Fair enough.


fair enough again...


They are very close to it and I suspect this year will see them get there....the 10k figure at 30 quid an attendee gives you close to 4 million. Add the sky money and before sponsors or anything else, you have more than enough money to spend the cap and you have 300k left per month to run the club. It may be simplistic, but other than Saints, the other clubs averaging 10K+ are the profitable ones......



Sponsors will care little if a Northern City is replaced with a Northern Town, unless that sponsor is specifically interested in Northern customers. The RFL seem almost fanatical to claim a southern influence in their comp.

Where does this "iconic" business end? When I was growing up Widnes were a massive power club, but they were allowed to drop out without anyone else complying, same goes for HullKR. Both worked hard and got back in the top competition.

I see no reason why if they did go down, Bradford couldn't do the same.

with the tenant/landlord relationship I believe!

Seriously? , a significant reason you are up the swanny is a player getting injured?

No. That's not what I said.

But the pair of you read whatever you want into anything as long as you can twist it to support your agendas.

Relying on marquee signings and quality players coming in doesn't make a sound financial plan - many years ago, I attended a forum with McManus who told us saints planned for either a quarter final challenge cup appearance, or one game in the playoffs, and that's all they allowed themselves to forecast when trying to budget. (Whether this is still true I have no idea, but the point of not relying on fair weather supporters stand).

Also, Bradford, like everyone else, had to play within the salary cap, so if they were unable to attract the calibre of player, then it is still the boards fault for what happened - as they were responsible ultimately for player recruitment.

Genuine question, if the marquee signings were the only reason for attendances, would producing talent instead of signing it also meant the attendances would of gone down? (Since an academy lad can hardly be called a marquee signing) or is it more to do with needing glory hunter supporters to bolster numbers?

The point about Orford being a marquee signing was not saying Bradford were relying on such a player to bring people to watch. It was more that he was on a bring chunk of wage and took up an overseas spot. Had he been honest with the club and asked for a release, Bradford could have used the money he was paid more profitably.

As for the stuff about McManus planning for Saints, Peter Hood when in charge was often quoted as saying the club's target was of a similar level.

And you say glory hunter supporters bolstering numbers like it's some how a bad thing. Man Utd, Real Madrid and other football clubs of their ilk have vast incomes from people who've never even been near their stadia. Given the financial situation of most of SL, how can you justify slating any fan who turns up and pays money into a club by referring to them as glory supporters?

As for producing talent, it's not the production that's as important as the retention.

Hang on, did Matt Orford get injured while a contracted Bulls player? ,did Matt Orford play for any other club while being a contracted Bulls player?

If the answers are, yes and no, then what did you expect him to do?

I genuinely dont know the answers

1. Yes it is
2. What Agenda would that be?

I fail to see how questioning the continued financial malaise at the Bulls and the refusal to cut cloth accordingly is suiting any agenda. It is indicative of the precious nature of some fans of the Iconic Bulls that they refuse to answer a straight question and instead smear and muddy the waters.

There were widespread rumours that he wasn't intending to return yet the Bulls obviously couldn't do anything about signing a replacement when the player himself said nothing to them about leaving and so far as the club was concerned therefore he'd be back.

We expected him to either honour the terms of the contract for which he had been and was drawing a big fookoff wage, as until early October 2010 he himself insisted he was going to do. Or if he was never coming back, as seemed to be common knowledge in various Australian quarters, the to have said so and then the Bulls would both have saved a shedload of money paid to him and had more time to be in the market for another marquee player.

It turned out that indeed he wasn't coming back and indeed he had got himself fixed up with another team in Aus. Which happened to be one of the two clubs he had been strongly linked with. Given the circumstances the Bulls felt they had no choice but to tear up his contract and take it on the chin. Canberra didn't even pay a cent by way of transfer fee even though Awford still had 2 years to run on his contract (although it was suggested that he agreed to give up "part" of the "money he was owed" by the Bulls.

It could, of course, I entirely accept, be a complete and utter coincidence that half of Australia seemed to think he was not coming back and was getting himself fixed up with another club, and just such a thing came to pass. On 7/10/2010 there were PA reports that "Canberra are known to be chasing his services" (and by early September 2010 if you looked at the Canberra forum they all thought it was already a done deal) but relying on what Awford was still telling them, the Bulls publicly fielded the rumours by stating

They could all have just made a lucky guess.

Ten days later, on 17/10/2010 the Bulls released a statementBulls chairman Peter Hood said

This clearly suggests that the reasons, while unknown to the club when they agreed to him returning to Aus, did exist at that time. It seems clear, too, that these reasons continued to exist on 7/10/2010, several months later, yet at which time Awford was still seemingly reassuring the Bulls that he was coming back and nothing had changed.

If - as we must accept - there were these confidential but "valid" reasons at the time he left the UK as to why he couldn't or wouldn't come back, I'd have expected him to maybe mention it to his employers. Wouldn't you? And that when he was having negotiations with Canberra he might have mentioned that too.

so one player is responsible for bringing the Iconic bulls to their knees?

Have I missed something here? Orford left. Bulls were unable to recruit a suitable replacement? So did they save his 'substantial' salary the following year? If not, then who's fault was the recruitment/youth policy at the time? Surely it's sits with the Directors still?

As I said, I wasnt really paying attention at the time, but from what has been posted this is how I understand it, the Bulls sign MO on a 3 year deal, he gets injured and requests to return home for an operation ( but secretly he doesnt fancy Yorkshire or the UK anymore ) , he takes the Bulls money for the year of his recuperation while looking for a deal back home

He gets a deal sorted and the Bulls and him agree a settlement

The Bulls end up having to pay an injured player for 12 months ish

Happy for anybody to alter these details