Luke Amblers talking about making a playing return. Has a clause in his fax release that he can't sign for a championship club this year. Guess he'll have to go to to SL, Widnes seems a good fit

Going pt would also bring into question the process by which chalo got the go ahead to form the new club. Didn't they have to prove 3 years worth of funding at full time level as per rfl publicly published guidelines for prospective new owners?

I'm not sure it specifically said full time funding did it? Just three years funding. I imagine they would have had to put forward different business plans based on where we finish this year.

So get relegated means part time maybe?

The biggest problem for the RFL is our academy. Keeping that running was one of the main criteria for a new owner. Out of the 42 member clubs, we are the only club that has to run an academy for the next 3 years as part of the business plan. It's basically optional for everyone else (although not running one is daft imho) as it costs between £150k - £300k to run one. We are 1/8 of the top rated academies in the game and p/t would shaft that, totally.

You're probably right to be fair. I just don't understand the thinking of taking over without putting serious funds in to avoid the catastrophic drop into c1. in that case starting in c1 this year and building up would be infinitly preferable to crashing down into c1 and basically wasting a year.

I'd always assumed a plan, the indication of which was the signing on of toovey, and that there were clearly things going on behind the scenes, but the longer this season goes I'm less convinced of that.

We can still avoid relegation with a bit of luck (not that weve had much of that in the last ten years) and some longer term playing additions to the squad, but it's looking more like a pt future whichever league we end up in next year, pt and playing out of the Odsal money pit would put an end to the aspirations of top flight rl for the foreseeable future IMHO.

Seems one person came on here stirred and up the new owner rumour mill..

But hasn't ellaborated any further.

Same old same old.

Looks like we are stuck with limited prospects

Anyone remember back in 2002? When we'd be in position to finish a season and have NO major situations or dramas?

I miss those days

I was thinking that myself.
Someone comes on and starts with the words "I have been told" and then sits back and watches the pages tick over.
We see it time and again and people fall for it till someone else comes on starting with "I have heard from a reliable person" and it starts again.

Hasn't there been a recent quote from Chalmers saying he wanted/expected us in SL in 2 years?

Unfortunately when the communication from the club is so crap and no credible local media to ask questions of the club it leaves fans to try and fill in the gaps themselves. Invevitably that leads to speculation that is in some cases a load of old cobblers.

I've never felt so disconnected from the club that I've supported for 20 odd years. Yes we get it Chalmers/Jas you are not one for making big statements you cannot deliver. But give us a bloody clue what your hopes/plans are for the future. Even if that's a couple of scenarios dependant on where we end up finishing.

Care to ellaborate on previous statements redeverready?

I was just thinking that earlier

I've been a supporter, man and boy, for 50 years and I don't think I've ever felt as disconnected to the club as I do right now. I'm posting this in the (most likely) vain hope that someone, somewhere might read this thread and come to realise that the supporter base cannot be taken for granted indefinitely.

If your meaning me I never said new owners. I said we wouldn't go down and it might be Chalmers name on door but it's not him pulling strings,

Are we likely to ever be in a better position given the "string puller"?

Why does everyone have to talk in code?

This is Rugby League not a conspiracy to take over the world.

Its like Christmas 2016 all over again - rumour rumour rumour, up, down, up, down

Someone wake me up when its all sorted and I can start focusing on the game again rather than the politics

Just hoping there will be loan signings this week that will indicate a step in the right direction.Got the bones, but need the flesh on them.

Loan signings have given us a chance, in difficult circumstances from a standing start, but they're a double-edged sword as the absences of loanees have also cost us dear several times and will do again. One of our problems is our owners seem to either have no money for the sort of signings we all know we need, or no wish to spend it.

If you belive that's all because they "know" something nudge wink that means we are "safe" regardless of where we finish due to a top secret deal with RFL then we'll have to agree to differ because that sounds like wishful thinking or maybe horse to me.

The fact we are even thinking of questioning the ownership is not to be desired.This Club is a Family and as our previous recent owners betrayed our trust, the last thing we need is another dose of subterfuge. Shame, if it ever was. So, optimism is all we've got, belief..not so sure. Time will tell.

I would agree with this completely. I confess I'm not reading most of this thread as I got bored of the "I know something but I'm not telling" stuff, which I know people are just trying to help, but unless I'm going to be given facts, I'm not that interested.

But those posts are born out of the fact that there are no facts for us to go on. God awful communication, club totally ignoring most queries unless it's a total sh*tstorm like the away shirt debacle (and even then, totally fobbing people off). When there is "communication", it's usually website articles or social media posts that are either short with hardly any info, or totally pointless puff pieces, all of which appear to be written by someone who has English as their fourth language.

In the past I've always felt "part" of the the club. Not just a supporter, but a small part of a larger beast that are all together in the goals. Now, I turn up to a game every weekend, enjoy myself or laugh at how awful it is, then go home and forget about it again. Read the forums, read social media etc, but really aren't that interested any more. And that's largely down to a total lack of engagement. In fact, Provident are 100 times better at engaging with the fans than the club are. I knock him more than anyone, but even Gledhill is 50 times better at engaging with the fans than the club are. I appreciate they probably have other things to concentrate on, but ignore the fans for too long and you won't have many left.

There is no pointless story in the T & A today so you would think there is some signing news to show up in the sports section today..

I must admit I have been drawn into the new owner / RFL speculation myself and I think it is just wishful thinking that there is a light at the end of this god awful tunnel.

With regards to players been told they may be part time next year if we are relegated to C1 then this would have to be the case.

Lets see what today holds! there might be a flood of exciting announcements, then again maybe not.

Andrew Chalmers isn't going anywhere. He's just bought a house near Bradford and is currently in the process of relocating.

There's a lot of silly rumours going around at the minute.

Totally correct and I feel very similar. I regrettably dumped the Season Ticket this year after almost 20 years, but the club haven’t said or done anything that have made me consider I’ve made the wrong choice, to the point I didn’t even realise we were playing on Saturday until the game was over (thought it was Sunday. Lucky I didn’t have flights and a ticket!)

I think I remember saying that the new owners had a grace period of goodwill and then the defeats would start to rack up and frustration would set in if we didn’t have any clear answers or a plan. That, sadly, seems to be coming to pass now. As HamsterChops rightly points out the absence of information is creating a vacuum where “fake news” thrives. We’ve got more things in pipelines than Super Mario World, and to say the fans are being taken for granted is an understatement. It’s rare you see such a lack of appreciation that the fans are the club and key to keeping a club a business, but that is what seems to be happening here.

On the part time thing, if it has to happen, then so be it. But that begs the question, why even bother staying full time this year? Was it a stipulation of re-entry back into the Championship? Again it perhaps comes back to the RFL’s presumption that we would have retained the bulk of the 2016 squad after liquidation. Then again, if the new owners had come in and made the squad part time from the off, that’s a thousand or so off the gate before you kick off so I’m not sure what the solution is.

The fact that we’ve all been scratching our heads for over half a decade about what a realistic solution could be to the club’s woes makes me think that any so-called masterplan is just further pie in the sky

All rumours as usual, i have stopped listening to them and just wait to here official information from the club.

If recent form is anything to go by. you may be waiting a while for that...

Non of the "Silly" rumours I have heard involve him going anywhere, they do involve him running the Club for A.N other being either Koukash or Nigel Wood..

Its easy to get absorbed in this as it seems that him and Lowe don't have the money to bring in the "bright future" we were promised when they were announced as owners.
All that is evident is that we are surviving by scraps from other teams, and if the structure is to remain next year we are likely to suffer the humiliation of a drop to C1.

Due to the lack of progress and information everyone (myself included) is hoping for some sort of game changing miracle (like a billionaire owner) so we can go forward instead of further backwards.