This sounds like a very positive event all round and reading posts from some of the other naysayers who went restores much of my faith in the club.

Did anyone ask my question about the benching stats? Maybe this could go on the website

[iOBN award?[/i

Who has suggested otherwise?

Excellent work that red, good stuff. All so positive and open - its given me a huge reassuring boost in my thinking about where the club is heading.

On the above question, so if it all goes to plan then next season we need to be somewhere else? I would imagine any temporary move would be scheduled for whole seasons rather than moving out mid season.... So we could possibly only have 6 home games left at Odsal in its current guise?

The words used were something like "early next year" - I took that to mean not necessarily at the start of the season. Some bits I can add to Andrea's excellent summary of the more interesting bits:

1. It is clear that the club will not allow a repetition of what happened last time we moved out. Hood assured us that the club will not move out until and unless we have "cast iron" guarantees about moving back - and with a timetable. He was quite emphatic about this, and said e.g. we will not get landed in a situation where we are told "its going to be developed, worry not...we just don't know when" - and referred indirectly to another big hole in Bradford where that is currently the situation.

2. The Club's capital contribution to the OSV is the stadium site. The club holds that on a 150-year lease (at peppercorn rent) which is to all practical purposes freehold, so that is worth a lot of money in its own right.

3. Hood stated emphatically that - contrary to a lot of misinformation at the time (he said) the return to Odsal had SAVED Bradford council £17m. Apparently their officials had prepared a report saying that the cost of running and maintaining the ground over the remaining 17 years of the 1986 agreement, plus the annual payment to the club, all of which were contractual, would have cost £22m over that time. The Council settled with the club £5.2m all-up (including the initial capital works) thereby saving £17m for the council taxpayers.

4. In the discussion on where we might temporarily move to, he did say that VP was "high on the list of candidates" and pointed out it was now owned not by BCFC but by the Gibb family's "Flamingoland Pension Fund". He also mentioned Dewsbury, as Andrea said, and pointed out that it would not be that difficult to add additional temporary stand capacity there fairly quickly. he also said there were other sites in Bradford (he said the preference had to be to remain in the city) although which would need "some adjustments".

5. Of the 300k cubic metres of infill, 160k m3 will come from the hill on the NHS land next door. The rest will need trucking in so there will be environmental issues. If the whole 300k m3 had to be trucked in, it would take 200 trucks a day every day for six months. Some hole!

6. The Odsal site is only just over 10% of the total OSV site! Shows how big the whole project is. Its the key part, of course - being the entrance area.

7. The plans showed - as Andrea said - and new roundabout entrance of Rooley Avenue, with a main road running down through the whole site. Could not tell from the plans if this road carried on to the Euroway or maybe to the new units built on Staithgate Lane but would seem logical - and if they DID would massively improve access. (anyone else any better info on this?)

8. The stadium and maybe the hotel (integral part) would be finished by 2012. [i(error fixed - not 2010 as prev - Thanks Duckman)[/i but no way would the whole scheme be finished by then. The Council is committed to delivering the stadium by 2012 though.

9. The present stadium design and capacity is provisional and may well change now the detailed planning work is carried out over the next six months. The present plan is all-seater but that could change. The capacity could well increase - it is "very unlikely" to decrease.

10. The hole has to be filled in because structurally it would be far easier and cheaper to build on a levelled site. There would be major engineering challenges in trying to build in the bowl itself.

11. The funding already announced does NOT yet include the proceeds of sale of the Richard Dunn Site "which would remain open until the OSV was complete). This was valued a year or two back at £14m, although in the current market who knows now? But Hood suggested that by the time the land comes to be available for sale things may well have significantly improved.

12. Regarding questions about the apparent funding shortfall, Hood said he had seen a Council list of additional funding opportunities totalling over £70m, mainly asset sales and consolidations. He also said they were hopeful of more from Yorkshire Forward, and from "Europe". Someone on here well placed to know a bit about such things remains a bit sceptical on this score, so we have to go on what we have been told I guess.

13. It is not yet determined whether the complex should be run by a stadium operating company owned by the various stakeholders (Council, University, College, Bulls etc ) or maybe the Bulls just pay rental to the end owner. The Scheme at Leigh - very similar in scope and objectives - cost over £90m, and is effectively run by the council there.

14. As Andrea said - and for me the most worrying bit - was that whilst Hood is very confident regarding the capital cost, there remained uncertainties about whether the subsequent income streams would be adequate. Lot of work still to do on this.

15. Regarding the next franchises, Hood believes that next time it will not be sufficient to just show plans - there will need to be bulldozers on site.

Anything else I come across in my notes I'll append.

Quote ="mystic eddie"[iOBN award?[/i'" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... 8O.B.N..29

Quote ="mystic eddie"[iOBN award?[/i'" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... 8O.B.N..29

Could be a problem with the preseason season ticket sales for next season if half the season was at a different (as yet unknown) ground though surely? People might not know what they are commiting to, also would be a big disruption to the team moving mid season wouldn't it? But I fully understand not wanting to move out until the JCBs are queing up at the door though after last time.. sensible.



Also shows why £75M is required, and that £75M is not the cost of our new staduim dispite what some people think.



Good to have timescales like that (do you mean started build by 2010 BTW rather than finished?) But they seem really tight dates considering the size of project and how long it's taken to get this far, I'd be surprised if they are kept.



18,000 - 20,000 is about right I reckon in terms of balencing cost and potential attendance. Much rather have all ticket games with the house full sign up rather than a half empty larger stadium.



Shame to lose the bowl, a bit of our unique history passing, but if it means an easier way to move forward for the long term then so be it.



Thats probably true, but even if we dont have them on site I dont think our licence would be in jepordy because of the lack of progress next time, maybe the one after if licencing is still going.

Cheers again for the effort in outlining what was said Adey, its appreciated.

Thanks Adey.
Interesting bit in point 4:



Other sites in the City? Where could that be? I can't think of anywhere.

Keighley?

I think most of the points have now been covered and thanks to those for their extensive write ups.

I thought it was a really positive, worthwhile evening and well worth the battle with the M62!

It certainly confirmed many of my thoughts on the club and personnel involved. In fact it has only made stronger my thoughts that we ARE heading in the right direction and Steve McNamara IS the right man to take us there.

I was also very impressed with Mr Hood and Mr Ducket, in addition to the already mentioned "Medley Speech". After that I think he needs to be doing more public speaking on behalf of the club. At one point he almost snatched the mic of Steve to answer a question from the floor, I could have sworn he also said "give it here" whilst grabbing it!

There was a great deal of honest and frank discussion, much of which, I suspect, other clubs haven't divulged to fans and I've phone Stuart this morning to express my personal thanks and to tell him the club deserve a hue pat on the back for what they did last night.


I certainly came away almost "fired up" and I'd like to now here the thoughts of the NT who were in attendance. Has that now gone any way to appeasing any / all of your fears?

Lastly and been less serious for a minute, who was playing guess the RAB forum members last night?
I was certainly trying to put faces to names.....!!

Yes. I did think that.
But....mmmmmmm.

So is this the moment that Medley not just turns a game, but a whole season?

Correct...typo fixed!





Duffy read out my questions re the OSV. He also read out my questions regarding the next round of franchises, and Hood's answers on that were interesting and encouraging (assuming we get OSV).

1. See earlier point - he thinks you will be unlikely to get stadium-related points unless big yellow things are actually moving around on the site.

2. He "suspects" the whole franchise bid process will probably be brought forward - maybe to start in 2010.

3. He thinks (not sure if it was aspiration or actually based on indications) that the RFL may split the process, and not require existing A or B license holders to have to go through the whole bid process - 12 full lever arch files apparently. Existing C license holders and applicants would have to go through the whole process. If the process WAS split, he'd expect C license holders' bids to be required in 2010. [i(Interesting implications for the likes of Wakey if so...?)[/i

4. He said that once those big yellow things are indeed onsite, Bulls should be a certainty for an A license.

That's what the man said. No real discussion about what happens if the OSV does not proceed, although Hood said separately that he is pretty confident.

Im not surprised there was not too much discussion about what happen if OSV does not happen if we are that confident as a club about it progressing. And I hope the confidence is well placed, we've been here before however, although there does seem to be more substance and support for this one than previous schemes... there is still a part of me which wont belive it until I have a new shiny roof over my head whilst watching from the new stands.

I agree we'll get no staduim points on the next licence if we've not started the build, presumamably same goes for Cas, Wakey, Saints, Salford, etc. Lots of plans along the M62, hope there is not a shortage of JCB's in 2010 as a result

. But even with no stadium points Im sure our licence would be renewed, only C holders will be at any risk next time IMHO. The RFL would be sensible if they asked new applicants and C holders to do full submissions and A/B holders to do trimmed ones.... so that probably wont happen



Also if the applications for C are brought forward it would be interesting for all C holders and new applicants, still a way off that though IMO.

edit

Perhaps he should be first team coach.

Maybe load on Youtube with a nice montage of pictures?

Rushed off my feet at work so haven't had time to do a write up and others have done a good job anyway.

While the information on the OSV sounds fairly positive there are a lot of things left open. Hood remains as confident as he can be but I have concerns that the funding can be secured. It's one thing identifying funding streams and another actually making a successful bid. In terms of European money the Council doesn't have a great deal of experience in bidding for large capital (multi million) funding through ERDF and the current programme of funding is far smaller than previous ones so there is less to bid for. These things take time and will have an impact on the timescale. 2012 seems very optimistic. I wouldn't be surprised to see that slip. But the main thing is to secure all the funding that has been identified. Having seen this sort of thing before I would urge caution. On the positive side the club are under no illusions it seems and aren't moving out with "cast iron guarantees".

On the playing front it was good to hear a bit more about the work done on junior development. We've heard a lot in the past about the situation the club was left in by the previous regime and there was a bit of a reprise of that. It did make clear that at the end of 2005 seven home grown players (including many senior players) were allowed to leave and there was nothing in place at the club to replace them. When it was decided to build that foundation in 2006 and McNamara put Medley in charge of that side of things it was recognised that it would take at least three years to start to bear fruit. I suspect that we're starting to see that with the likes of Whitehead and Olbison making sub appearances. Unfortunately you can't produce first teamers overnight.

My only concern is about getting the balance right so that long term planning doesn't cause us to take the eye of the ball on the present first team situation. McNamara stated that he wants to build from the bottom up so that the club "do things right" and have "sustainable success". Hood stated that a run in the play offs is the target and wouldn't be drawn on what would happen if that failed to materialise. "We would re-assess at the end of the season" was the gist of what was said.

Medley proved to be an excellent speaker on the matter of the juniors and the work being done and he was articulate and impassioned. I hope the club use him more to get the message over as he was a natural. He's clearly working on bringing through a large number of players carefully. He and Redeveready had a disagreement over Johnny Horton but I think you will always have a difference of opinion on players and we in the end have to trust the bloke who works with the players each day.

All in all I think I'll remain cautious on the OSV, there's still a heck of a long way to go. On the Junior side of things I'm happy that the club are doing the right thing and systems are in place to provide some great juniors over the next few years. On the first team at the moment things remain a bit doubtful IMO, the aim is to have a run in the play offs so at least we know that. Whether we can achieve it is a matter of opinion, time will tell.

In a sense he's more important than that. He's in charge of building our future squads.

...with a clear passion for it as well.

One thing on the OSV that seems to have been missed is the 2012 finish date isn't for the whole site. It's for the stadium which includes the access road and car parks and the hotel which will hopefully finished early 2012.

Apologies if I've missed this somewhere but another point discussed was the move to 1 reserve grade to mirror the NRL system, the club are confident they have the right plans in place to maximise junior talent potential and see it (as the RFL do) as a means to strengthen all professional levels of the sport with SL-NL club link ups through dual player registrations

Aye just remembered that bit. U20s likely from next year. Medley said there were pros and cons to the idea and details yet to be thrashed out.

I'm old enough to know Medley from him being a junior & how he stood out then as an intelligent, articulate type. What I was sarcastically suggesting is perhaps the first team could do with some of his motivational speeches (if the effects of last night are anything to go by).

Well I was ready to turn out for Medders last night