People like us will only take so much before deciding it's not worth it and with cost of living going up it'll be nigh impossible to justify £20 to stand at a crumbling Odsal in all weathers watching the most sterile RL possible. The club can't expect people to attend out of obligation. It's a two way relationship.

I too am trying to give Dunning the benefit of the doubt and I realise he's not going to publicly criticise his players but I would like to see a bit more from him about what he's going to do to turn things around and give us a reason to want to come and support the team in the future. At the moment it's all very dour and littered with low expectations.

I remember a game JK talked about maybe Swinton? He said they have a lot of penalties away when they were under pressure, in order to get their defence set. So jk directed Keyes to kick all penalties. It was once Swinton were 10-0 down they began to realise they were in trouble. If we’d done that yesterday we could have added 10points to our score, assuming Kear could kick them.

Hookem played ok. But the Doyle/Flanagan axis would have been better, and again, I think we would have won. But agreed, all very dispiriting.

I assume Kear didn't fancy his chances? He missed one that a regular kicker would normally get. I take your point but I guess they thought Whitehaven would crack eventually. Unfortunately we didn't ask the right questions in their defence and Dunning has to take some portion of blame for that.

So. What kind of reset do we need? We lost about 2k supporters when we were relegated from SL. And we’ve lost about 300 every year since then.
Short term, we’re stuck with Odsal. I think. How long a lease did we sign at the beginning of last year? With the numbers we’re down to now, we could make BPA work I think.
It’s all about recruitment and the academy. I would say a mix of our 6 best academy players and maybe 8 others, to cover for the 16 that are leaving?

Lawford will be a great player with time, from what I hear George JNR will be..
We need a 100% rake out top to bottom, an owner with funds and acumen would be a start, we can't scrimp and save with a volunteers back to Super League or even the top 6 of the championship.

The Playing staff needs overhauling, and I hate to say it as I like Dunning he needs to be replaced, well out of his depth is an understatement.
We need a professional coach to build a culture like Brian Smith did in 96, they never even looked to replace JK just made out like they were.

Unless someone comes in to buy Nigel out or invests whats needed to set a pro RL club back up we are going to continue to decline.
A mate of mine who works up there full time said "We are an amateur club in everything but name" and it shows.

The love in with George Flannagan needs to end too, I could see him been made assistant when in reality he shouldn't be anywhere near a professional organisation.

With a turn up on the playing field, a potential stadium project and positivity we will see fans come back.
The Odsal Chicken and the egg situation, without investment we will not get success, without success we will not see fans back so less gate revenue.

#nigeout not because I have anything against the guy, he just isn't our man.

We need a new owner. Without one the slide will continue. Look at his track record so far:

1. Pitch at Odsal the smallest ever and one that the head coach acknowledges is a problem with resultant negative impacts on results, playing style, income and perception.

2. Presiding over a culture at the club where visibly obese players are picked regularly for the 1st team to the mockery of all and sundry on TV and social media.

3. Supporters needing to bring their own cleaning equipment into the stadium to clean seats or face ruined clothing.

4. Two month long worldwide search for a head coach culminating in appointing the bloke who was already here.

If we carry on like this there's no doubt we'll be struggling to avoid relegation next year. We'll be battling to stay above Newcastle and whoever comes up behind Keighley.

If we move to BPA it would only confirm how low we've got and impact further on player recruitment at all levels.

Part of me just wants the pain over with.

We'd have put the family pet to sleep a long time ago....

I know what you mean but it would be possible to turn it all around with the right owner. Other clubs have come out of the doldrums and got new grounds. Look at Huddersfield. We're just like they were when they were called the Barracudas and playing in a crumbling Fartown.

Who here had a source either at Caddick construction or construction in Leeds/Bradford in general?

Are Caddick in for the job if we get funding?.

What particular construction aspect are u interested in Highlander?

It’s just their name keeps coming up. They’ve the contract for the old police station development, which will be the anchor point for the park & ride. The park & ride is going to be in or around Odsal, near the 606. They’re already building 150 homes between Odsal and the current houses on rooley crescent and I’ve heard they’ve made the members of Bradford south golf club a substantial offer to buy the golf course for development

An offer has been made to buy the golf club but it's peanuts and has been declined by the members.

A peanuts offer had been declined but a much improved offer has just been lodged with the club

Indeed look at York. Not so many years a go they were playing at an amateur ground and were on the verge of going out of business. Think the played Toulouse we with 14 players and that includes the coach. A modern stadium will be the catalyst for changing our fortunes around IMO I won't hold my breath though. While small towns get state of the art facilities, one of the largest citys in the country still hae to play in a dilapidated stadium.

With the impending economic storm I'd be amazed if money was found to build us a new stadium, but if the club is ever going to rise again it needs a modern stadium.

In the meantime the move back to Odsal has been ruined by the club reducing the size of the pitch and allowing the motorsports to make a complete mess of the standing and sitting areas. The whole point of going back was to ensure we got bigger crowds than at Dewsbury and Wood's managed to make a mess of it.

I don't believe that the blame lies solely with Nigel Wood on this one. Do you know this for a fact or is he just the easiest person to point the finger at?

He's the club owner Nothus. Big decisions like where the club plays and the sign off of contracts that affect the club (such as deals with partners) are his responsibility.

Jack Gibson said that winning starts in the front office. He was right. Decisions made about off field matters have got this club where it is today. Wood, as owner, bears ultimate responsibility for what's gone on since he took over (and more besides while he was at the RFL).

I thought the only reason we were able to move back to Odsal was because the motorsports were sharing the £500k pa occupancy costs? (Probably more than that now).
All the “issues” we have- tiny pitch, carriageway dividers, red dust on the seats and terracing, have been done to accommodate stock car racing. If they are paying the lion’s share of the costs, then I guess that’s fair enough and I’m not sure what we can do about it.
Has anybody seen where motorsport fits into the Odsal Sporting City plans? (Academic point that it probably is.)

You're correct Silver
Its been stated many times publicly that with out the stockcars wed still be at Dewsbury. Unfortunately a consiquence i
of the stock cars means the small pitch. There was never an option to return to odsal and play in the pitch the size it was before. It was either Dewsbury or the small pitch.
Im not saying i agree with it by the way, far from it but its the facts

The facts have been very thin on the ground IMO. I don't recall one of the terms of the deal being that Bulls fans have to clean their own seats. That wasn't a problem AFAIK when we had speedway and stockcars back in the 80s. So why does it happen now? Perhaps clean up wasn't addressed in the deal? If not, why did we sign up?

As for the reduced pitch size I'm not sure that was communicated to supporters or the coaching staff when the move back to Odsal was proposed. There was talk of something being done to deal with the corners but that then seemed to be on the too hard (or too expensive) pile. The next thing you know we're playing on a kids pitch.

The current pitch size is a real problem for a side as limited as ours and that level of ability isn't going to change without investment. So that means further decline. Perhaps when attendances hit 500 Wood will see there's a problem?

The move back to Odsal was touted as "what the fans want" yet the place is now even more of a millstone than it was before we left for Dewsbury. Filthy and impossible to play decent rugby on. If someone was deliberately engineering a situation where they wanted to kill professional RL in the city they couldn't do a better job than this.

I dont disagree with a lot of what your saying.

Part of he deal with the original stock car company was that they would clean up after the event. Which i believe did happen for the first few race nights. I think once they understood the cost involved that soon stopped and it certainly has happened with the new stock car promoter thats for sure.

The biggest balls up for me was the decision to go with a clay track on a milti purpose stadium. Absutely mindless, selfish dwcision. A tarmac track would have got rid of most of the problems we have with the state of the stadium (albeit not the litch). I was in the coral stand on friday for the acadamy awards night, it was noticable how many people we stood looking down from the windows discussing what a s**t state the old girl was is. The red tinge everywhere is appaling.

Finally, and im no rocket scientist so just go with me here.
During covid just about every football team in the country had thier stands covered in tarp full of sponsors and advertising for the games on the tv. You would think there would be a few clubs that have all the tarps left over with little use for them.
Wouldnt it be a genious idea if the speedway lot got hold of some and covered the front 20 rows of the stand or so every time there is a race meet? Just throwing it out there!!

I knew there was a reason I don’t view the bulls forum much these days, ITS DEPRESSING

It was said at the time that they hoped to add Speedway to the mix. That hasn't happened and I don't believe it will as Speedway is in a worse state than Rugby League right now, and nobody is interested in promoting speedway.