I've been saying that the Bulls were on a downward spiral since 2004. Very few on RA&B would listen. Most Bulls fans were happy to bury their heads in the sand (which is pretty much what the club itself has done ever since it scrapped its own official message board!). They couldn't see the plain facts that the team got worse every year from 2004 onwards (statistically and aesthetically) and that the 2005 unbeaten run and GF win was merely a temporary blip in the downward trend. Even this season, you get loud-mouthed s on RA&B, shouting down any criticisms of the club.

Personally I became increasingly demoralised by the club's inability (or unwillingness?) to right the ship and infuriated by their nonsensical, short-sighted squad decisions (* see below) and irritated by the ignorance of my fellow Bulls fans. Consequently I slowly cut down the amount of supposedly [iscare-mongering, negativity[/i that I posted on RLfans. Furthermore, being unable to justify the expense of attending matches that I did not enjoy (and did not think the club had any interest in trying to win) I decided not to renew my season ticket for 2009 and only went to a handful of games. Sick of the stunning ineptitude of McNamara's regime, I haven't been to a single Bulls match this year. I might go to some matches next year now that a new coach has been appointed.

In answer to your question, "what has gone wrong?", the club has been run into the ground by morons and fans have stopped going to watch the rubbish they produce. At the end of the day, rugby league is a form of entertainment and if the standard of that entertainment is slipping year on year, fewer people will fork out to watch it.

(By the way, your comparison to Wigan's 2006 crowds is slightly flawed. Firstly, Wigan hadn't had year after year of being boring to watch. Secondly, Wigan had the cash to make big money signings, both on and off the field, which reinvigorated the club and kept the fans optimistic. Thirdly, in 2006 there was the prospect of relegation that...which is exciting in itself. Bradford's slide into mediocrity has coincided with the SL's expansion and the lack of relegation, so at Odsal there's absolutely nothing to get excited about.)


* e.g. signing Iestyn Harris to replace Leon Pryce and Chris Bridge, selling Ryan Atkins, signing Terry Newton, signing Toa Kohe-Love, swapping Brett Ferres for David Solomona, signing Marcus Bai, signing Marcus St Hilaire, signing Adam Watene, signing Chris McKenna, keeping Paul Deacon for so long, letting Ian Henderson go, signing Chris Feather, signing Tame Tupou, selling Shontayne Hape part way through a season etc etc). The list goes on...and you can see the goddamn awful rlcurrent squadrl (containing wasters such as Worrincy, Sculthorpe and Sheriffe) that has been steadily assembled (disassembled) by the respective coaches and chairmen over the last 6 years. Not only did these wasteful decisions have immediate negatative effects on the standard of the team, they made any half-decent players disgruntled and unwilling to stay at Bradford and they made any right-thinking fans wonder at the wisdom of a club that allows decent players to leave while ing away good money on overrated, overpriced, inferior replacements.

It seems a lot of the people have deserted the people's team.

These things are cyclical. The Bulls did a fantastic job increasing their supporter base and that supporter base was given instant success. It couldn't continue forever. Saints and Leeds dominance will also wain but their supporter base has been a bit more long standing.

The Bulls have taken some good staff from Leeds to work on youth development and that is something they must now focus upon. It's an area that was paid scant regard under the hugely successful Noble regime.

Here's one Leeds fan hoping the Bulls get back to what they were as I fail to see how their demise is anything good for the game as a whole.

Not the real ones.

Or, more to the point, arguing against loud-mouthed fekkwits who refused to see and understand that the club was living way way beyond its means, was spending far more than it was earning whilst having no rich owner to bankroll the losses, and blamed everything on the Hood/McNamara era when it was left to them to try and save the club from the rush towards insolvency bequeathed by the previous administration.

At least you can acknowledge that the rot set in under the previous administration. 2004, as you rightly say. Players left and could not be replaced with equal quality as the financial realities (and the salary cap) started to bite. But it did not help that crowds in 2004 fell by 10% rather than increasing as the club assumed. That, and the totally and utterly disastrous signing of Harris really set the clattering train accelerating downhill.

Unfortunately, said loud-mouthed fekkwits too often mistook appreciation of the financial realities for blind support of the club. Because maybe to think otherwise would have meant facing up to some inconvenient truths, and having to come up with practicable suggestions to resolve the serious financial issues the club faced? Instead of just taking the easy route of merely criticising.

In fact, many of the "loud-mouthed fekkwits" to whom you refer (I assume I am one of them) were far from happy with a lot of things, and most would have snapped the hands off of an experienced coach, myself included. We always assumed that decisions like that reflected financial realities, although most of us also had quite strong views about some of the on-field and off-field decisions being taken, and often got angry about what we saw were dumb decisions.

Unfortunately, having to argue with people with closed minds who about the financial realities inevitably forced polarisation of positions. And led to people feeling they had to defend the club against some of the pure poison that some individuals (wired-up right or otherwise), who seemed to revel in the club's misfortunes if they felt it proved them right, increasingly discharged onto the forum (and elsewhere).

Some of us who maybe know a bit more than most about the nature and extent of the financial realities will no doubt find your reference to the "ignorance" of your fellow Bulls fans to be more than a bit ironic. At the very least.

Most of us were quite optimistic about the prospects for 2010, at least compared with 2009, although few expected the top-4 finish or a major final appearance that was Hood's stated measure of a successful season. We feel as badly let down as anyone else. Maybe more so, since we have tried to understand and appreciate the club's position. Speaking personally, I am extremely angry with the RFL for seemingly deciding at inception they wanted McNamara as England coach, but dragging the process out until the season was well underway causing maximum possible disruption to the Bulls. But that can only be part of the reasons behind the 2010 horror story, and I have to assume something else has not been right behind the scenes. Whether Macca going will alleviate that - I suspect we'll not really get the opportunity to see.

Are you going to the forthcoming fans' forum? That would give you the opportunity to put your points to the club directly. The replies could be quite interesting. Said in all seriousness.

Incidentally, are you aware of just WHY the club had to scrap its own official message board?

It may have been covered already but I haven't read the whole thread, but what was so disasterous about the Harris signing??

Gareth, you know where that (dumbass) "Peoples' Team" (a description that has not ben used for many years now) came from? It was Caisley's attempt to get across the message that the club had no rich owner, so it was more than ever dependent on the people of Bradford for its funding and backing. Badly failed attempt, as we all know. Not helped by a truly dreadful launch where none of this was explained properly.

Bradford is anyway a soccer city (when it is anything) - Bullmania was a welcome blip that the club was unable to sustain (for whatever reason). Odsal is right at the bottom tip of the Bradford Met district, and much of the Odsal hinterland is in Kirklees, Calderdale and Leeds. You can be in any of these districts within a half-hour walk of Odsal - Kirklees less than 20 minutes. I guess this makes seeing Bulls as their local city team a bit hard for much of the potential support base within say ten miles of the stadium.

Does not detract from the fact that many - most- of the new fans attracted during the Bullmania days have deserted, and comparatively few new ones have been recruited.

And without additional funding, and with the various current drains on the club's finances, its hard to see how the situation can be significantly reversed. Catch-22. Big-time. At the moment, most of us are pinning our hopes on the serious talent coming through the academy. And on clubs with a lot more money not coming in to try and steal them.

You don't know?

Well leaving aside the fact that his performances fell way way short of the huge package we were paying him, and that his being recruited led directly to the loss of players like Peacock and Pryce, as well as other young players like Reardon that the club could not afford to give increases to as a result? The little matter of a £3m-plus lawsuit from a financially much stronger (and well-backed, and angry) Leeds had a bit of a bearing...

I think you’ll find that many fans stop going to rugby league games because of the dire quality that gets produce and not because they no longer support their club.

I watched the Bulls v HKR game and, I've got to say, the Bulls were pretty dire. Someone's already mentioned Michael Worrincy, but he really is stealing a living.

That said, all is not without hope, they have some players in Langley, Lynch, Nero, Menzies and L'Estrange that they could build a solid team around and they seem to have a decent number of youngsters coming through.

That's true. You can add Scruton and Kearney to that list. There are the pieces in place for the Bulls to rise again, at least in terms of playing staff. It's no coincidence that we were in 4th spot and still in the cup at the half way point this season. But our paper-thin squad meant that injuries to key players shattered the team and selection of players out of position did nothing to help stem the tide

Well, I reckon you've got the right man in Potter to start the rebuild. I'd also say that, even though I thought you played badly against HKR, you still scored 24 points, which shows the squad still has some abilty. I think all the bulls fans agree there's a bit of dead wood to be stripped off the playing squad, though.

I'd no idea about that to be honest but remember it being very vomit inducing at the time.

In a way it's been a shame for you longer term that your new supporter base had so much early success. I wonder if this current drop in form would have had the same effect on your support?

Vomit-inducing doesn't even come close - and we had to live with it!

I think it was cause and effect. The earlier Bullmania support base built up as the club invested the Sky money far more sensibly than most - into coaches, marketing, infrastructure, youth development (where Bulls had been dire) etc rather than joining in the player salaries arms race that absorbed so much of the early years SL money at big clubs that should have known better. Instead, the Bulls selectively picked a number of key players form other clubs who together meshed to form a team as strong as any in the competition.

So this led to success on the field backed up by a huge marketing drive and effort off it. Now wonder the crowds soared.

But even then, the signs were there that it would be hard to sustain. Look at 1998 - lots of injuries, too-high expectations, disastrous marquee signing (do they ever learn...?), the froth had already gone off Bullmania, even then.

My guess is that had the massive marketing effort off the pitch not been matched with the 1997 carry-all-before-us performances ON the pitch, then we'd not have seen crowds anything like those we did. And the whole huge gamble might not have paid off, and sponsors and everyone else might soon have decided the bubble had burst. Just my opinion, mind.

Fortunately the bubble did not burst. 1998 was a lean year, but things picked up again.

Until, for whatever reasons the money ran out...

I would say that is a fair assumption. The whole off-the-field activities of Bullmania, such as significant investment in marketing, merchandising and the 'game day experience' concept also coincided with the club's first Wembley appearance for twenty-odd years and first silverware for sixteen years.

Although I'd gone to a couple of games in previous years, I first really started going to watch Bradford regularly in the 1997 season as a 13 year old. The fact the 22 game season began with a 20 game winning streak was pretty amazing and it used to be awesome going to Odsal, watching us destroy teams with so much stuff going on around the stadium. If 1997 had been a 1998 style season and 1998 was the same, I don't think it would have been the same going to Odsal and I probably wouldn't have gone back every other week and still be here 13 years later (albeit, not necessarily going back every other week!).