I'd call what they did unethical. In hindsight I'd have probably made the same decision as you, but at the time the plea was made the club didn't have a history of stumbling from one financial mess to the next and the final level of debt was certainly not known.

The fact that after a £1.2m 'windfall' a further £1m was needed to prevent the Bulls from administration wasn't a good enough indicator?

The information at the time was 1m would get us to the end of the season debt free, not just 1m was needed immediately to avoid admin. The information turns out to have been wildly incorrect but at the time I judged it differently.

Yet to a man the Trinity supporters saw through the charade. I know it's harder when you're emotionally involved and you have the supporter base to get somewhere near the money required, but straight away many said the directors who were personally guaranteeing the overdraft were just looking for an out of a individually crippling situation. The Bulls fans, former players and rival clubs allowed them to go through with it. If only that half a million had been ploughed into the new company, we may not have the situation we have now.

I can agree with that, but at the time I didn't know that the directors were guaranteeing the loans and it's difficult for me to say now if it would have made a difference to me at the time. I think your history with Ted Richardson had probably made you more cynical and as you said it's not just a rational decision you make.

If Bradford are so desperate for money why dont they go to their sponsor - Provident............

They could borrow £500,000 until 2017 and repay about £7.4 million

Quite a bit.

None did


No directors did.

I have told you lot and others repeatedly what happened. If you chose to ignore that and believe what you wanted to believe, that was up to you.

I can fully substantiate all of the above statements. If any of you want me to, and will actually listen, then please let me know and I will. Again.

But you might just want to bear in mind that:

1 - Administrators were appointed on 26/6/12. The Pledge closed at the start of April. A lot happened in the interim. ANd a lot did not.

2 - The board that asked for the pledge was removed by the majority shareholders (resigned before pushed) at the start of May. Having been stymied form any action post-pledge by the largest shareholder saying he intended to convene a meeting to remove them. They never had the opportunity to show if they could save the club. That board owned about 25% of the shares, but were facing 100% of the liabilities.

3 - It was a new board, representing a majority of the other shareholders who were NOT on the old board, who appointed administrators. Nearly two months after the old shareholder directors went.

4 - Between those two dates, a lot of creditors at the date the pledge closed were quite clearly paid, and three monthly payrolls were paid.

You are quite right IMO to be very angry at the board that appointed administrators. I was, having paid about £1k in total myself to the pledge fund.

But that board was NOT the board that asked for the pledge.

The Alastair Campbell of Bratfud Bulls

There are so many Bulls conversations it is hard to decide where to comment but here goes.

I'm no liberal sit on the fence and hug everybody guy but it seems to me that Bradford fans are going through similar to what we went through and have my sympathy more than the negativity shown by some.
The arguements are being caused as much by misinformation or trolls just trying to pitch a fight between us.
The same happened with cas and the stadiums.

Neither the fans nor players have ceated this and I'm sure want the best. You can't blame the players for wanting a good wage or the supporters for hoping they don't get a points deduction. We'd want the same if it was us.
No one has made a decision about points deductions to date yet everybody is argueing about how justified or unfair it is .
Should Bradford have let their players go? None of us know the finances involved and can only go on the odd piece in the paper and forum experts.
I seriously don't understand why it winds people up so much.

We should concentrate on our club.

Whether the rules worked for us or not when Richardson was in charge, by forcing the issue we didn't go in to admin and got Glover who improved things in many ways but ultimately, was a better option that staying how we were. Being saved from admin and staying with Ted was not the best option there in my opinion.

Same thistime, if MC had not been forced to really cut costs we would still have had a team we couldn't afford and if the extra 300k had made it cost effective we just would have just been wasting it on Mellors and Poore inflated contracts.

We now at least have what seems to be a managable situation, with money coming in after we have cut the expenses. that extra can now be used in a much more efficient way.

Bradford have clearly been badly managed. More so than Wakefield.
We had nothing and missed opportunities to make it better
They had something great and broke it.

I feel sorry for them but I hope we do better than they do.

come the end of the season your opinion might change when you think back of how we had to readjust to suit our team to suit our finances while others just plod regard less if we go down.
yes its not the players fault and certainly not the fans fault but I'll be damned if to just see our club suffer for some other ones smart tactics.

This.
People just want consistency and fairness from the RFL when applying rules/giving support to clubs.... It's when that doesn't happen people get tense. Relegation at the end of the season also sharpens the mind when looking at these issues.

I understand the point and I may well change my mind, but right now I haven't seen anything to say they won't be punished.
If the rules say they should lose points and they get points deduction, and they still finish higher, I have no issue.

If they manage to pay their players after not selling any, then I'm ok with that too.
If they tried to cheat everybody but don't get caught, then maybe they have better accountants than we do and should learn from that. If it's proved they have cheated in some way, I'll be casting stones with everyone else.

Sorry PopTart, but you're way off beam on this one.

All that the fans want is a fair and transparent system where ALL clubs are treated fairly.

This didn't happen at the time of the last Bulls debacle (remember the utter nonsense that was "saving an iconic stadium" from predatory forces) and this was on top of the Bulls being given a 3 year SL license, (which in part was down to sound finance))only to go pop within a matter of months.
And this has been followed by more unbalanced treatment.
MC informing the Wakefield fans, that if we entered admin then, we would be relegated and subsequently selling our top 5 players (excluding Kirmo) just to survive.
This was followed by the Bulls entering and coming out of admin just a couple of weeks before the start f the season AND stating that not only was their SL spot safe, but that there would be no points deduction (this comment was subsequently removed)
Personally, I couldn't give a damn what happens to Bradford, my only concern is for the game and in particular Wakefield Trinity and if the administrators are not both even handed and more importantly, publically seen to be even handed, then our game appears to be corrupt.
This appears to have been the case for much of the SL era, starting with the relegation of the bottom section of the top flight when SL started and followed by the mergers of Hudd/Sheff, Gateshead/Hull, the promotion of certain clubs instead of others etc, etc, ....I could go on.

The cynics amongst us still worry about the spectre of relegation and IF the doomsday scenario of Catalan and London finish in 13th & 14th this season, how many people would expect both clubs to go down ??

As I said at the outset, the problem is not directly with the Bulls, it is with the perceived unequal treatment.
There should be no favourites and if we are expanding the league, for the long term good of the game, then this should be made clear for all to see an not fudged and changed to suit which way the wind is blowing.

Rant over

by the end of the season, them stones should of been thrown now

we have been too honest for are own good and could of left us with a weaken side, last years team would of waltz this season away from the bottom, instead some of them players could come back to haunt our club,
we have still to gel with the new players lets cross fingers eh