What good work did the Bulls do at the start of SuperLeague? Bradford Northern copied marketing methods already used by Keighley. In 94/95 Bradford's average attendance was 4,593, Keighley 3,787 and Halifax 5,083. At the start of the Super League Bradford really grew that fan base 10k in 96, 15k in 98. Why couldn't Halifax do the same in 2 years if they won promotion? No other teams like Halifax, Leigh or Featherstone will ever have the opportunity to have the strongest supporter base in SL, the highest attendance, or become the biggest rivalries in the game if they are never given their chance to actually compete in the Super League. There are other teams whose supporters pledge blindly to try to save their club... in fact I have for my club and it didn't work but I'm still here supporting them, hoping my team will win the division again and this time genuinely have a chance of being promoted.

Do I truly believe that kicking Bradford out of the SL is in the interest of RL.... I don't know, they certainly deserve it, though it would be a shock to the league before attendances creep up again this sport could really use the money right now, alternatively the sport may regain some credibility as a proper sport (as it has none with most of my midland and southern colleagues), given their production of new RL talent I'll probably say they should stay in for now...

If Bradford were in the Championship wouldn't the supporters hope for their chance to play in the big leagues when teams make a squander their chance and can't manage themselves appropriately at such a level.

Featherstone deserve SL because of their consistently strong team, Fax deserve it for their all around decent club, Leigh have a reasonable team with good facilities. All could address their failings and be great in just a short time with SL size revenues and visibility...

Anyone see the teeny weeny flaw in his argument?

Remind me again what competition Halifax played in from the start of SL? Why the fekk did THEY not do what Bulls did?

I suppose "first mover advantage", i.e they had SL level team, position and visibilty then employed the marketing techniques to grow support. Halifax were too slow at employing effective marketing but yes I know they were in the super league at that time... I'm just saying there's nothing stopping them now to at least substantially grow support to something nearer that of Bradford.

so franchising, licensing and the salary cap were brought in to protect clubs from their directors, create a level playing field and ensure that clubs are run in a financially sound way.

It's not really done very well has it?

The fully professional era in rugby league only started in 1996 and as in football, the only real winners are the players and their agents!

get rid of the salary cap. let the rich owners buy success! re introduce promotion and relegation, and do away with "Super league contracts" that allowed relegated clubs to release players if they go down!

Yes, we might lose some players to other sports. Yes some clubs might go to the wall, or to the brink of hitting the wall.

But hasnt that happened in the last 16 years anyway? become a proper sport with a true sporting pathway to the top once more, and lets stop being a joke. and when you do this, ensure that, like in football, proper sporting penalties for financial irregularities/admins etc... and yes, that would include the BUlls losing their SL status, but also having a proper way back, just as RAngers have in scottish football.

Yeah just bring back Huey and Bluey eh?

TBH I think a lot of the razamatazz isn't worth diddly unless you have a competitive team on the field. Keighley had one in Div 2 back in the mid 90s. Had they played like Runcorn Highfield they wouldn't have attracted the fans. Same goes for the Bulls in SL.

As for Fax I remember them getting 8 or 9k back in the glory years under Anderson. With a bigger ground and some marketing with a good side there's no reason why they can't again, and good luck to them. I just would rather it not be at the expense of Bradford. Given that P&R is coming back in then Fax have a good chance of getting back in sooner rather than later.

Franchising was brought in due to the disaster that was P&R, whereby one club after another went bust after losing their SL place, but as is so often the case with new systems it hasn't been a total success. Though I'd suggest that the idea of a three year period for new clubs to get used to life in the higher division is one of the better points, since the old yo-yo phenomenon we had under P&R, where the same teams constantly changed leagues every season was quite ridiculous and did no one any favours.

The cap was similar in that it was brought in, under P&R, not originally to make for a level playing field, but to prevent clubs spending more than they could afford in ever more desperate attempts to stave off relegation. It was never enforceable though, and still isn't, and it has had a bit of 'mission creep' as well as when the proportion of income bit was dropped the emphasis moved then to supposedly creating the "level playing field". At the end of the day if, "an unconnected third party", wishes to shower riches onto a player there isn't a thing anyone can do about it.

I think one of the problems at Fax was the fans. To be blunt, they had too many 'flatcappers', saying neigh to anything which smacked of razzamataz and the club couldn't get things done without it meeting a great swathe of protest from people who just wanted the club to be Halifax RLFC, or didn't see the point of mascots etc. I don't know why the Bradford fans weren't as vociferous, because there were plenty of folk unhappy about changing Northern to Bulls at the time, but they just didn't create in the manner of the Fax fans, so things did change at Odsal.

Between august 95 when the bulls launched and march 06 there was plenty of unsupportive fans who even chnated "northern, Northern" at games! the bulls was seen as a cheap rip off of the Keighley style.

having won nothing bar a yorkshire cup in 15 years, We beat Leeds in the cup semi, took part in a classic (if losing) wembley final, and the rest is as they say, history. IMO, that one win at the mcalpine defined and enabled the vision of mssrs Deakin, Caisley and smith to come to fruition over the next 10 seasons.

Halifax didnt get that success, infact their biggest successes were already ten years past. they were on a decline, whereas we were on the up. It was as much about lucky timing as astute business planning! I actually miss playing halifax in our league. often this rivalry pre super league was more intense than the leeds bradford one, but many on here will simply not be old enough to remember pre SL, or early sl. One of the greatest games Ive ever witnessed was out win at Thrum Hall in 1997!

Frankly, if you have to ask, then you know so little about the subject that I might as well talk to my tortoises. But anyway . . .


Tosh. Keighley brought in what could be described as US-style razzamatazz, albeit obviously much watered down and on a comparatively tiny budget. Are you seriously suggesting Keighley invented cheerleaders, dancing girls and the rest? For a time, it worked, but just as in the Bulls' case, withered and became a pale shadow of its former glories as the fortuns of the team declined, and as they (and we) failed to freshen and re-invent it, to keep people interested.

The Bulls' version of "mania" was just that - a version of something that in principle had been done for may decades in sport, mainly in the US. But our masterstroke was certainly not "copying Keighley", but employing the marketing genius, Peter Deakin.


"Deserve"??

What money? If Bulls leave SL this will make the other clubs rich?






...but was a fully credible sport into which your colleagues poured money, until they reeled away in shock when a northern team went tits. OK.


What a weird way of looking at it. Any lower league team with ambitions wants to move up the ladder, but I'd reckon most fans would want to get in because they are the best choice and tick the required boxes, not pray for the collapse of a fellow club so they can dance into its SL grave. I genuinely do not believe that the vast majority of RL fans wish ill on any other team or its fans, despite the number of trolls on here who do.


In other words you accept that these clubs have their failings, and are not great.

Look, you won't find me knocking any of those teams, and I've seen Fev twice this season as well as on Premier, and in their league yes a very decent outfit, and entertaining to watch, but let's not kid ourselves, that team would be pulverised in SL, you surely know this? The truth, whether you face it or not, is that they could only "be great in a short time" if somebody got a huge chequebook out and bought half a squad of top-class players.

In the wider picture, what you also have to accept is that if SL comes back down to parochial little towns in the narrow patches it once was, and isn't all that far from now, there won't BE the same level of Sky money etc., maybe even none, as Sky would have no interest in screening a comp at great expense running into the multiple millions involving these sort of clubs. If they did, then it wouldn't be on Premier who - as I understand it, don't even pay the clubs any fee to speak of.

This is not to write these teams off, far from it. As a Northern fan in 1973, I gazed enviously at the Featherstone team of those days and wished Bradford could be as good. In more recent times, how we used to relish the derbies with Halifax. So I am happy with the principle that if any one of them gets to the stage where it can genuinely make a better pitch for SL than Bradford, or whoever, then of course they should be in. But you should remove your rose tinted specs and recognise that at the moment they are a very long way away from being able to do that. It may be Bradford's good fortune that despite going tits the new club is, at the moment, a seven day camel ride ahead as a SL candidate, but it doesn't help to pretend that they are not, or that the present SL wouldn't be severely weakened without Bradford. That might understandably leave a bitter taste with many, but it's the truth nonetheless.

very very well said aardvark, all of it

Having Nigel Wood in charge didnt help either and pushing through with a nick name that nobody wanted. What ever did happen to him?

Other than a few players left on contract, what do Bradford actually have in terms of a squad, back office etc?

he went on to 'bigger' things...

I find myself torn here.

A lot has been said about Rangers FC up here and the situations are very similar. I was very much against Rangers being booted out of the SPL and supported the view that the 3rd division would have to be the punishment for them. However, the diffeence between them and the Bulls is the arrogance and underhand tactics Rangers used through media mouthpieces, the printing and reporting of lies and their holier than thou attitude over the 40 lesser clubs in Scotland.

Bradford seem to have the support that Rangers did not have from rival clubs and seem to have gone about this in a far more acceptable manner than the Ibrox club.

Still, I can't say there should be one rule for one and one for another. To slate Rangers yet try to defend Bradford would be wholly hypocritical of me and I cannot do it.

I must confess to having sympathy with the views of fans of other sides in this issue. Would I be happy to see a side with a history of salary cap breaches, Harrisgate and RL/Sky money bail-outs dine at the top table whilst my well run club looked on in envy? Of course not. But do I want Bradford in SL? Of course I do.

But lets' be honest, if we DO continue to be in SL then this has to be the last chance saloon. Any more problems and we have to get our licence revoked, pure and simple. The previous board(s) have caused the problem. Time to put it right. If not we should face the consequencies. It is not as if we have not had the warnings.

I've only read the first 5 pages of this thread - so my apologies if someone else has pointed this out but there seems to be some misconseption of what has happened.

Bradford Bulls have not gone bust, Bradford Bulls was simply a trading name of Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd - it is Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd that have gone bust.

OK Bulls Ltd have essentially (and I haven't seen the full details of the argeement so this is somewhat speculative) bought the rights to the trading name Bradford Bulls.

The Bradford Bulls were formed at the start of Super League, and as such can quite fairly (in the terms of the law - I'll get onto morals later) use previous years attendance and the "clubs" history in a licence application. People "follow" the trading name, and not the holding company.

The debt was with Bradford Bulls Holding Comapny - that has now gone bust so again, it is quite "right" that the debts of that company are not used. The debts were never held by Bradford Bulls (the trading name) they were held by Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd, and as such have nothing to do with the new licence application by OK Bulls Ltd.

Morally this may appear somewhat dubious - but this is the exact reason that holding companys exist, like it or not - and it's not only in sport that this happens.

So OK Bulls Ltd has a founding date of 2012 and cannot make any assumptions to the previous Bradford Bulls Holding Comapny Ltd founding date. Bradford Bulls has a founding date of the start of SL (I forget the year, was it 2000?) And can use this, along with the history of the club, they can also quite rightly maintain they they were previously known as Bradford Northern with whatever founding date that was.

It is a case that this means they can have their cake and eat it too - but that is the way the rules of RL are, the rules of Business and and the Law of the Country is.

Is it morally right, maybe not - that is a lot harder to judge.

The worst thing that ever happened to RL is full time professionalism. The sport is just not big enough.
A return to promotion and relegation and a semi pro status would create a far more even playing field. The doorway would be open for any team to play at the top level, and relegation would not mean the death of a club as they could always try again next year.

then Bradford Northern and Bradford Park avenue were formed from that club in 1907, we reformed in 1964, rebranded to bulls in 1996)


i keep hearing about having our cake and eating it, well, I've always been of the opinion that whats the point of having the cake if you're not going to eat it?

And you can kiss goodbye to RL ever being anything but a dying small town M62 sport.

I refuse to believe the Bulls situation has changed your colleagues' views of RL one iota. Do they dislike football due to its obscene money, player behaviour, scandals? Do they dislike yawnion that continues to copy RL, has its own financial crises, P&R farces? Do they dislike horse racing as it is corrupt to the core? Do they dislike cricket due to the ongoing corruption & match fixing? No, they dislike RL because it is a predominantly northern, working class, sport & they are narrow minded bigots.

The problem with the above is that with the move to a fully professional upper tier came the rather large cheque from Sky which could be bringing in perhaps 40% of the SL revenue. I know some less active fans will stay at home and watch the games on the box - so won't go through the turnstiles, but still leaves a very large net contribution from Sky. You could argue that we have two sports: SL and the "purer" version of the game your refer to above. This is very similar to American Football - a top tier rolling in media money - and a the more traditional college games. No interest in the game myself but I work for a US company and know a lot of the guys over there swear by college football.

Didn't find it to be dying in Sydney.

The professional game with no P&R?

Premier League Soccer here is doing reasonably well - with teams from Stoke, Wigan, Sunderland, Norwich, Reading, Southampton, Birmingham suburbs etc. They've got three up, three down. UK RL only needs one-up, one-down to sort things out. Or, tt, are you one of those guys that gets paid to sit in the smoke-filled rooms trying to plan everything?

if people are worried that a team that is promoted spends heavily and then get relegated and goes out of buisness then an easy solution is the promoted team is exempt from relegation until their 3rd season, this gives them time to put in place a youth structure and a decent playing squad and attract crowds with better results. If they finish bottom in year 1 and 2 the next lowest team that is not exempt gets relegated. Stops the yoyo effect of teams being promoted only to go straight back down