To be fair, I petty much agree with that.

I don't know what the actual 'break even' figure is - it may be the one they have set as the target it may well be lower, but there is no reason to believe the 'target' figure is any more significant than just being a figure they feel is attainable. I don't know why they put so much significance on season tickets, to be honest nor exactly what difference it makes to the finances whether the fans pay by season ticket or on the gate, though I was once led to believe there is a difference in the VAY payable.

If we start well and actually look, at least, as though we may win a few more games than we lose then I think, with 'roll ups', a figure of 3K is perfectly possible, though I don't think the 'one big push for promotion' gag is going to fool anyone this time round, so best they don't try that one. The big problem for the owners is maybe how much to commit. If they spend very little on the team then many more may decide not to bother; spend too much and the finances may take a hit if the gamble fails. Finishing well this season would help though - it's never too early to start the feel good factor.

I'm not gonna buy a season ticket for the first time in god knows many years. (and NO I don't smoke)
The way I see it is - last December a lot of us had bought season tickets and it looked like we had basically thrown money into Mr Greens bank account.
Just think back for a moment, we'd paid our money up front like good little loyal fans; and the smooth talking businessman pocketed it and walked off into the sunset.
iirc It was the RFL's criteria to honour those season tickets not AC's.
I might be a tick paddy, but I'd be stupid to make the same mistake again (whether AC is honest/not - I don't know - but its bleedin obvious he is a businessman first - and he's not suddenly become a stout Bulls fan overnight)
How many of the 2000+ Bulls fans at the last home game were actually ST holders turning up only because it was already paid for. How many of those 2000+ actually chose to turn up and pay cash to watch an already relegated team get beat up?
Next season we'll start with the usual big-ish crowd and then (as always) its down to the players on the pitch whether we win and attract more fans/supporters.
To me, its a very simple plan - winning games attracts species.
More species = more income
More income = attract higher quality players = win games etc.
Its not rocket science.

On the other hand - a good performing team will retain fans even if they lose more games than they win
But a relegated team will definitely loose their fringe fans.
Twice relegated - well that team will loose even more fans
twice relegated, three times in administration, and rumours of dodgy businessmen/owners, and disproportionate punishment from the RFL - guess how many fans that team will loose.
We're now starting where we should have started last season - I'll always be a bulls fan - but now its upto the club, players (and no doubt the RFL) to convince me things will not get worse

In an ideal world no,however loyalty to your club sometimes overrides your common sense,that's sport I suppose..

I really wish I'd bothered to read this topic before starting my own. Ah well

I notice the badly spelled media releases are still coming out. So no progress on that front despite Chalmers being made aware of the problem.

The friendly sales pitch will have won a few gullible fans over but I suspect the majority will wait to see how much he actually delivers before committing to 2018.

Quite. I'm certainly not convinced yet.

Who spell checks the spell checkers?

Nobody doing either job at the moment! www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... ley-threat

Nobody doing either job at the moment! www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/article/ ... ley-threat

Well, clearly not you, as it should have been:
"Who spell-checks the spell checkers?"

From what I was reading on Facebook, quite a lot of people have contacted the club about this problem, by different means. That contact has been largely ignored. Occasionally he does the "we're aware and sorting it" but nothing happens. I think it's quite clear he has no intention of doing anything about it.

It's things like this that makes me totally distrust Mr. Chalmers though (others too, but this is such a clear cut thing which makes it a good example). If he has no intention of doing anything about it, just say so. People may not be happy with "Yeah we know he's an idiot, but he's cheap and we can't afford anyone better to do the job", but at least it's honest.

I would suggest e-mailing the club generic mail address, or contacting them via social media is also totally pointless on this subject. It'll be the same halfwit that reads those, so he'll just ignore it or delete it without passing on the info. Sending the info to Chalmers direct is definitely the way, or at least it would be if the bloke gave two sheets.

Well I emailed him directly the day after the forum. That email was opened as I got a receipt through. I never received a reply.

Which IMO is another example that he's really not that bothered about the idiot doing the job. He seems content with the medicore output, but considering the output from other departments, that seems to be something that's throughout the club anyway.

The issue with the media releases is known at the club. I know that for a fact. The thing that worries me is that if they can get that wrong and do nothing about it what else is going to pot? It doesn't inspire me with any confidence. I remember reading in the old Running with the Bulls book (the story 95-97 by Graham Clay IIRC) it mentioned how the club had an ethos that "if you're going to do something do it with quality". That kind of attention to detail seems to have gone out of the window in this area at least.

If I was a potential sponsor would I want to be associated with a club that can't spell it's own press releases? I may be getting a bee in my bonnet about this issue but it nags me that they're aware of it and have done bugger all about it.

I know what you mean. Gets my goat too all this bad grammar and punctuation. Speaking of which, have you all received the email inviting you to the end of season bash? The invite says:
"The Provident End of Season Awards
Hello , The Bradford Bulls would like to Invite you to the Provident End of Season Awards Evening, Priced at £45 per person or £450 for a Table a 10 that comes with two complimentary bottles of wine."

Perhaps the Bulls scriptwriter is on holiday ?

Last night's tweet about the academy took three attempts before he got it right. At one point it referred to us having one of the most "infamous academy's" in the game.

A former poster on here describes his style as being like Les Dawson playing the piano.

Are you Geoffrey Chaucer?

Some of the spelling mistakes are the wrong word spelt correctly rather than the right word spelled incorrectly. So the spelling-checker (thanks FA for the reminder about hyphenation, much under-used) does not pick it up, nor will it pick up the same word that can be spelled in different ways, as I have just illustrated. For the most part it is as you say, a strange indeed sometimes bizarre choice of words and turn of phrase, which I find refreshing and amusing. One thing we can say for certain is that language changes.

As for everybody else being perfect, the funniest and most apposite error I have seen recently was in an advert by a global recruitment agency. One of the person specifications read:

-Keen attendtion to detail.



If these errors changed the meaning sufficiently to make it unintelligible, I would agree with you. In the meantime I will enjoy the more colourful language than the usual bland pasteurised PR's contain, and focus my concerns on who the experienced players are for next year as that will have far more impact on the results.

Glad someone's happy with it.

Well the new online store is up and running. Obviously not much stock yet, but at least it's ready before the new stock arrives for Christmas which is the main thing. Hopefully the guy who does twitter hasn't been let near the pricing

Good to see we've finally got an online shop. So one thing ticked off the list for me.

Sadly the prices are still gonna put people off, but at least it's a step in the right direction. The sheer amount of time it's taken to get this going is ridiculous, but at least it's there now so bright sides and all that.

As far as the halfwit in charge of the website and social media goes, I'm glad some people find it amusing or entertaining. I'll continue to find it a total embarrassment and genuinely worrying that nobody at the club seems to give a monkeys.

That's a monkey's actually

See, it's bloody infectious!

Doesn't amaze me unfortunately. I run a number of leisure facilities for a well established Russell Group university and when I sat down with the finance department to discuss online payments and memberships I was told it would take 18 months to put such a project into place.

Wonder if they are using the same infrastructure team

To be fair, that's not really the point Martin.

To use come back to else's metaphor, I like Les Dawson's piano playing, but wouldn't put it forward as an example of how to do it. It's also, for an accomplished pianist like Les, actually quite difficult to master, but more importantly intended as comedy and quite brilliantly done. All quite unlike the club's press releases. These are intended to inform and, as any employer would surely have suggested, to give an important first impression of the club to the site's visitors.

The impression given is certainly, 'quirky', but also conveys amateurishness, as though the club is run by people who are semi literate at best. The club is a business, not a message board and should be treated as such by any the owners. I appreciate money is tight but they can't allow this to continue, though I guess Duffers wouldn't want any further duties added to his shift, he is one guy who can put a press release out properly and really ought be brought back to either do this work or at least to, 'advise', whoever is doing it.

Not that I'll try holding my breath...