You have shagged my wife then

But why talk to clubs when no-one apparently knows the state of the finances until after the review?

I've no idea TT. Who was it said "Wait until the review is complete [ibut in the meantime Whitehead & Bateman start talks with Warrington"[/i?, maybe we should have a word with him?

Nice smokescreen GB, or should I say Mr. Graeme Bradley?



You'll never return to Odsal while Mick Potter draws breath!

what happened to his promise of investors ready to put in as soon as hood and bennet out?caisley is a lying toad and mentioning he is now looking for investment fills me with little confidence as this is something he claimed was already in place.

No he didn't

So here we are again waiting for news from the “new Board” the silence is the same as when Mr Hood was in pole position, they probably don’t want to spoil the Magic Weekend game for us with bad news!!

It's always amused me a little when people refer to the 'silence' from the board under Hood; remind me when it was different as I've only been interested in the club since the 1950s.... Incidentally, to be fair, didn't the forums start during Hood's regime?

The last bit has a slight ring of possibility about it. The middle of this week was stated as the time they were hopeful of announcing something but maybe there are still some bits to finalise, deals to be concluded etc?

there was a reference in the tna, so deniable by the Board, about it being early this week. and with potential funders wanting to see what they will get for their money, it was never going to be a quick process, the review itself maybe but what follows re funding certainly not. I would have expected them to want to give the fans and team a boost before the weekend, but I am not going to read anything into any delay, otherwise I will get told off by Gurus Beard.

Red's correct.

He didn't.

I kept pointing out at the time: he actually promised nothing other than he had a plan (the "review"icon_wink.gif to come up with a plan. And, tbh, that was surely the prudent thing to say anyway?

I also kept pointing out that the wording was clever: it got many folk - it looks like including you - reading what they THOUGHT he said, rather than what he ACTUALLY said. He was always very cute in that department!

Thought it was Hood who said that they had plans in place if the first £500K was in place. Was that a lie then? Or are we still blaming Caisley for that one?

Or was the plan involving all six numbers coming up on a Saturday?

This is the bit that only Hood/Bennett/Duckett on one side & CC on the other will know.

Hoods Plan A was fans money - [iat least £500k[/i but they never gave out a limit for fans money. They also intimated that they were having discussions with 2-3 other investors as well. Again no specific amounts.

They were very careful not to say - fans raise half then we will raise half.

Caisley's piece on the Friday before pledge deadline in the T&A torpedoed any chance of investment through Hood's efforts (if you believe that there was some in the first place).

The timing of Caisley's input was significant with regard to Hood's Plan A. He didn't have a plan B so that left two options - oblivion or Caisley's plan.

And ever since then we have been waiting for Caisley's plan....

I don't think he ever actually [isaid[/i there was definitely money available if the first £500k was reached, just that they were in talks with people, so it was very open ended. Though I admit I took it as a probable rather than a possible, maybe that was because I wanted to believe it and left my 'thinking head' at home....

CC's intervention, if not deliberate, was spectacularly unfortunately timed though, and as is pointed out above, we'll never know now.

I think you will find, when you read who said what, that none of them actually promised ANYTHING.

The clever part was that they all of them worded what they released in such a way that seemingly the majority of supporters thought they HAD.

Same as politicians.

[i"The Club will now proceed to the next phase of our plan, in connection with which I can confirm a number of confidential discussions are underway."[/i (Website 10/4)
[i
"This income would enable the Club to meet some upcoming liabilities including player and staff salaries and a tax bill. Once these liabilities are met the Club would have a month to six weeks to explore other income / investment opportunities including the possibility of a new ownership model...If the Club is not successful in meeting this first £500,000 target then the future of the Club and its assets are very uncertain. We have spoken to and shared confidential financial information with one or two interested parties and I think they are watching the Pledge campaign very closely."[/i (Website 3/4)

[i"It's a real achievement in such a short space of time and we are really grateful to every person who has donated or is planning fundraising to help the club at this difficult time. However, there is still a long way to go to reach the £1 million we need by the end of April so we would urge anyone who is able to Pledge who has yet to do so to make their Pledge."[/i (Website 28/3)
[i
“We can stay alive for about two and a half weeks. We could just about, at this moment in time, put the Leeds game on. But that could be the last-ever game at Odsal unless money comes in quickly. If we get over the blip, we’ve got a plan that actually takes us forward long-term that physically works as a business. Therefore we wouldn’t need to go back to our fans in 12 months’ time asking for them to bail us out again."[/i(Website27/3, quoting Bennett)

Anyone remember what was in the pledge flyer? Then we have this from the original T&A report:

[iThe Bulls are targeting £1million and say half of that must come by the middle of April for them to survive. The club are asking for every 2012 Member to donate at least £100 in a bid to save the Bulls. Mr Hood added: “If this pledge raised £100,000 or £200,000 then I don’t think that’s anywhere like enough. But [u=#800000if sponsors come forward[/u and we get to between £400,000 and up to £800,000, then it probably would be."[/i (T&A 27/3)(my emphasis)

Reading all that lot, they don't every actually say they have funding in place? Bennett's comments 27/3 come closest.

Anyone got any quotes from what CC came out and said in the piece just before the pledge deadline?

[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/9632469.Bradford_Bulls_exclusive__Caisley_calls_for_Hood_to_resign/=#800000once again...[/url

Incidentally, I hope no-one is expecting the all the details of this "root and branch review" to ever be made public? I fear some people are expecting to read a detailed summary of findings and proposals one morning in the T&A.

Given that Ryan Duckett doesn't seem to be being kept in the loop regarding who the auditors actually are, the chances of us knowing anything at any point of any substance are slim to none.

I think that's pretty hard to argue with. So...where is this plan?

Or do we conclude that the original statement was somewhat false?
And they say they had a plan before the pledge, so to blame Caisley for scuppering a plan that was in place two months before seems unfair. I can only conclude there was no plan.

Smoke and mirrors.

I submit that is a conclusion that cannot be drawn from the available facts.

Everything I heard and saw indicated that they DID have a plan. Indeed, they seemed quite positive about the prospects provided the fans could do their bit, and it came across very much that the demonstration of commitment by the fans was likely to be pretty instrumental in persuading the third parties tro commit. Indeed, that is alluded to in one of the staements I quoted. Whether that plan was practicable and realistic or not is a separate issue, and we will likely never know. Maybe it was, maybe it was not, but it was not to be.

But you will note that the Caisley camp made reference in subsequent statements to seeking to revive the opportunities that the previous board was pursuing, which comes pretty close to a QED in my books?

My own opinion is that Caisley's intervention, timed as it was the day after it was clear that the pledges had suddenly picked up and the day before the pledge deadline when it suddenly looked like we might make it, and making it clear as he did that the board did not have the backing of a majority of the shareholders, was guaranteed to make any prospective investor or sponsor hold off until the internal power struggle was resolved. Only he knows if that was his intent, or just an unfortunate (for some) accident.

Direct quote from CC c/o T&A


“Peter seemingly believes that he and Mr Bennett give the club the best chance of successfully finding a pathway through the financial difficulties because they are in discussions with potential investors who are of a similar view"

So Hoods plan was a reality. It existed, even CC acknowledges this
Since stepping down all investment that has been discussed in the rags has talked of REVIVING discussions on investment.

Ryan and Stuart - and Mick! - are likely to be nearly as much in the dark as the rest of us, I suspect. Except, for them, it is their jobs and their livelihoods on the line.

If this review does not involve a qualified insolvency practitioner - "corporate recovery" or whatever the euphemism is - then I will be extremely surprised. But in a situation where insolvency is being flagged up as a serious possibility/probability, it will be pretty vital that matters remain confidential and do not leak. For all sorts of legal, let alone commercial, reasons. That is why I was neither surprised nor concerned at the original and only press release, whcih said that no further statement would be made.

'Peter seemingly believes' is hardly a preface to a an acknowledgement of fact. The next sentence begins 'the majority of the shareholders disagree' which would suggest CC felt that Peter was the only person who 'believed'.

Given that Caisley + Agar + Tasker + Coulby = "the majority", and Hood + Bennett = "the minority", which is 4 vs 2, I suggest that you too are suggesting something that is hardly supported by facts either?

What seems clear is that the selective conclusions people draw (doubtless people will say including my own) are being influenced by their stances towards the two camps and their interpretation of the semantics in the various statements.

Everything you heard and saw indicvated that they had a plan they hadn't acted upon in six years (less in Bennett's case). You didn't see a plan, nor had they acted upon it even though they had taken a huge loan from the RFL and sold the lease on the ground to pay it back. A plan which was being formed whilst statements were made regarding the next game being likely to be the club's last? Do you think they were the slightest bit tardy coming up with this plan?

I remember the T and A making references to the Caisley camp 'reviving' the opportunities originally pursued by Hood and Co but I'm not sure I heard it from CC or Coulby. I heard Coulby say word to the effect that the rest of the significant shareholders could not work with Peter owing to his conduct.

I don't remember this assumed timeline where in a sequence the following happened 1, the pledge looked likely to fail. 2, the pledge surged. 3, Caisley intervened to sabotage pledge.

You infer that CC's intention is unknowable but you clearly suspect and have sequenced the information with this in mind. I would argue on the basis of what we do know. We know in late March the Chairman and CEO announced that despite selling the lease on the ground the fans needed to come up with £500k or the club would go bankrupt. A few weeks later (much later than many including myself had hope for) CC intervened. This is what happened - not what the type of 'we'll never knows' that have been woven on this board.

You appear to believe that a figure who held 26% of the shares and had, in the interim, garnered support from a further 25%+ of the shareholding was under some kind of obligation to sit silently by, in the hope that the current board would find the required investment despite not having previously done so. As you clearly believe CC 'timed' his intervention, do you think he should not have intervened at all or perhaps should have waited? If he should have waited, how long would you suggest was reasonable considering as the largest shareholder, his stake was the most vulnerable of all to either administration or, liquidation?

CC HAD to intervene to save both the club and his own interest in it from what I have argued long (and often alone) was the inevitable path to administration. The idea that he 'timed' this action to scupper the plans of those who had previously sold the lease on their own premises and reduced the fans to bucket collections outside the KC Stadium is somehow more than absurd. It's the result of some kind of mania about Chris Caisley which looks sillier the more it is aired.

There were two games in town; adminstration (which I would have taken and you argued against) or Caisley.