield wranglings to date.

Well, for your sakes and those of the wider game, I hope it is more of a threat than reality.
Although, £300k per annum etc, is a huge rent on the Odsal facility and seems a long way from the supposed "peppercorn" rent that the old Braford Bulls were allegedly paying to play there.
It would be interesting to know whether Bradford can just walk away from their obligations at Odsal as there must be some fairly stringent agreement in place to cover such a situation or, at least you would expect so

Not exactly sure what happens now (if this all goes through) in terms of the leasehold (held by the RFL) and the freehold (held by the council). I guess the RFL and Bradford council would come to some agreement for the leasehold ownership to go back to the council who would then presumably try and sell the site off - although I've seen talk on here that building on the Odsal site isn't as straightforward as it appears.

In terms of Bradford's expectations in terms of help with the stadium, you could point to any number of RL teams currently playing out of stadiums and facilities built for them either wholly or in part by their respective councils. Bradford council stopped giving a stuff about Odsal, the Bulls and professional RL in the city as soon as they signed the deal with the Bulls back in the early 2000s.

I was under the impression there is a load of unpleasant, toxic stuff below the surface, & I don't mean the R.F.L.'s involvement in the whole sorry tale.

The head lease between the RFL and BMDC is at a peppercorn rate. The sublease between the Bulls and the RFL is supposedly £72k pa -this is effectively them paying back the loan given to the last but one but one(?) incarnation of the club. The big costs are maintenance, which the new owners should really have known if they had performed the required due diligence before setting up shop there. A few years of consolidation as a PT club should really have been the way to go rather than signing up a squad of 35 with 22 FT players and going for instant success.

Be interesting to see if the RFL give any special treatment when it comes to scheduling of fixtures being that there will be 2 teams in the same league ground sharing.