www.loverugbyleague.com/news_241 ... ation.html Here they go again. Not good news.

www.loverugbyleague.com/news_241 ... ation.html Here they go again. Not good news.

You have to feel for the long suffering Bulls fans. I still miss the home Derby Games against the Bulls. I hope they find a way back to SL but their experience is a salutory lesson to us all, drop out of SL at your peril. For me this speaks to a much wider and more worrying weaknesses in the game in this country. It feels as if professional RL in the Northern Hemisphere is little by little, slowly fading away.

very sad indeed. Only 10 years ago they were the most successful team of the SL era and had just been crowned World Champions.

Franchising anyone - a 10 team SL, 4 on each side of the Pennines, London and Catalans.

London
Catalans
Leeds
Cas
Hull
Bradford or Wakefield
Saints
Wigan
Warrington
Widnes or Leigh

5 year franchise - must run reserve side and an academy

This is a blow to English rugby league, we need a strong bulls side . Sadly this seems unlikely in the near future.
Pehraps it's me ,but the whole game at the moment seems flat and stale. The last ten minutes of the England -Kiwi game just about summed up our game. A series of up and under kicks which would not trouble a decent pub side, never mind a rock solid Ki-Wi defence.

A good idea, trouble is the game is skint at the moment. Several so called major clubs are struggling financially .

We like a championship buy this season so Adam O'Brien or Alex Mellor wouldn't go a miss.

Just can't see how Bradford can ever thrive in that stadium

I don't either, it is a giant millstone around their necks.

Fair point though isn't it owned (and presumably maintained) by the RFL? While they (i.e. Bradford) may not thrive surely any arrangement between the parties isn't so punitive that the Bulls could be forced into administration again?

Well done Agent Harris.

Purely on the back of living a lie cheating a comp & spending money they didn't have nowt sad about it imo.

Not in 2006.

really

hmmmmm......

....... yep, i'm right

Owned by the Council, primary lease RFL. Bulls lease it and maintain it from RFL. Part of the problem is that the Bulls are contracted to play at the ground. The bigger problem is that the RFL could pull the Bulls membership of the RFL should they want to move away. Bulls are currently on life support waiting for the switch to be turned to off. Unfortunately most of us are sick of the struggle.

Wouldn't be a bad idea buying the bulls and using them as a Leeds Reserves team, playing under the Bulls name. It would mean any player not making our 17 would play at a decent Championship level.

Ah, cheers. That casts a different light on it. For the good of the game, it sounds as if the council and the RFL should try to come up with a better arrangement.

I'd agree with that, but think I'd go with 12 teams. Franchising is the best way for us to not only survive, but develop as a sport. P and R promotes short termism

The Bulls seem to have been so badly managed for so long. You have to feel sorry for the fans if nothing else.

I think Caddick and GH might have slight reservations tbh.

IIRC it's owned by the Council. The RFL own the lease. Again IIRC, I think the RFL bought the lease when Bradford went into administration a few years ago to prevent it being sold to the "wrong party".

I would imagine the RFL merely hold the lease to prevent it being sold and any maintenance of the stadium is entirely down to Bradford.

But aside from costs it's virtually impossible to improve without totally knocking it all down and rebuilding which is of course a massive task and leaving it as it is will only lead to a steadily reducing fan base.

It being the Bulls aside its really depressing to see this happening again, I agree the game in the northern hem is going stale and becoming a second rate sport that appears to be run by numpties and amatuers the games against aus & nz were so depressing, we still look years behind them when it comes to the crunch

The worst bit it that the players knew absolutely nothing until the press release this morning. Must be a horrible situation to be in.

Indeed, does seem a bit offside that.