With us needing a 10,000 crowd every home game, just to break even.

Which isn't going to happen, then the reported 23k we are losing for every home (except Leeds & St Helens to date) isn't doing any good and I fear for what the future holds.

Yesterday on the popular side, people were saying a move to Valley Parade for next year is in the pipeline which in my opinion would kill the club dead.

I think everyone knows we don't have a sugar daddy like Wigan, Warrington, Huddersfield, Hull KR etc who will underwrite the losses year on year.

Sport must be the only business where they expect their customers to keep buying the product off them even if the quality of the product is poor.

Any other business would go to the wall if they allowed themselves to be run the way the Bulls were in the last four years.

Yes, most supporters do go through thick and thin but others don’t as they have other things in their life.

I can’t imagine not looking forward to the Bulls games as it gets me through the tedium of work. We can’t slag others off though for not paying large sums for poor entertainment. It is up to all clubs to make the “whole package” worth paying for and not simply relying on supporters blindly turning up each week.

When considering the product on the field at Odsal (I include yesterdays horror show as a prime example) which is very much hit & miss this season, then add £18 to watch it in a stadium with no roof over 70% of it's total capacity.

We did well to get over 8,000 in yesterday I think, but it's still 1800 short of the 10,000 break even figure.

You just need a cup run or grand final appearance and crowds will come back. They cant have gone glory hunting to Valley Parade, surely?

I don't know what it is mate, but the Bradford City cheap season pass can't be helping us at all.

Plus it's true in what you say, if we made it to Old Trafford then the glory hunters would be out in force but come next season we would be back to our 9,000 average again.

They wont be helping. I think you need a stringent financial budget and it be stuck to.
If you're making a matchday loss, you should be looking at:

Ground rent for catering vehicles - is it enough compared to their profit?
Number of stewards/police - is it relevant to the attendance on the day?
Prematch/HT - spending too much on it?

Stick some offers on at the begining of the season to increase sales of tickets, season tickets etc. Flyer drop in BCC offering 5% off the cost of a ST. Things like this need to be done if they aren't already.

See the Rip Off Odsal thread mate for what I've put in bold.

We just can't lose £23,000 every game.

This season we are £220,000 under the cap, what will it be next season if the crowds continue to stay away?

Don't wish to come across as patronising, but I can assure you that the Bulls are probably as clued up financially and as on top of their finances and budget as any club in the game. They have had to be. And I am speaking with a degree of first hand knowledge there, not just the usual forum talk.

I rather think there is little left to cut - there are minimum stewarding etc requirements, the only police you normally see (except when HKR are in town) are those stopping the Rooley Avenue traffic after the game, the pre-match and HT is far far less than it used to be, there are no bouncy castles or karaoke or face painting and the like, at all, and I believe the catering is let out to a third party for a fee, and see separate thread for discussion on that. I was once told a figure by the club that was the incremental contribution (in financial terms) for every body through the gate. Every additional body helps.

The underlying problem is too few bodies through the gate. We have loads of supposed Bulls fans, armchair supporters who are happy to complain about performances and perceived lack of spending, but seem unable to make the connection with their lack of attendance. It certainly does not help that we seem to be blighted by turning in bad home performances at just the time there are signs of gate recovery. Every bloody time. It also does not help that this city is more or less stuffed, and the whole place seems to me to be dying from the centre out. Or that Odsal is at the very bottom tip of the Bradford Met district, and that therefore many from the northern swathes would see Valley Parade and soccer as their more natural following. And of course there seems very little appetite for RL across much of the great band across the centre of the city.

Mick is I believe repeating some numbers that allegedly a semi-inebriated director told him. They may or may not be accurate (although I can form my own conclusions independently of that, but that's not for on here) but its the bigger picture that really matters. Matchday net income and expenditure is only part of it. The ongoing legacy of the past, including of the Caisley era, the lack of a modern-type stadium, and most significantly of all the lack of a wealthy backer to allow the board to invest more in the future, are pretty fundamental. When we are up against clubs who do not have these disadvantages.

Yet, even so, the club has just found a way to invest in what appears (from comments of players from other clubs, including your own JP) to be pretty well the best training and development facility in the game. And far far better located than the previous facilities. I've seen it - and its very impressive. This is vital to the future, and I can only applaud the club for finding a way to make it happen.

I just wish the club could find a way to make more bodies on the terraces happen. But that will mean overcoming the massive inertia and pall of apathy that so pervades so much of this city.

That's a good read mate, well put.

I can't think of anything that will get the lost fans back.

Money.

When considering the product on the field at Odsal (I include yesterdays horror show as a prime example) which is very much hit & miss this season, then add £18 to watch it in a stadium with no roof over 70% of it's total capacity.

Yes agree

Can we not fund a roof over the popular side ourselves?

There needs to be a way that you can offer cheaper tickets to pull a few extra in whilst reducing the deficit on match days.

I think you should invest in a "Laws of the game" manual first Mick!

I know the laws of the game.

Gas, water, electric, telephone/broadband.....

This post is meant to be taken in the lighthearted manner it has been written and in no way is meant to reflect the views of any member of this board.

Laws of the game according to Mick Gledhill:-

Every referee must be biased against The Bulls.
Every referee must endevour to give the opposition points.
Every referee must endevour to refuse The Bulls points.
At every 'play the ball' the opposition must be deemed to be offside.
During every opposition 'set of six' there must be at least one forward pass.
The Bulls can never be deemed to be offside at a 'play the ball'.
The Bulls can never be found to have made a forward pass.
Linesmen must always be baldheaded, have bad eyesight and questionable parentage.

I'm sure there are many more that i have forgotten.

Just joking Mick

To be honest, it's not far off being an accurate account of the world of Gledhill, never mind a joke!

I tend to agree with the last point in the list...

Regarding the linesmen....

I don't know the bloke's name, but you know the old fella with the grey hair that everyone recognises? Does he touch judge every single match? Does he have some sort of magical device that allows him to be in four places at once, or is he actually one of quadruplets? I'm not sure I've ever seen a game of RL where that bloke hasn't been the touch judge!

Don't sweat it Mick. So long as you keep doing your bit. There's very little else you can do.

As a Giants supporter, l can tell you that a lot of fans you have lost will have gone forever, In the good old days for "you" the bad old days for "us" the bulls reps were all over Huddersfield schools tempting the kids with goodie bags and tickets, plus offering the razzmatazz, and of co you had success. All over Hudds and surrounding towns/villages you could see Bulls stickers.
It should come as no surprise that with the demise of the Bulls and the rise of the Giants that the support base has changed. You are all l,m sure aware that the Giants have worked very hard on, and especially off the field to win back their own people. lt has been a long hard road, l am not gloating, these are facts that will account for a lot of your missing support, there are still a lot of floaters out there, all those small towns and villages twix Bulls and Giants terratory, but the stickers are changing.

be interesting if they all stick to giants once cheap season ticket offers are stopped though.

do we really need to have this post or something very similar regurgitated after every game we lose mick? Everyone fully aware off the financial problems and implications of the poor attendances. You spreading doom and gloom does nothing to help. If you've got positive suggestions fair enough but the constant restating of the situation doesnt help anyone.

But the thing to remember is that everybody seems to think we always had large crowds and that is simply not true. Before Peter Deakin and Brian Smith the support was fairly dire and I think Mr Deakin in particular would have loved to have started from a 9000 average.

First home average for SL was only just over ten k, including big gates for Fax, Wigan and Saints.