Isn't Ben Harrison still at Warrington? I'm sure when they announced their squad numbers, they said he was still at the club but only wasn't given a number because they were expecting him to spend the season on loan (which turned out to be Leigh and never happened).

Yeah a loan deal may be on the cards, but people keep talking like he's a free agent. I don't think he is.

[iDavid Thorne - Talking to The Yorkshire Post, the man who helped turnaround the fortunes of stricken Premiership rugby side Wasps, said:

“The level of professionalism I was expecting from the RFL was the same as I’d expect from the RFU but there was disparity between that expectation and reality. They are in a difficult situation, though, and it’s not easy for them. The story broke of my interest as our group had agreed to purchase the assets of Bradford Bulls Northern Limited (in administration) from the administrators after the decision was made the club could no longer trade and importantly, after advising the RFL of our intention.

“Although all the staff are made redundant, you can still make an offer to the administrator for, in effect, the intellectual property – the name, the trophies, website – which can give you a competitive edge in the process later on.

“Initially there was no opposition from the RFL who were given the opportunity to veto the process, and Bradford Bulls Capital Limited was formed. A meeting was held with the players and staff on Thursday, January 5 at Odsal Stadium. Again, contrary to media reports, the RFL were aware of this meeting and there was an RFL staff member present for most of that meeting.
“But it became clear after committing to the acquisition, the RFL changed its position. The problem was I don’t think they understood what was really going on.”

Thorne’s consortium pulled out of that transaction[/i

The above report is why I think the relationship between Wood and our owners skewed the process, in my view there was only ever going to be one outcome from day one.

As for the reasons behind all this, its a choice of sheer incompetence or as suggested - something more sinister and/or rewarding (for some!)

For the life of me I cannot work out why anyone would up sticks to Bradford and take this mess on OR the RFL answer to the question about their previous liquidation for 24 million NZD was "A phone call to NZ cleared up the issue"!!

Fit and proper owner test my butt.

I remain suspicious and angry - but continue to support the poor sods left behind.

I support the academy, as it's good for the game of rugby league that clubs run them.

If I were the Bulls' owner, I'd question the value of an academy to a [ichampionship[/i club though. We, at substantial cost, bring them through the junior ranks and then will be out bid for our own juniors when they hit open age. You can't blame the kids; their pathway to being a top rugby player is blocked by the fact we are not in the top division, so clearly the lure of clubs like Huddersfield, who don't seem to have an academy, is obvious.

Maybe the RFL should say that the salary of players who came through your own academy aren't counted on the cap? That would, at least, be an incentive to those in SL who clearly do it on a shoestring. As it is, we spend a large amount bringing on players and we'll be lucky to get a season out of most of those lads, when they are still raw and rough around the edges, whilst the real benefit of our work then goes elsewhere.

I was going to raise this point on twitter a minute ago but thought better of publicly slating the new owners.

Andrew Chalmers told in a interview "its going to be a struggle"

Surely once again if the RFL had done their job and picked the right bidder they should have had adequate finance in place so it wasn't a struggle?

I'm not talking about a sugar daddy either but if someone came in and invested in the team we have either the biggest of second largest support in the league, if we were successful even at championship level we would improve on this bringing in more revenue.

For me it shouldn't be about cloth cutting when there is no cloth left to cut, it should be about investing in the business to make it return even a modest profit or break even.
I respect Lowes and Chalmers RL knowledge and previous careers, but if they don't have the money to get us off the ropes why were they given the club???
This is where the theory they are RFL patsies comes into its own.

Ok we are on a tight championship budget but the likes of Joseph, Foster, Burr, Kavanagh, Moss and Chissy aren't exactly Jonathan Thurston or Cooper Cronk, and would have taken a slight cut in wages to have a job for the year.

All the players you have mentioned HAVE got jobs for the year and there's probably only Joseph that will have taken a pay cut as he preferred part time.

Before you all jump on me, I'm not a hudds fan however wakey signed 4 of your academy, cas one, Wigan one and hull one, hudds didn't sign any of them, yes they took o'brien and mellor but hull kr took moss, sheff Chisholm Leigh Clare and burr

As gouge your own eyes out frustrating as it is and was seeing the squad been picked bare by other clubs,
The only people to blame are the previous owners...

Our home grown lads Mellor and O Brian are the hardest to take, especially to be 2nd choice at Huddersfield Eagles.

Probably all a load of cobblers but I was told (I know... huge sighs...) that allegedly, the RFL had told their chosen chums that 'they'd need to bide their time to get control of the club'. This was before Christmas. Before liquidation.

I've heard it from several unrelated people, but people who've been highly accurate with information before.

I suppose I am interested to know if anyone else heard this?

You'd have to assume it's not true because if it was, you'd have expected Cha-low to hit the ground running a little faster than it appears, with finances in place and a clear plan to stabilise and over-come the -12.

If that's the case it makes sense. It's in the RFL's best interests to keep a Bradford club up and running. They have obviously chosen a 'safe' pair of hands. Therefore they are in the firing line if it goes belly up again. Nigel Wood hates us, that is fact. But the RFL need us, at least until 2019!! But (sigh) from what I have been told, a 'backer' has already been involved a little bit.

Chalmers and Lowe have cut spending, brought in sponsors and made huges statements in;

Keeping the Academy and a lot of the lads.
Re-Signing Leigh Beattie and John Bastian.
Signing Geoff Toovey.

I firmly believe they are currently assessing where we are financially. And will need to see how many season ticket sales there has been, assess the income from merchandise sales and finally evaluate what sort of walk up support they can expect (hard to judge on 1st game) before they make any more big financial decisions. We are already on the lowest funding for the Cham. We finish anywhere higher for next season we already have more money than we currently do.

You've no evidence of that whatsoever. Is Neil Hudgell skint? Because i wonder what sort of club Hull KR would be now with £150k funding.

I don't get the mind set of some supporters. 4 weeks a go we had no club. Gone. Liquidated. Christ the owners even had to fork out just to be able to be called Bradford Bulls again. The same people kicking off saying we're not signing players x y & z are probably the same ones who topped VBFGs post list on the admin thread kicking off at Marc Green for killing our club.


Some fans seem to be forgetting a few points.


1. Liquidation - this happened. We had no club or players. So that enabled the likes of KR to offer Kavanagh, Moss etc better contracts than we could. Even if KR just matched our offer. Who would you sign for. KR or the Bulls on -12?

2. Budgets - i know we've had 3 admins and a liquidation but some fans seem to think budgets don't matter. I'd have loved to still see Alex Foster and Dane Chisholm play for us. But i'll have a guess that they were on a fair whack. If we can't afford their wages then we can't afford. That doesn't make Cha-Lo crap owners. These mystery billionaire owners people keep mentioning probably don't exist. I don't buy the RFL conspiracy rubbish. Looking at the.pretty poor SL atrendances at the weekend, the RFL want ateam who attracted 4k to their game after 3 admins and a liquidation to survive.

3. Player availability. At the start of the season nearly all players are signed up. Teams aren't even going to let their fringe players go at the beginning of the season.

4. Reputation - again its alright mentioing Joseph, Foster etc but our reputation is like mud at the moment. Players didn't get paid Decemeber wages. players want stability and our reputation is we don't provide that.

Im not a Cha-Lo apologetic. If in 2 months time we still haven't recruited some forwards then by all means criticise. The point im making is i don't know if they will be good for us. There appears to be a lot of experts who think they've sussed out how much money they have and that they're bad for the Bulls because they haven't brought decent expensive players that they want within 4 weeks of rebuilding the club from scratch.

I think the original plan to overcome the -12 was to have most of last year's squad still in harness at Odsal - or to be more accurate, the -12 was to prevent us having [iany great advantage[/i from[i still having[/i most of last year's squad.

Unfortunately reactions weren't fast enough to follow the changing circumstances, hence, due to sheer bloody mindedness at Rot Hall, we are where we are imo.

-12, the punishment that keeps on giving....

We have already been given the 12th place funding for this year, and our punishment is to be kept in the CH with -12, which will then lead to less funding next season as well, which has a knock-on effect on the team & the support and all the extra funding streams.

With 2019 being rumoured as some kind of deadline for a ground being developed at Odsal, we will almost certainly be feeling the effects of that -12 deduction in 2020.

That single act of keeping us in the CH with a points deduction, massively hampers our recovery and therefore our ability to influence events at Odsal.

Who on earth could benefit from that? Is there an organisation with a conflict of interest in all this?

Who is this mystery investor???
Please do tell what's the rumour??

I thought it was common knowledge that they aren't sugar daddies?


Neil's far from skint, but wtf is that to do with us?


Then maybe you can't read, as the concerns have been very plainly expressed by many including that they find it difficult to understand why Cha-Low got the gig, nobody knows what the plan is, Cha-Low are doing or saying nothing to make us feel any easier, and the multi-million insolvency in NZ is hardly confidence-inspiring. What with all the very public complaints about the admin and new club process, the stories that bidders with real money to put in were fscked off etc., the claims that the RFL have engineered the whole thing, all combine to make me ultra-suspicious and I fear for the future existence of our club.

That's my mindset. If you don't get any aspect I'll be happy to explain further.

The bidders with real money had no regard to the rugby side of things. Why do you think they offered so little to the creditors that liquidation was the better option? They wanted the Odsal site that's it. If they were truly serious they would have bought the club outright. Retained the better part of the squad and redeveloped the Odsal site. Alas they did not. They didn't even offer a slightly better offer than liquidation either.

Like Bull Boy 2011 I believe all the so called big money bids were after Odsal not the club, maybe that's why the RL backed out of allowing them to buy the club. Didn't those who bought Wasps then buy Coventry City's ground and banish City to play elsewhere.

For once I will applaud the RFL. They took the Odsal lease off the table and said whoever was successful then they would open discussions on Odsal. Meaning that anyone wanting it HAD to ensure they bought the Bulls and stuck to any criteria (I believe it was 2-3 years sustainability and RL in Bradford) before they even had discussions regarding the ONLY thing they wanted (land for development).

Interesting debate between the glass half full and almost empty factions.
Sunday was pretty dismal - everything seemed to conspire against us including the weather which was made for their big forwards. Very frustrating to see big Samir making yards for fun, having been our player just 2 years ago. To me he looked promising then but as with many Lowes/Ferres signings seemed to disappear without being given a fair chance.
Leon looked uninterested - maybe carring an injury but certainly not behaving like a captain.
Most worrying of all was the pre-match interview I heard on BCB with Toovey who said "if I stay on and become Bradford coach" - suggesting that he's having second thoughts aleady. I couldn't help but cast my mind back to being on Manly beach last September and thinking "why the hell would he come here". He clearly didn't know what he was taking on and i'm beginning to think the visa is a smokescreen. According to today's T&A even Leigh Beattie doesn't know what is going on.
I really really do hope that Cha- Lowe have a plan for us to at least compete this season and go down fighting with Toovey in charge - but the deafening silence is beginning to give me great doubts and think that we're all heading for even more heartache. Of course if Toovey gets his visa and we get a couple of big forwards in from New Zealand it could all look a lot rosier in a few weeks time??

You seem to be a naïve person. Buying the club outright would have involved taking on £2m plus of debt. Do you really think anyone would do that?

How was liquidation a "better option"? I don't believe any creditor will get any more than pence out of the liquidation, if anything at all, because they hardly ever do. Certainly, the creditors won't now get a penny from Cha-Low so I'm struggling to see what's "better". No doubt you can clarify.

And who "wanted the Odsal site that's it", and what evidence do you have for claiming this?

Far from naive pal. I am aware they would have taken on the debt. And if they were truly serious about saving the Bradford club and had 'mega money' aka a sugar daddy. This would have been pocket change. Especially those we were linked with at the time (Leo Group, Gareth Roberts etc). So yes. They would have done that if the RL club was at the forefront of their minds. Funny though how all these big names were involved right up until the RFL pulled the offer of the Odsal lease and were willing to negotiate after the club had been guaranteed survival.

Liquidation was the better option because legally the administrators HAVE to find the best option for the creditors. If there was a viable option delivered to the administrators they would have had to accept. The offers may have been 10p in the £1. Liquidation and selling off assets may have given the creditors 12p in the £1 from selling off assets. Plus the administrator clearly stated in one of his press releases that liquidation would have provided the creditors with more money then any of the tabled offers.

Obviously the creditors won't get anything from Cha-Low as they created a brand new company

What ties do they have to the Marc Green owned company? Why do you think there are numerous liable cases against Green? So that some creditors may get some money back or at least ensure he is prosecuted for his wrong doings.

Anyone with half a brain wouldn't come out right and claim that they only wanted Odsal. That would scupper any chance they had of gaining that lease from the RFL. Sawrij had no connection with the Bulls, didn't bid once before in previous 3 admins and wasn't even rumoured this time around until the Odsal lease and land were evaluated somewhere in the millions and then talk of selling the lease to potential owners, well Sawrij jumped on that and suddenly he's a bidder. Roberts needs a new ground for Park Avenue to progress. They are stuck where they are based on their ground (results aside). Again no interest in the Bulls or RL but the ground.

Tell me. When the RFL pulled the Odsal lease from the deal. And were willing to negotiate that as a separate deal after the Bulls had been saved. Who said yes, RL is our priority here and we want the club and RL to thrive? Lamb? Wanted the fans to own the club which wouldn't have been sustainable. So where did Sawrij, Roberts and the others go? Surely even you can't be that naive.

As sad as it sounds. That Odsal ground is a millstone financially, yes but the land it lays on is in prime development location. And because the RFL own the lease I think that's what saved us. If they hadn't have played hardball we wouldn't have been looking at a brand new spanking stadium anyway with a financially secure Bulls. Saying that it is now in the RFL's best interests to keep Odsal. They are looking to relocate, they already own a lease to a site, win win for them.

But I digress. We are where we are and we constantly are going over the same things over and over again.

The plan I assume, is to keep costs down and be more financially viable than previous years. ChaLow have done this by bringing in sponsors, slashing the wage bill massively and the RFL reducing our rent.

To me these are good signs off the field. Yes I do believe they are hand picked by the RFL, for what reasons only Rimmer and Wood will know. But I choose to believe that these two will be good enough to sustain this club and are not too bothered about the lease at this time. Thus allowing the RFL to profit on it in a few years when the rugby side of things wears out. I think between now and then ChaLow will get some money in

Apparently there IS a plan, and our new sponsors Utilita have heard them....

[urlhttp://utilita.co.uk/news/61/utilita-announces-new-partnership-with-bradford-bulls-2017[/url

Taken from T+A dated 13th December 2016, doesn't really give any details as such but the last paragraph is interesting, and throughout no talk from Roberts about 'saving the Bulls' and allowing 'RL to prosper'. It's all about BPA, improving a ground, leaving a legacy from him and BPA:

[iHe was back in Bradford last week and is believed to have held talks with the council regarding the future of Horsfall Stadium.

Roberts has pumped money into Avenue but wants to leave a legacy for the future as a self-sufficient community club. Under his ownership, they have set up a new academy and there are big plans to develop the ground.

He is due to return to England again at the end of next month for Avenue’s community benefit society annual meeting.

There has been frequent talk of a link with Avenue and the Bulls – and news of Roberts’ interest will lift fans who are becoming increasingly anxious as the administration period stretches into a fifth week.

Pettit’s optimism for a swift resolution is not matched by Odsal supporters. There are also thought to be concerns within some of the interested parties about the process.

Creditors owed money by the club must still vote on whether to accept the winning bid.

But any deal promising to pay them back in the shortest time is more likely to be of the speculative property-based variety and would not necessarily be the best for safeguarding rugby league in Bradford.[/i

Sat looking at Odsal from the stand on Sunday it is a massive stadium, and far far to big for what we need.
However with regards to developing it I cant see what use it would be other than land fill as there isn't a lot of "building land" its a massive bowl with a rim around the top that you could maybe put bars and restaraunts around it.
The land at the back of the stadium is also an old landfill site so I don't know how you would go about building on that..

The only development plan I can see is build a smaller say 15k seater (you never know we may need it in years to come) stadium on Dunnies and fill Odsal in.

talk of a Wembley of the North has been pie in the sky for 80 years, The RFL couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery let alone finance and build a national RL stadium.
Speaking of which when you look at Murrayfield, Cardiff, and Twickers and the crowds, you have to be envious RU is $hit but them boys have it sorted.
Maybe we should poach their marketing staff and top brass they like poaching our players and coaches.