Personally find it a real difficult one this .....

I have to admit that I was probably one of the first to wake up with a rather large grin on my face yesterday morning at the imminent demise of our nearest and not so dearest.....

1995 and all that coming back to bite you and your one- eyed glory hunter 'fans' on the derriere ....

But then over the years both in a supporting and work capacity I've met some good honest rugby league folk who work their a****s off for their club ,the Dulls , in much the same way as we do at CP and some real supporters (mainly I have to say who have watched since the Northern days ) who are fair knowlegable and generous in their praise of the other teams contribution.

For them to be out of work or losing their club I cant gloat over that and know how we'd feel if it happpend to us ( though the fact that the RFL were prepared to sit back and watch us in the past along with Crusaders, Blackpool , Bramley et al all go through that with little support is hardly likely to happen in this case !!!) and good luck to them in trying to retrieve the current situation especially if it includes some part ownership by the fans .

What seriously worries me now from a Keighley POV is that more of our local Taxes will go into the bottomless pit at Odsal as it has done in the past , money that will make our 20k look like mere loose change .....

www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/578 ... VAL%20FAQS The bit on good news is interesting it says bulls would be debt free, apart from going into administration and starting afresh I cannot see how else which should concern those asked to pledge. In addition to this it appears bank have drastically reduced overdraft which could happen to anyone anytime, however banks have to and do give notice of any changes therfore someone was made aware.

www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news/578 ... VAL%20FAQS The bit on good news is interesting it says bulls would be debt free, apart from going into administration and starting afresh I cannot see how else which should concern those asked to pledge. In addition to this it appears bank have drastically reduced overdraft which could happen to anyone anytime, however banks have to and do give notice of any changes therfore someone was made aware.

It's simple. The Bulls directors haven't got enough money. They have to pay their players (a lot) less.

These players who have families to feed and mortgages to pay?

I'd be very sceptical if I was unfortunate enough to be a B*lls fan. Effectively the owners are asking the fans to pay their debt off for them. In that situation I'd want guarantees that the board would resign and sell their stakes in the club at a knock down price as soon as the debt is cleared before paying out anything.

Sorry 'Spymaster' but it can't be blamed on the bank. If the Directors of Northern knew that the bank was relying on their Lease of Sodal as security for their overdraft then they must have realised that replacement security would have been required after its sale to the RFL. Supported personal Guarantees by the Directors would have been sufficient but why did the Directors not consider this as an alternative? Perhaps they did yet still had little faith in their 'Business Plan'.

Then something else hit me this morninghttps://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/rugby-league/bradford-bulls-ask-fans-to-raise-1m-or-club-will-fold-7593459.htmlrl

Check the penultimate paragraphIt is still an alarming situation for a famous club. Nobody embraced the concept of summer rugby more successfully than Bradford, who invented much of the razzmatazz that now accompanies the game. The Bulls won four Super League titles, along with World Club Championships and Challenge Cups, but financial reality bit with the loss of key players and a ruinous determination to beat Leeds to the signature of Iestyn Harris.'"

Makes me feel sick and angry, can you forward a link to this thread to various Twitter contacts for radio Leeds, 5 live, pulse, calendar, look north etc, in the hope that tv footage from cougarmania is dug out of the archives?

I think people should be made aware of the tosh being spoken and see the news reports that prove this, I don't think it would be bad publicity for Keighley Cougars, just look at the supportive comments coming through the social network sites for our club so far

I do feel sorry for the Bradford fans and the players and do not wish the situation on any club. For the sake of the sport in general I hope this doesn't happen to any other club any time soon. My heart has sunk so many times when Keighley have had their problems.
Bradford haven't gone into liquidation yet, so it will be interesting to see what happens if they do - I would hope they are suitably penalised. Keighley were penalised and it eventually resulted in relegation to Championship 1. There is no relegation from Superleague so a points deduction is pretty pointless. If they go into administration I think they should lose the license and a more deserving team should be allowed their chance in Superleague which probably right now is Featherstone being last years Championship victors.

The only slightly edited article by Dave HatfieldThe Independent, Friday 11 February 2005
Success of today’s competition rests on radical blueprint provided by a club excluded at the game’s highest level. As the new season kicks off, Dave Hadfield reflects on a decade of revolution.
Super League in debt to Cougars’ crazy originality.

As Super League enters its 10th season tonight, the events of a decade ago begin to acquire a sepia-tinged, mythic quality.
........ For the record, that first Supper League was meant to read like this that television pictures of muddy men playing on muddy fields did nothing for the image of the game.”
Much of what Smith proposed - and for which Keighley had acted as the test laboratory - was incorporated into Super League. Love it or hate it, the hype, the branding, the match-day glitz all started at Cougar Park on dank, chill Sunday afternoons.
The irony was that Keighley were not destined to be part of it, which is a little like John Logie Baird being refused a television licence. The Cougars, who should have been promoted to the top division for the 1995-96 season if Super League had never happened, were completely excluded from the blueprint for the future.
“It would have been bad enough if we had been told to merge with Bradford, but we weren’t even included as a merger,” Smith says. “We were just kicked out.”
Keighley took out an injunction to try to stop the new competition kicking off and only withdrew their legal threat when the offer from News Ltd. Was revamped to include more money for the lower division clubs and the prospect of promotion and relegation.
But for the Cougars, the moment had passed. The disappointment of bbeing denied the promotion they had earned cost them fans and sponsors and Super League went its way without them.
“It has proved to have been a fantastic success and the spectacle is magnificent,” says Smith, without any hint of bitterness. “But every revolution has its casualties and we were the first fo Super League.”
....... The fifth member of that elite has fallen on hard times, with Halifax now looking as far away from Super League as Keighley.
Workington and Oldham have also shown that the descent from Super League can be a painful one, which is why issues at the foot of the table - where two teams will be relegated to make way for the restored French presence of Perpignan in 2006 - will be as compelling as at the top.
..... And Keighley? They will be pursuing a slightly muted form of Cougarmania in their first group stage of the National Rail Cup against Hull KR.'"

Or any other clubs thats had money problems over the last few years to think about it.

What goes around comes around – I’m so very very happy! Bradford Bulls, for me the most despised club in rugby league “Anybody but Bradford!”.

I seem to remember Northern (why did they ever change their name? It was historical) having difficulties back in the sixties and coming round on match days asking for donations to help them reform, we all gave, perhaps just a few pence but we gave. That won’t happen again, if they come on Sunday they better bring a spittoon rather than a bucket because that’s all they’ll get from me.

At Doncaster after our one season in the big league prior to SL we finished bottom, went bust and had to reform starting two divisions further down as we were a new company, two relegations for the price of one! The ground was sold and we had to play at Stainforth Greyhound Stadium. All this happened while the SL bandwagon was getting into full flow and we received no help from anyone but our own fans, however there is no way i would wish this on ANY other team. The people who you should be angry with are the likes of Caisley, Hetherington, Lindsey,SKY etc, these are the people who have ruined RL not the fans of another team.
The best future for RL would be to return to a semi pro status where clubs only pay what they can afford and are not bullied into full time professionalism by the RFL and SKY.
I don't think that the sport can afford to loose 7-10,000 fans whoever they support.

If as happened with halifax yrs ago they said they were at deaths door and fans from all over were duped wonder if similar ploy being used by bulls.

I think the Bulls will survive this with some new investor and avoid administration. Going into administration I'm sure the club would still remain in Super league anyway with a points deduction. I don't reckon there will be much impact on the league or support other than some more poor results and the loss of some of their players. If Bradford Bulls ceased to exist in Superleague (which I very much doubt) I think the issue of the number of fans affected is unfortunate, but inconsequential as the hardcore fans will support Bradford whatever league they are in, more casual sports fans will support somebody else. Some would be lost to rugby league but that said if for example Halifax, Featherstone or even Keighley were in the super league instead, they would build up similar fan bases from new supporters in or around those towns... Swings and roundabouts! In fair sport, Bradford have no more or less right to their place in the Super league than any other Rugby League team that can work their way up there. Fair play to Bradford for being in in the top-flight for so long but I don't think the management should be allowed to squander that position when other teams are constrained by arbitrary rules in their opportunity to get to that same position.