Not sure, has his Rangers deal fallen through? You'd have thought someone would have mentioned it on here

I understand your comment but BK does not own Salford RL only Sale RU. If he did own us there would be no mileage in having one of his teams poaching players from the other.

To be clear he hasn'tshown any interest in buying the bulls speculation atm just incase we start getting ahead of ourselves.

Sale have seemed to do well under his ownership though he dosent seem to get to involved just.let's them get on with it.

First time poster - taken me 4 days to get this account!!!

Been a supporter since 1968 - through good and bad - but none in my time as desperate as this. And the sad thing on Tuesday - I wasn't surprised - I expected it with the decline we've seen since 2003 but accelarated since 2008!!

I sent the attached e-mail to the club on Wednesday - to date no reply

Peter

I wrote to you a couple of years ago on the subject of Leadership - in the dark days of 2009 when our decline as a force in Super league accelerated. There was no leadership then in changes of the coaching staff which may have reversed that decline, but that lack of leadership pales into insignificance with what we see today. If people are not leaders in positions like you hold, you hope they are good managers who administer the club effectively. The evidence suggests you are neither.

You as the temporary custodian of my club should hang your head in shame today. Not for the cash flow situation, that can happen for a number of reasons, but for the inept way you have managed this situation. You talk, sorry write, you haven't been brave enough to lead the charge in the media, delegating that to others, about the withdrawal of the overdraft. Again that can happen given the economic times we are in. But the withdrawal was inextricably linked to a decision the board made! Did no one consider that, was there any discussions with the bank? Also, the decision of the RFL to use the proceeds of the ground sale to offset other debts seemed to take the board by surprise - why? I run a division of a multi national business turning over £70m as my responsibility. If I made decisions a tenth as inept as the board has, I would be worried for my future.

But - we are where we are!

I have followed this club since 1968 - it's been an important part of my life - and 3 of my 4 children - my 4th is just getting interested. I have 3 season tickets. Will I pledge £300 - probably - but not out of any wish to see you continue in role - but because of my love for this club. But I, along with many others would have been far more willing to part with cash if:-

You had been open and honest about the problem - it should have been communicated in a much more open and transparent way - such as an extraordinary supporters meeting Monday evening - advertised at half time on Sunday.
If I knew categorically where the next £500k is coming from
If I knew what sacrifices the Directors were making
If I had a report from a respected independent Financial Accountant that the club would be debt free and should be able to trade profitably without selling players and operating at a maximum salary cap providing there were no extraordinary items and attendance's/revenue hold up.

You have clearly known this day was coming for some time - well over a week given my experience of preparing mail shots, Internet changes etc. When professional organisations plan major changes they have a robust communication plan addressing the needs of different stakeholder groups. Your plan seemed to be - Give us some money - we have a short term problem but everything will be OK after that - don't worry!!!

I imagine you are monitoring the Internet message boards (still given the ineptitude demonstrated in other areas, possibly not!) - you will know that I am not the only person to love this club! You had a chance to get this right and engage those current and past supporters in a partnership to save this club - instead you seem to be like a beggar sat on the street with his hand out - with the suspicion of passers by that you have a BMW parked around the corner. I don't see how you can rescue your reputation with the supporters - I sincerely hope you have beefed up security on Good Friday - I will not condone any violence but I fear emotions are running so high that some idiot could try something.

When you took over in 2006 we were clearly a club in decline, not helped by the Leeds legal dispute etc. That decline has accelerated due to a lack of vision by your board and a lack of engagement with supporters. One of my happiest Bulls memories was the 2000 Challenge Cup final and I remember driving up the A1 and we had a banner next to the road saying 'Bulls - The People's Team'. I really believed we were at that time - I felt involved in my club - now I feel I am viewed as a walking piggy bank to be raided.

You need to break your silence Peter, you need to address the points I have made, along with those made by other supporters. You need to convince us that you are the man to the this club forward - that you have a vision and a plan to get us to that vision which you need to share with supporters. You might get your £500k, but without it you will never be trusted again!!

If it is "all down to Peter" why do you think:-
- the players are fighting to save the club, this is not jus about keeping their jobs
- other teams are helping us
- other directors who have been dormant for so long are getting involved

I'll tell you why. It cos they know the FACTS and who has shafted us.

Midfield Bull, suggest you pick up phone to Ryan and get the info you need to help you make your own decisions pal

Given the prejudging nature of your email, in which you make it clear you have already set yourself up as judge and jury, and given how busy they are right now, I have to say I am hardly surprised that they have found better uses of their time than to reply.

Maybe if you instead took the trouble to ASK first, before you reached you verdict, like Staffbull did - and like I did - you might have learned a few things?

To be honest given tone of that email, answering it would be pretty low on priority list given current situation if I received it.

Guys
I admit they are probably busy now, and they have had some real problems to solve - BUT - it's clear they haven't been up front with people - Adeybull - watched your mails and admired them but you admitted they misled you!!! I can live with mistakes, even a little incompetence but not trying to engage with the most important people in any club - the fans - well that needs some explaining!

Simple for me pal - Peter is the leader of the board - hence he has to carry the can! The board have had some significant problems to solve over the last 5 or 6 years - to me this outcome is that they've attempted it in a vacuum without trying to engage the supporters

Sometimes things for good reason need to be confidential ie: if I as an employee had say been diagnosed with an illness and had to tell me employer I would expect and have the right to expect my employer to respect this.

Perhaps alot the information (or contain information) could related to people, would we want our employers telling everyone who asks?

To be fair the director of any business takes the hit when anything happens where his company is put at jeopardy. You are there and have a responsibility to keep the company running and running well.

Regardless on what is said, once this is all sorted and we have overcome the current financial problems Peter Hood has some big questions to ask himself over his position at the club. Unfortunately I feel he has lost trust within the fans and I've no doubt in investors as well, he feels the need to drip feed us information in regards to our situation as a club as if there is something to hide. If there was more information to hand in regards to what we face other than the boards "word" then some more cash may have left my account.

Atki

I fell into the same trap as I suggest you have, that first day. I jumped to conclusions before finding out the facts. So I'm not really that smart, after all - it is all too easily done though, especially in the heat of the moment.

I felt I had been made a fool of because I backed the board, against any number of ridiculing and sceptical outsiders, over the sale of the ground to the RFL. And it was not nice to be told by, amongst others, those highly-supportive chaps over on Substandard that our chairman had left me hung out to dry. Especially as I had no-one else to blame but myself, and what seemed to be my poor judgment. And I will not deny I was angry.

And so, seeing now when you sent your email, tbh I can hardly berate you for saying what you did at the time.

Very early the next morning, I became much better acquainted with the facts. Ryan rang me at 7.20 am, in response to a short email I sent him early the previous day - where I asked wtf had happened and what could he tell me. He admitted he had been so busy on Tuesday that he had not even had the chance to turn his computer on till 10-30pm that night.

I have since become better acquainted again, not least as a result of a long discussion I had on Friday morning. And, to the extent that I can judge, I believe (and woe betide if I have been misled, but I really really do not think so now) what I have learned.

And, provisionally at least, I regret jumping to hasty conclusions. In particular, I am pretty satisfied (as far as I can be) that the situation that we are in now arose since the last fans' forum. And that therefore, at the time, in general I was not being misled. Spun a bit, maybe; but not lied to.

There remain some unanswered questions, mainly regarding the RFL loan/advance/whatever that we knew nothing of before (although the leakers out of the RFL last year clearly did). And, to the extent that they never said that part of the Odsal lease sale proceeds were to be used to repay part of that immediately, yes you could say we were misled. Looking at the wider picture now, I can perhaps understand why the club would not seek to draw attention to that. I would not have, in their position.

But overall, if I was to point the finger at the club anywhere, it would be that they are hideously under-resourced in next-tier support for Peter, Ryan, Andrew and Stuart. Hideously. Because every spare penny has apparently been spent on the football side, not on admin, support and marketing. Rightly or wrongly, through necessity or whatever. And, amongst other things, this clearly impacts on the time they have to engage with the fans, or to put into how they do it.

Ryan told me Friday lunchtime that they had not even had time to see what Nawest had said about pulling the facility, and were not aware of it, until family had mentioned it the previous night. As an example.

So when we berate them for some of the pants communication (or lack of), or for Peter's sometime difficulties in engaging with the fans personally at the right level (on a one-to-one I have found him far more effective and friendly and open than I ever assumed) I have increasingly come to realise that we are blaming symptoms, not causes.

No-one is perfect - although I think too many fans expect both players and club officials to be as near-so as makes no difference - but I'm perfectly satisfied that those people running the club have been working their 'nads off for ages, and doing it to the best of their abilities and with nothing but the club's best interests at heart. Had the shareholders - amongst whom the current board has always been a minority (and until recently very much a minority, at that) not agreed, they could have replaced the directors at any time.

As a fan, I'm not sure I can really ask - let alone demand - much more?

And there is.

But remember, the club has to keep on good terms with all parties on whom it depends or whose support it needs. So it is not always that easy to put the full tale in the public domain.

Even so, I have implored the club to clarify and explain better a number of key issues that are causing some of the supporters to have concerns and reservations. We saw some of that happen late yesterday lunchtime, regarding the bank. I am hopeful we will see quite a bit more again regarding the other concerns, and soon. I suspect they are just so snowed under right now; but this is IMO pretty important.

Adey have pm'd you, but your in box might be full!

Adey, is there a reason you are not posting on here what you know? If we could find out be ringing Ryan, then it can't be confidential can it?
I would ring them, but they have better things to do I should imagine.

I am an outsider, but not a ridiculing one, though I would make no apologies for being sceptical.

I recall you assuring people when the deal to buy the lease was done that you knew the terms of the deal and that it was all about saving the ground from "predators".

It now appears that there was a loan debt owed to the RFL (when this loan was made and what it related to is perhaps best left to another thread - suffice it to say that this gives rise to a host of other serious questions!) which was discharged by the sale of the lease. The deal could instead be described as saving the RFL's bacon by giving it an asset in repayment for the debt...

Given the fact that the club is, by the admission of its directors, unable to meet its liabilities as they fall due only a short period after that sale, there must be a big question mark over the validity of the discharge of debt owed to one creditor (the RFL) by the transfer of an asset to that creditor, even if the transfer was at market value. The unfairness of this from the perspective of other creditors of an insolvent business is obvious.

There must be a significant risk that an administrator or liquidator of the club will challenge that transaction and seek to have it reversed so that the lease reverts to the club and can be sold along with its other assets. The alleged motive of the deal with the RFL - to save the ground - may well end up being thwarted if that happens. Surely it would have been better for the RFL and the Club and its major creditors RBS and HMRC to have done a deal between them that saved the club....

I hope that you are right to continue to trust the club.

Personally I would be very, very sceptical indeed. The directors ought to announce their resignations at say the end of April and call in the meantime for local business people to come forward to replace them. They do have time to be transparent with fans and investors and they really need to set out what has gone on and what their plan is to put the business on a sound footing.

There is no way that - despite the sympathy I have for the fans and employees of the club and the anger and concern I feel at the shocking state one of the most important clubs in the game is in - I will be pledging any money until there is a clear-out of the current senior management team. Otherwise you are probably just throwing good money after bad, I am afraid.

I can understand the posts calling for a change at the top, I really can, but I wish people demanding a new chairman would just look at the current list of people with hands up asking for the (unpaid) position:

Here it is below:










So, which of the above is it to be then?

If I recall the RFL mentioned the word predators not the Club, so naturally it got picked by everyone else

So you know that for a fact do you.

It it's wrong, you fill it in..

Just as soon as you provide a list of shareholders publicly offering their shares for sale and at what price.

One point that you have consistently - and, as far as I can tell, correctly - made is that we as a club are hamstrung by our shareholding profile. I believe that one of the reasons why you possibly looked favourably on administration was that it was one way to resolve this issue. We may soon see whether it does, but if we evade administration, do you have any ideas of how else we might be able to address it?

You suggest above a public sale of shares by the current shareholders. I take it that, by this, you mean all (major) shareholders, not just the current board. If this were to happen, what would be the optimal result? A single new investor (or small consortium) buying them?

Would there be any mileage in a new issue of shares, or would this risk compounding the issue by fragmenting the holding further?

I know that there is a lot of suspicion around at the moment, but I can assure you that I do not ask this with any agenda - I would just like to understand better, and I ask you as it's clearly a subject to which you have given a lot of thought.

Has anyone heared this business plan we have that says if we raise a million, are then debt free and then we have can move forward?

Where is the money come from to cover month to month expenses after the initial £1m pledge?

We need to know how this works going forward

Yes, the optimal result would be a single new investor. I agree with Adey that a fans holding or new issue could make the governing of the club even more difficult.

Peter Hood has consistently said he would step down as Bulliac and others have correctly said. The board have publicly asked for invstors and pubicly asked for 10000 people to give them £100 for no holding whatsoever. Yet at no time (correct me if i'm wrong) have we had any mention of 'sale' or 'valuation' either from the board or from the other shareholders. What does 'stepping down' mean? Resigning as chair but holding his shares? Offering his shares for sale at no cost and free beer for life? Offering his shares at £100million? In the current circumstances the position of chair is a poisoned chalice and nobody in their right mind would want it.

In this context we see Peter's offer to move aside is plainly meaningless. Is the club for sale? Is any part of the club for sale? Some would argue this isn't information for the public domain but it's not unusual for a board to place a valuation on a company if a takeover is on the horizon and particularly when they are asking us the fans to treat a club which is privately owned as a charity.

I agree the shareholding is at the root cause of the problem and will continue to be so. Administration is a dangerous place as there is no guarantee what assets the club can hold onto but i've argued for a number of years now that the position we find ourselves in was inevitable. If it hadn't been HMRC/RFL/RBS it would have been some other 'shock' as the core of the club is fundamentally weak.

Thanks very much for the clarification. I think the points about Peter Hood's shareholding are very valid and I hope that we have a chance to put them to him directly. However, without Caisley (and any other significant shareholders) agreeing to do the same, would the sale of Hood's shares really resolve anything? I had assumed that this fragmentation (in which the BOD hold a minority of the shares) was really what was causing the most significant problems.