Love how people seriously think Toronto RL will just work overnight... "Built it and they will come"

Clearly years of consistent failure (in every department) on the RFL's part isn't enough to convince some people. Good for a laugh though !

Can you explain further ? , for those of us less knowledgable , I assume that Odsal was costing the council ?

Nice one. Who is that has said that?

You do realise that the RFL are not responsible for running the clubs?

The RFL's only real dodgy decision with Bradford was buying Odsal, I understand they did it to stop the ground being purchased by asset strippers who would just dump the club and redevelop the land at first opportunity, but it did create a conflict of interest of sorts. A better outcome would have been some sort of supporter backed trust buying the ground and then leasing it back to the club, but I imagine the financing would have been problematic.

Are the lower league clubs happy that Bradford PA Bulls are being offered a place in the Championship ? Is all there hard work for nothing ?

i love the world of business sometimes - you can go bust owing millions and then start up again almost immediately owing nothing with just a slight name change and different personnel

so what happens to the big bash if bradford do not reform or the new owners decide to start from the 3rd tier?


sympathy for the fans, players and staff but clearly lessons have not been learnt from previous owners, the rfl and past administrators have a lot to answer too for allowing the past owners gain ownership!

Unfortunately the limited liability laws are necessary to stimulate business growth , without them entrepreneurs just wouldnt invest , I myself started a business 24 years ago under the strict orders of my wife that our house would not be at risk , that business turned over 23 million in 19 years , employing dozens of people , giving 1 st job opportunities to dozens of teenagers

I suffered hundreds of thousands of unrecoverable bad debt due to those laws and in the end had to use them myself when closing the business down

It's just the way it is

I like virtually all other fans including the sizeable majority of Bulls fans believe they should have to restart in Championship 1 , but given the time scale involved it just isn't workable , therefore the Championship it will have to be

No doubt they will feel the anger of many opposition fans in the coming season and beyond , not their issue though really

More importantly will be finding either a way a club playing out of Odsal can be sustainable at any level , or how they find a new home that is viable and workable , I wish them luck in finding an answer

I blame:

1) Stephen Byers
2) Peter Hood
3) Whoever it was at Wembley who decided Speedway must go.

The reason for number 3 is it changed the relationship between the club and the stadium. The 1985 World Speedway Final happened at Odsal. Odsal as it is remembered by the olds, and me when I was but a young un, is a different place to anything we've seen since then. The stand on what is now the uncovered popular side was knocked down. That terracing was built. The dressing rooms underneath were built. The stand opposite was built. The pits end, before it was the Coral Stand, was turned into proper garages rather than just the hill with a road up it that it used to be.

There was a deal signed at this time. I don't recall the specifics of it, but it was to reflect the changed ownership, etc, and amounted to the old rent scheme. Basically the council saddled themselves with the maintenance and running costs of the place in exchange for owning it and the club just paid rent. (I'll be honest, "ownership" isn't the way to say that. It isn't what it was. But I don't actually know what it was.)

Various schemes popped up to develop the place further, as was seemingly always the plan, but nothing ever came of them. The "Wembley of the North" nonsense didn't start at this point, it's much older than that, but it did rekindle around this time.

By the time the late 90s came around supermarkets were buying up town centre sites. I think in RL Wigan were first? But obviously there were others. With Bradford it was Tesco. There were plans, there was money, there was everything in place for it to happen. There was certainly a desire with the council - even then funding top ups from central government were being curtailed. Planning permission was no problem whatsoever. We even moved out for two years.

What there also was from central government though was a moratorium on "out of town" shopping centres. Ken Morrison, the Morrisons man, objected. And there's a direct line between that objection and it not happening. A lot of Bulls fans blame him. I don't. That was a raw commercial choice from someone legally obliged to act in the best of interests of his shareholders. The choice from Byers to pretend it was a detriment to the city is where a large chunk of my blame lies. More than half? Dunno. Close though. Cos this place that was far outside Bradford and a threat to its commercial activity if people went there was at that time the beneficiary of an inner city development grant from the same sodding government. It was also a supermarket. The kind of place where you buy food to eat and other essentials of living that people need. So you might want as a supermarket properties purchaser want somewhere where people actually live. And this out of town place is heavily populated, and for miles further out of town still until you are actually out of town. And beyond, cos then it's Cleckheaton.

And also ... this city centre they were protecting. Two years later they knocked it down. A little over a year ago they finished building the thing that would replace it. Most of the time in between it was a massive gaping hole. So that worked nicely.

So it didn't happen, and now they have to go back to Odsal. There was a choice at this point, fwiw. Back to Odsal or stay at Valley Parade. As I recall they sounded out the fans. Not a formal vote or anything but some market research. Crowds were clearly down on what they had been a couple of years before. We'd been away from home for two years. We all felt homesick. I know I did. We went back.

But the deal with the council had to change. It wasn't over and finished with yet but it was coming to a close and something had to change. A lot of money had been spent to to get to this stage, and there had been several years expectation of not having council tax money be spent on this. The new deal had to reflect this situation. So the remainder was just paid off in cash outright to deal with the ongoing costs of the place, and then you make your own arrangements. I think it was not quite five million quid all told. A big lump of that went on the Coral Stand with the idea that it be used to raise funds. The rest went on maintaining a winning team to get enough people in to use it and spend money.

So we now how both of those went. Hood's to blame for most of that. But tbh, from the vantage point of today, cards were marked the day we moved back. Probably before.

Harris barely rates a mention for me, expensive though it was. It would have happened anyway.

Thanks for your input Royboy29 but I'm afraid you don't make any sense? Please can you elaborate further?

Regards

King James

So basically from the point you moved back , Odsal has been unviable ?

I cannot see how that is going to change

Do you mean those "lower league" clubs that have to stay within their budgets or their stuffed - game over - clubs?

I just can't believe they'll be too happy, but then again, it's just the nature of the beast these days, individuals can happily load up the debt.

Imagine spending loads of non-existent cash, with little consequences?

It's easy if you try.

What if someone's got a plan for Odsal?

It could be returned and used as it's original function.

In a nutshell, bang on. It will not ever change.

Remember the story. Our first real inkling was when it all came public. The lease was already in RFL hands at that point, and had been for a bit. Remember that there were more rumours of Odsal actually becoming RFL HQ before there were rumblings about the club going under. And then suddenly it basically did.

They were trying to help. That's the best I can say about it.

So, a new deal. Woohoo. There were RFL preferred bidders. Some had money. Something, right?

I was at Wembley in 1973 for Fev V Bradford and it happened a month before I was born. If whatever this new thing is happens back at Odsal and it's a Richard Lamb or someone of that level of wealth I at least know enough not to bother. Why go through it all again?

If there is money. Fine. Set arrogance to level six and make a note to review.

When are you going to point out the 2 nd tier Aussie clubs with 5,000+ season ticket holders that attend all their games ?

He means you're a knob

So as soon as BBs 2017 is up and running somebody needs to get Bradford council , RFL and whoever owns the club round a table and come up with a plan

That's my worry about this plan. Something has been cooking since at least the 23rd when the big announcement deferred. For this RFL announcement today to drop something has been in the works. I am genuinely concerned that the continued existence of the lease will be a stipulation. I understand people want their money's worth. Sadly, there ain't no money.

For me CH1 and Horsfall stadium is the only thing that makes sense. Insistence on Odsal and CH is a poisoned chalice.

A rock and a hard place comes to mind , and then as you say , something has to give , it brings back to the fore how stupid the original 500 K loan and subsequent lease compensation deal was

NIGEL ?

Do many Bradford fans actually hope the club starts again in Championship 1?

Not withstanding the absolute bliss from certain corners of the R.L. "fraternity" you would have to bare

But would the fact the R.F.L. got a bloody nose, give you a little satisfaction for all their interference during these dark days?

It would work for me.

It does seem to be the consensus on the Bradford board at the moment. Not sure it's about giving them a bloody nose tbh. For me it's naked self interest. There's the hard material facts of the finances already mentioned. But there's also narrative, and it's everything in sport. It does not get lower than this. We were not worth the asking price, and so now there is only "were". There is no "are" or "is".

So surely, given that, the only way must be up. Right?

No. -12 points. No TUPE because there is no sale. The squad will be what remains, and what remains will be the remnants of the (very good) U-19s team and whoever else does not have a mortgage or an offer. And Leon, I suspect. It's not unreasonable to begin choosing your games to try and win at this point, and just being grateful you have a team at all. You're already strategically trying to avoid relegation. Never say never. But plan for the bloody unlikely.

I'm at the point where if we know where we are then we know what direction to set off in. That's my motivation.

Maybe this is the smack in the face the game has been avoiding. The game in its current state is unsustainable.

Let's bring in a team to look at how the game can change for the better. Maybe look at accelerating Toronto's rise, see how we can reinvigorate London...... or equally sit still and lurch from problem to problem until the game folds

That is just a viscious & nasty comment to make about a fellow RL Club ....

How exactly would you feel if it were your club suffering ?