Adey,

You did what all of us would do in the same circumstances, perhaps blinded by a touch of club loyalty, but genuinely, I hope that you come through the other side.
We've had our share of difficulties in the past and it is horrible in the extreme.
Although the RFL buyout of the lease looked odd, I for one will not be gloating and the worry is that there may be other clubs in similar positions.

I have to agree and echo everything you have said Sandal!

Adey - As a prominent Bulls poster I think you should strongly consider taking Sandal's advice & urging fans NOT to support this measure and give up some of their hard earned cash for the longer term good of the club.

Through my support of Newmarket & my friendships with Sandal, TRB and others prominent fans of Trinity, I accidental (for want of a better word) got a neutrals ring-side seat of the issues at Trinity and both what the fans and old management went through in trying to secure the future of the club, but also the future of the then current owners/management! I am not going to get into the whole Ted debate, as my personal dealings with Ted have always been friendly, open, honest and amicable, but it became clear to these closely involved fans that sticking your hand in your pocket might not be the best way to secure the long term future of the club because the management of that club are effectively responsible for the club being in that position in the first place (again, with all due respect to Ted). These fans in the main decided that the time had come to, unfortunately and regrettably that said, not to bail out the current management but to seek a fresh start even though in the short term that was going to be very painful and possibly even condemning themselves to lower league RL... but with a fresh start and fresh management!

I think anyone would now struggle to argue that that was not the correct decision. The club has a fresh, dynamic owner, no debt, a bright future and is most importantly being managed sustainably!

I think you should keep your hands in your pockets with your money and prepare to take the club forward with a fresh future, even outside of SL, than see your money almost certainly disappear down the drain with the existing management of the club!

It's not that incredible when you know that those 10,000 ST's were bought for ten bob and a 's egg.

The more I think about this, the more I suspect that the RFL were complicit; maybe they knew all about it and chose to take the lease on so that it a) wouldn't be an asset that could be stripped by the administrators, b) would deter Steve 'The Predator' Parkin from snapping up the club for a song and c) could be leased back to the pre-pack company that will end up running the Bulls.

The only fly in that particular ointment is the Bulls recent spending spree on new players, longer term contracts for existing players and the hoovering up of quite a few young players; surely the RFL wouldn't let them do that purely to give them something to sell come the inevitable collapse.... would they?

As it stands, if they implode like we did, which seems likely given the impossible deadline they've set for raising a million quid, their best players who are still in contract will likely go to the monied clubs who are prepared to pay now, rather than wait for admin when the players become free agents; think Hull FC, Warrington, Wigan and inevitably Shudds, who are specialists in the fire sale market.

It's a sorry situation and whilst I respect Adey for coming here to apologise, I take no pleasure in their plight; yes they had a few divots who gloated about the Odsal deal (a few sig's being hastily amended this morning I ecpect) in large part, they don't deserve this.

To be honest, if we are talking about the players and fire sale side of things rather than the moral arguement of it, I would probably try for one of the good British props (Scruton, Kopciezk (Spell?) and Burgess but would then concentrate on the youngsters.
Our team is fine and building well. Buying a load of others to either st on the side or push someone out isn't going to do us any good. We are not the team to buy success, we need to build it slowly.

Lets build a good youth team that will reap rewards later.

I would hope that as a club we would not try get in and poach their players , look how we felt about Hudd and Hull when they did that to us and how we felt about the fact that Leeds and Wire helped us. Do unto others as you would have done unto you is how I live my life and feel OUR club has the same ethos.

Having said that if Bulls were pleading with us to take someone off their hands I would not say no to Olivier Elima ( that was for you Dread Nowt )

No sympathy for the bulls management.

Hope this works out for the better for bulls fans though.

As for player poaching? fact is we are short a prop...

Burgess or kopzack I would take. Some club will take them.

I hope they go under.

The Bulls fans have a 'holier than thou' attitude and regularly put down wakey because of their financial problems, ground etc.

Many Bulls fans on here had no sympathy for Wakey's plight and enjoyed it.

Reality check here boys. No doubt you will be looked after though.

In terms of players I think it would be helpful to take players on short term contracts that give Bulls chance to take them back if they come through the financial issues.
That way the player is protected as they are being paid and are have a possible longer contract on offer, but if they get the chance they can go back to the club they played for, helping the club and suporters out.

I guess the problem would be if the player didn't want to go.

Safe to say the BBQ needed over Bradford way. Is it still lurking around here somewhere....

The image of the game is in tatters, what with the problems that London have had, ourselves and Crusaders last season, and now this. Add to that the number of SL clubs who are heavily reliant on wealthy benefactors, rather than operating within their means, and the whole situation looks very unstable. Obviously, it doesn't benefit anyone, and the RFL are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to trying to generate sponsorship income for the game as a whole. Little wonder the best deal they got for SL this season was some free advertising on the side of Eddie's trucks. Looks like 3 of them could be heading to the depot for a re-spray in the not too distant future.

Bad news for the game in general, bad news for Bradford fans in particular.

No No No those clubs won't come in to asset strip their best players. They already spend to the full cap,how can they fit them in ?

Or are there some rules for certain clubs and some rules for others

When the RFL bought the lease the other month I was up in arms, mainly due to the fact Bradford would have a franchise ad infinitum.

The myth touted by Red Hall, Bradford & Co was, it was to secure the sacred cow that is Odsal.

But now it appears




When was this money given to Bradford by the RFL in the first place, and how come it wasn’t made public?

The number of times I hear people claiming the London has been bailed out by the RFL, when it’s purely an urban myth, this fiasco however is not.

Let the daft fans chuck in their hundred quids, but it will go straight to the administrators, because as sure as hell they won’t raise that sort of cash.

Quote: The Devil's Advocate "When was this money given to Bradford by the RFL in the first place, and how come it wasn’t made public?'" This might answer the question: viewtopic.php?p=16795358#p16795358

Quote: The Devil's Advocate "When was this money given to Bradford by the RFL in the first place, and how come it wasn’t made public?'" This might answer the question: viewtopic.php?p=16795358#p16795358

I think it's fair to say that for some clubs, the salary cap is a minor inconvenience...

Correct, but in fairness to us we were excluded from SL at the start and have not won nearly a dozen trophies in that time. To mis manage a long time fading club like Trinity is bad enough, but to get a poster boy club like the Bulls in this sate is criminal and could have been avoided if acted on much much earlier.