Phil, It kind of already has in my heart now, Love Fax to bits, never miss a home game and havn't for more than 6 years, Always get the early season ticket to help the club,but i really am thinking now, Should i just turn up to the occasional few, The championship is going to seperate into top 6 or 7 and everyone else way below next year with the others that are coming up, The fact that SL chairman can decide on the fate of a club rather than the Governing body making a decision that is right for the sport and sticking to it infuriates me to the hilt. Next it will be a case of P&R reinstated to try and appease the likes of us, fev and leigh, no time to prepare a team and club fit for SL so the YoYo scenario will come back.
Rugby league has been dragged through the Mud, Bradfords shenanigins has been a discrace and what do they get, Money from the RFL to tide them over, even a offer to buy them from SLE if worst comes to the worst, Other clubs giving them free money etc, and then told dont worry you will still dine with us at the big table.

You should be counting yourselves lucky that you wont be asked , in fact I'd suggest a sizeable donation to the ' Bullbuilder ' fund is in order as a thank you



SL just keeps getting better and better

The more serious upshot to this is that it puts Fax, Fev and Leigh in serious limbo.

With all due respect, there are clubs in the championship who accept their position and are quite happy to form a "partnership" with a super league - indeed will possibly benefit from it. But this is a position that has been forced upon the championship clubs - one the SL clubs decided to introduce without championship clubs getting their say! If the plans for under 20 rugby in super league come to fruition there will be even more pressure to follow this route! And there was me thinking a club gained a super league licence on THEIR ability to produce youth, not relying on championship clubs to bring them on.

Fax, Fev, Leigh and any other club with super league ambitions, will not want a partnership. They have their own ambitions and pride, as well as proud and ambitious supporters. So where does that leave us? Have the RFL even considered this? The Bradford decision proves not one championship club was considered - a 13 team SL or 14 teams with Bradford - was discussed. The door is shut.

This could well prove to be a watershed decision in the sport, and one chairmen of all championship clubs need to react to!

Do Hetherington and his mob really think fans lost from championship clubs will really embrace their nearest SL club?

What happens when Salford go bust? Precedent has been set. Or has it?

It is definitely one massive clique with the RFL lowering it's pants. I hope they all stew in their own juices and implode. Let them rot as the quality goes down under and to Union. Never before have I wanted a group of RL club to fail as I do now. They deserve each other and we're best off out of it.

It's a licence to go bust & be saved by the other SL members, unless of course you're not welcome in SL for whatever reason.

As i had a good upbringing, I was always told "unless you've nothing good to say don't say it" Therefore no comment.
I was also told not to speak ill of the dead.

thats what i was thinking, which other club could keel over when this season draws to a close and gates receipts stop?

None,
In Super League apparently,
But hey in the championship?
Who cares?
Apart from us?

Well a line has most definatley been drawn in the sand, and none of us can expect to be invited over it, so what to do about it? , well apparently the Championship chairmen now have a ' pre ' meeting before the council or APC meetings start, but are they seriously going to all agree to a united course of action?

No chance

It requires all clubs to state they will not be submitting an application to enter SL until the governing body start to apply rules and attitudes equally to all

But they wont, partly because the governing body ( Mr Wood ) is a vindictive organisation, that will take any dissent personally, and dish out retribution personally as well

RL is becoming an absolute joke

Think you're right there Mr Bug, my old mate.

The Championship chairmen are in, in my opinion, a strong position. Anyone outside of Super League can see how this is panning out and I'm sure they can gain a lot of sympathy whilst applying pressure on the RFL, as well as exposing the sport for what it is.

Having said that, it's only a strong position if they use it well. I certainly don't think they would all vote to not apply for SL, even though they saw Fax being used last time to make the inevitable decision seem more exciting and unpredictable only to stick the boot when their inadequacies were shoved in their face!

What would the average Fax, Fev or Leigh fan think if their board didn't apply for SL - on the surface a serious lack of ambition.

Glad I'm not a chairman! What would you do Mr Bug?

Its not an easy thing to do freddie, but it is a time for realism, can any of us honestly say we are up to the challenge of SL as it currently is? And as ' honorable ' men, do we want to sit at the same table as the ' pond life ' that inhabit SL?

I'd tell them to shove it, but it needs them all to do it, and we know they wont, thats one of the reasons I'm no longer a director of a RL club

I've been thinking. Does anyone know who you could appeal to for an investigation into the Bradford Fiasco?

I just have a strong feeling that some of this is illegal. I may be wrong but the sale of the Odsal lease to the RFL a short time before going into Administration to take their major asset out of reach seems a bit dodgy to me.

Also, as the Administrators primary function as I see it is to pay it's creditors, how did they get away with not releasing a single player throughout the entire debacle?

Another thing, HMRC seem to have been very patient in waiting for their money which is unusual.

The HMRC are quiet cos the Bulls tax bill will already have been paid!

Come on, keep up. They are the beacon of super league clubs, the one we must all aspire to, and must be saved at all costs!

The administrator must belong to some professional body.

Complain to them.

Good luck with that.

The whole bloody thing stinks, Going as far back as the awarding of a Grade B License to a club on the edge of melt down. Ever since IMHO we have been fed lie after lie. I am now convinced that after after Widnes were given their Golden Ticket and we were asked to apply again with the other SUPA DUPA League clubs as the likes of Wood Lewis and Rimmer knew they could loose their precious Dulls,

Am in agreement with all the people who are hacked off but its gone on so long now and we all knew what the outcome was going to be, I am just drawing a line under the whole RFL/Bulls/Franchise fiasco-let them make their bed and then lie in it!

I would just like to say I feel sorry for all the fans of the championship,I believe that it is a good old boys club and they make up rules as they go, I would also agree with Fax Machine that we need to have a Independant investigation of the Bradford Bulls and the RFL . I have always said things like salary cap for instance is a farce.We have teams in our game that are bringing in top rate players left right and but not violating the salary cap.We have all heard about the loop holes to get around it,player brought in for a small amount of money and then his wife or partner lands a job with the club for massive amount of money.How many of us average people can land jobs like this with no qualifications and it goes on and on.

The Administrator was clearly in bed with Ken Bates when Leeds United went into admin, the machinations that went on to ensure that Ken Bates were the preferred bid was more than a bit dodgy, ie Yorkshire Radio being owed lumps of money by Leeds United, to ensure that his offer was accepted by the required number of creditors.

The point is, if he got away with that when there were better bids for the creditors on the table, then Bradford and the administrator etc will easily get away with this.

I bought a season ticket this year knowing that I wouldn´t get to many games, I´ve made four, I did it to stick two fingers upto SL and to thank the club for backing KH last season.

I intend to buy another this season, hopefully I´ll get to a lot more games as well, i´m planning on moving back into the area.

We really are wasting our time. Rovers put a team in the U18s league and fund it ourselves, fools like me and rotherham fev fattie go to functions and spend wads to help fund the team. they do very well also in the league. yet the other week we were due to face Huddersfield a club that gets there U18s paid for to the tune of 100k, yet they cancelled the game unable to raise a team. Its outragous are the RFL getting value for money? the game stinks to high heaven, if every one of those self styled elite went bust i would be very happy

RFL terms of engagement in the SL franchise system in my view = Sport for only those who they the RFL decide, when they decide and if they decide it is entirely on their terms what they decide, or decide to change those terms, if they have previously decided something which now doesnt suit them, they will just decide.!!!!

Then use the words..." due dilligence has decided after a closely contested process that nobody from the Championship can join us because WE are the only ones who can DECIDE" (but we reserve the right to change our mind in case one of the clubs we are not too bothered about go bust ie Castleford)

Thats why we are such a visionary, progressive,vibrant,vastly improving, all inclusive National sport attracting billions in funding, operating with openess and transparancy promoting the goverment ethos of sport for all.................NOT

Part quote. "What happens when Salford go bust? Precedent has been set. Or has it?"

Exactly what I posted before with the addition that if a "Lower" SL clubs gets into serious trouble and do not get saved by the powers that be then this is blatant sporting discrimination that cannot be right.

In effect.
Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Warrington would never be allowed to go out of buisness!

Salford, Cas, Wakey would be?

What about either of the HUll clubs, have they not got just as great a tradition and history in the game.

On the other hand.

If any of the clubs currently in SL get into trouble and are saved then what has become of the licensing system criteria, box ticking or whatever they want to call it.

Answer = totally irrelevant.

I wonder if the people at Red Hall have considered any of the above.

It gets deeper the more you think about it.
Bradford Bulls success ( and current image (which is what the RFL say can't be lost) and is not the same as Bradford Northern) over the last few years was built on success on the field through having a winning side assembled by spending large sums of money on signing up some of the better players.

This and the novell idea of getting whole families to come with bouncy castles for kids,live pre match entertainment for supporters etc had Odsal full to the rafters with crowds averaging above the 17,000 mark.
Eddy Emmings said about this that it was so good.
Quote "Other Super League Clubs take note." This is how it should be done in the modern era.

The problem was that many of the 17,000+ crowd were not and are not true Rugby League supporters.
For a short while as long as the Bulls were winning, they enjoyed it and thought they were winners too.

As the bubble started to burst and the novelty wore off the idea of turning up and seeing the Bulls lose a few games and not sweeping everything before them wasn't quite as appealing and a bouncy castle type razz and tazz at odsal quickly lost it's appeal.

Crowds started to drop but the players were still on the large contracts and a shorfall in funds started to appear that could not be quickly fixed.
That is one of the main reasons Caisley walked away in the first place he knew that more was going out than was coming in and they were slowly going bust.

The irony is.
Having reached the Rugby league dizzy heights that they did.
Bradfords Bulls SL success and there "Image" as a great club that must be saved at all costs is what has led to their current situation.

Having got to the top they could not handle it at the top overreaching themselves to try and stay there, that and some sheer bad management thrown in is why they are where the are today.

A lot of it has to do with the luck of timimg. We were bigger than Bradford in 1986 - they were poor and struggled with crowds. We were bigger than Huddersfield, Wakefield, Castleford, Hull, Hull KR, Widnes and London throughout the early 90's.

We were bigger because we too spent money we didn't have. Bradford are no better than us. Yes - they attracted about 7,000 more people than we did. So what? I would say the end result for both clubs is markedly different though. Bradford have brought chaos and ridicule to the game - and it's still dragging on.

Spot on mate, so true, the daft thing is the deluded SL fans believe we are the ones in the wrong and are just being naughty saying such bad things about their precious 'closed shop'.

They have but they have also got a heck of a lot of PR out of this, I have noticed an increase in Bulls shirts and tops the last few months around and about, they have also got from most SL fans the sympathy vote, weird.
I bumped into some Bulls fans on the train down to London on Friday and they just don't get it at all, they really do think we are all just having a go 'cos its them and we don't like them' and that they deserve to be in SL and should stay there, they do not even contemplate being outside SL at all. The daft sod even said 'where was the biggest RL crowd ever?' = Odsal but I had to remind him it was Halifax v Warrington that played, meaning WE and Warrington created the biggest crowd ever not Bradford!