Good to hear Aaron!

Good luck with it all - I'm sure the majority of The Rugby League family are behind you all the way!

My feelings exactly.

Now I've settled down a little what you've said echoes my own situation. It's 20 odd years for us of agony and ecstasy, ups and downs. You feel you've grown up with some players, seen them grow from youngsters. We've had, Jimmy, Robbie, Baloo, Mcdemot, Big Joe, Henry, the Penguin, Danny Peacock, Gartner, the Beaver, Forshaw, Les, Shonny, Micky Withers, Fielden, Peacock, Pryce, the Burgess Clan and all the new ones coming through.
No doubt I'll part with £200 before long! Hope it's all worth it in the end! Memories.....

All Fans who can instead of agonising over it just pledge, it is not a shares option that is not the table, what is on the table is a way to stop the Bulls becoming a fond memory in a couple of weeks.
There will be time to ask the questions when the pledge succeeds and the Club is stabalized.
I will be putting my pledge in shortly, it is a gamble but it is one of those gambles thats worth it even if you lose it in the end, at least you know you tried along with a lot of others!

Those who have confidence in the board, or at least take at face value what they have been told, are likely to be keen to hand the board what money they can.

Those whose confidence in the board has been badly shaken, and/or do not believe they can have been told the whole story, will understandably have more reservations about entrusting the board with their hard-earned cash. At least until and unless they learn more about what the hell so changed between January and now. Changed such that, from being given the clear impression in January that we were financially secure, we are now given the clear understanding that we are days from insolvency.

And in some cases, heart may be for the first, and head the second.

Those who never had confidence in the board in the first place, and believe they were anyway being lied to, will of course be very reluctant to contribute anyway.

Speaking as someone who feels very let down indeed right now, I can fully understand why not everyone is falling over to go down the first route right away. The explanation we have been given seems far from complete to me, and I need to have a much better understanding before I decide how to best to proceed.

Now i'm replying to this in isolation and in now way is it intended as a pi$$ing comp because i think you've been shafted by Hood and co but this gem needs responding to.
What Leeds RU get up to has no bearing on how the Rhinos are run.
As for Mr caddick he's just completed a 7m+ deal refurbing the East Stand at ER so he won't be short of a bob or two.
As for you subsidising us PMSL look closer to home pal the lunatics have been running the asylum that is your club and look where all this posturing and BS has got yer lies upon lies and now yer clubs on it's knees who's fault is that?
Check yer boardroom past and present.
As for our new stand the £££££££ involved was assessed and it's been put on hold because we have savvy business men on our board who won't risk the clubs future and take us back to 96.
There's a lot of truth in that link that Jonesy put up so that must sting.

Agree with most of it Rhinoms, but when were this frustrated there's bound to be dozens of posts you could pick out and find fault in. ATEOTD we're all shocked, angry, disappointed, upset. Wouldn't even wish this situation on you lot. If we did have to go out though, a last win vs the Rhinos at odsal would be great. But I'm hoping, praying and believing it wont come to that.

Not been on here in so long as I have been travelling and not seen much of the Bulls this alst couple of seasons but I echo the sentiment of many in saying I will not pledge while the people who have led us from one mess to another in recent years are still in charge.

If a fans group is set up or a business-savvy potential owner needing help are willing to give it a go I'd be more than happy to put my hand in my (not very deep) pockets.

I am surprised we have not heard more from the RFL, as it seems inconceivable that they would let us fold having just bought out the lease for Odsal - surely if we go bust our rental contract is void and if they do not allow a new club to start up in SL like some suggest surely that would leave one of their biggest assets standing empty and not making any money so they NEED a Bradford team in SL. Or am I missing something?

The club is practically begging anyway so I think this could get us a few quid, if other clubs agree to it obviously could we get buckets out to every game in SL this weekend. Cleck bull's been doing threads on other forums and most fans agree that if there was a bucket they'd chuck a few quid in.

Chucking money at the club will not help, please talk to the Wakey fans in the know, we have good experiance in this field. God knows what we have been through in the last year or three. There are right ways of doing this and chucking money is not the right way, sorry

Wakeys fiscal woes are different to the Bulls, nobody is chucking money at them and thats the problem, whats left to get them through this are the Fans, and despite the reservations that quite a few of the more savvy and respected members on this Forum have expressed it's the Fans that will decide whether the Club survives or not, so it is put up time!

Bloody ridiculous this whole scenario anyway. This should not have been left to happen. Lets hope that all can be saved and Hood gets publicly ousted and humiliated for causing this.

Ok mate, hope you do come through this, i have had many a sleepless night and stress, its not good trust me, but there is this to think about, nothing is as bad has it seems, all the the best to the club and manly the fans, and i meen that

You do have some very very wealthy fans, who I know your club have courted pretty strongly over the years. The 'difficulty' you have is people like this usually have done so through making good decisions and they aren't easily parted from their cash.

I can't imagine the club can offer the guarantees that would make sense for them to part with the big sums of cash you need right now (sadly this rather echoes what has happened with the bank), moving forwards I would hope and assume that your are talking to these sort of people about utilising their business nous to put the club on a firmer footing with a more robust strategy.

I appreciate thats naff all consolation right now, but hopefully there should be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel

I'm still undecided. Not yet convinced that if the fans hand over £500k, without any assurances as to what would happen next, that it would necessarily be in the best interests of the club.

That's where we were last year. In the end, not bailing out the Board was the best thing that ever happened. The energy and drive of the new owner was a major factor in the successful franchise application, and a savvy buyer won't step in until you go into administration. Why take on a million pound debt when you can get the whole thing for peanuts?

Superb post.
This is the third 'pledge' and it is likely that in september Mr Hood will announce another one for next years season tickets. It is a request for trust to be placed in the board. Yet this is a board which have played fast and loose with our trust for years. In public they have stated we were financially secure when in truth they did not have the finanancial support of the shareholding to run the club and have traded upon the sale of assets and the overall reduction of the business. The mailout says sponsorship is at an all time low. That's because the profile of the club is at an all time low.

Furthermore, and this is one which has annoyed me for years. They have cloaked capitulations in 'confidentiality agreements' and 'undisclosed fees' and then dripped information onto this board in a manipulative and deceitful way. Decent posters and lifelong fans have tied themselves in knots explaining THEIR lies on this board and yet not one scintilla of responsibility do they take.

THINK. What are we saving? Another round of cost cutting measures and surrepticious asset sales blamed on someone or something else. The club is effectively unsaleable prior to administration due to the mutual detestation of the shareholders and whether it is now or in september or next March, administration is where this club is heading and whilst their is no realistic expansion club in waiting and the RFL aren't entirely sick to death of us, we need to do it now.

All that will happen is the Bulls will have this whip round. If enough money is not raised. All that will happen is you will go bust and then go into admin.

Then start as a new club with a 4 point deduction.

Have faith in that salesman who runs your club.

Stop worrying.

So what do you propose? We let the club fold becuase we are too stubborn to help? Then what? Reform in division 2, with all the players gone, and with no hope of ever realistically making it out? That's what you are proposing.
I don't disagree with you, but in the SHORT TERM, we have to find this money. The way you want to do it, the club won't be here in Septemeber to issue another pledge, but at least if it survives now, there is tome to organise, to mobilise and to change things. As I said, I had major reservations about pledging, but I had to. In the end, I didn't see a realistic alternative.

After sleeping on yesterdays events, I now feel I need even more answers.

How can the club be allowed to sell our only real "asset" to the RFL without checking with the bank that it wouldn't effect anything else we do? Completely shambolic. A mistake as bad as this would probably result in a sacking / resignation at the very least in the world of "normal" business.

I have the upmost respect for what Messers Hood, Duckett, Duffy, Bennett et al do in terms of trying to run the club in very difficult circumstances, but an error as large as this needs someone to put their hand up and then fall on their sword.

The one worrying comment I have seen from Hood is that we need the £1m to fulfill our fixtures for the rest of the season. Bennett and Duckett have mentioned this "sustainable business plan". Anyone seen it? Thought not. It will probably revolve around the same methods and processes that got us into this mess.

What happens if / when the club raise the £1m? We might fulfill our fixtures until the end of the year - what happenes then? Although the pledge works in terms of getting official "bums on seats" (the reality is a little different) it seems pretty clear that this messes up all cashflow for the rest of the year. The club are reliant on walk up and away fans to generate any significant cash throughout the season. The home games this year haven't seen the same number of travelling away fans of yesteryear. Money is tight for many with the cost of petrol a major factor in people's budgets. Travelling to away games isn't something that most people have time / money to be able to do in the current climate.

A new "pledge" in relation to season tickets needs to be thought up. Although there may be additional revenue in the advertising generated by "guaranteeing" 10k season ticket holders seeing your advert, I'm not sure that this is necessarily the best way to go about things cash flow wise. We are getting cash up front at the beginning of the year and then appear to be blowing it all in the first 2 months of the season. We might be better selling 3,500 memberships at £200 rather than 10,000 at £70 for example. Even when we were at our lowest points under McNamara we were averaging 8k? Surely that makes more money than the current method? Are we actually selling much more beer in the ground for 10k people? Never seems to be a queue of any sort when I go for a beer. Also, we know pretty well for certain that alot of people are picking and choosing their games for the season membership. Games against the bigger teams such as Wigan, Leeds, etc will pull people in. The games against London for example when it's throwing it down and on tv will not.....

Where has all RFL cash gone? Did that not pay off short term debt? Where did the Lynchy money go?

OK, the bank may have pulled the plug on the overdraft, but I don't recall the last accounts showing anything resembling a £1m overdraft needing to be paid off. I know things change and the accounts are a snapshot at a certain point in time and things can spiral downwards very quickly. However, all the noises coming from the club were that we had no issues financially after the sale of the lease.

I've not received a letter through the post yet, I imagine it may come today, but just the fact that the club have had time to do a mailshot, set up the website, line up the T&A etc means they have known about this for days, possibly weeks. To me, and many others this smells of another marketing campaign to a degree.

My main concern is that we (the fans) will end up throwing all this money into the club to see it survive short term. In another 12 months we could be in the same position and this process will not be possible as you can only go to the well so many times before it runs dry.

How has a figure of £1m come about? What does this £1m actually pay / guarantee? Do we need to have a bond with the bank? Do we need to pay suppliers? Do we need to pay wages? Do we need to pay a tax bill to HMRC? £1m seems to be a very round number - personally I imagine the required amount of cash would be less than £1m, but it makes for a better marketing campaign and "shock value" than saying we need £800k - still a significant amount of money, granted, but not the same level of delivery when doing the interviews.....I imagine we will fall short of the £1m target, but somehow "survive" and then carry on as before with the same apparant level of incompetence.

What I would like to see would be some sort of fans involvement on the board. Everyone who contributes to the fund has a vote to appoint a member to the board. This person can be involved in some level of decision making, or at the very least, be aware of situations within the club that it can then relay to the members allowing us to have greater transaparancy with the dealings within the club.

Won't happen, but one can dream.

Why would you never make it out?
With the fan base you would have. Money would be no problem.

You would have good times.

It won't fold. It will enter administration. An administrator will sell the club to someone who can run it properly. Who? I hear you shout. Nobody will come out of the woodwork until we're in administration because until then the club is not for sale. Only administration will clear the board and the shareholding out of the club. The alternative is further years of decline and then administration. We are between a rock and a very hard place. The truth is that there aren't alternatives to administration, there are only long painful delays.

Yep, just that, the club is the fans and the community. When times are toughest you find out who the strong willed peope are. Hood is a liar. Simple as. How dare he line RAz Duckett up and put him on TV and radio to beg on his behalf. the board have uncategorically lied and been incompetant. Until I saw the statement from RBS, I was wavering, thinkning we'd been unlucky. BUt no, we continue to rob Peter to pay PAul.

we need to emerge out of this with 1, a club and 2, dignity.

Pledge after pledge is coming form Hood and co, each time taking the mick. even the numbers of employees etc... was misleading.

Start up again, even if it is in champ 1 and run it properly. It may take some time to restore the club to its former glories, but one things for sure, I'd rather have dignity and pride in champ 1, than be a laughing stock in SL!

Well said that man.

Well perhaps people should look at the RFL decision in the light it was taken, seeing as Steve Parkins name has now cropped up as a potential investor, a name no one was happy with before the RFL took over lease of Odsal. Calling Peter Hood a liar is emotive and without any actual proof. The Club may belongs to the Fans but the business doesn't, remember Peter Hood has always said its a Franchise Name and could be sold accordingly, this he could do but as he still is a Bulls fan wouldn't, hence plan A (ironic as we always complained there was never a plan B)