All those three clubs - indeed all the clubs with a wealthy owner (not sure how wealthy Glover is) have one thing in common - their wealthy owner is also a big fan.

Which begs the question - one you have raised - of where is OUR big fan to ride in with his millions to bankroll US?

Either we do not HAVE any such fans, despite publically seeking such several years ago - or if we DO, they are not considered a good enough bet; or we do but - for whatever reason - they have not been able to (or deemed it appropriate to) acquire a controlling interest in the club? In which case you would have expected them to appeal to the fans over the heads of the existing shareholders? Which one is it? Buggered if I know!

The thing is, though, if we did have any such fans, we would already know who they were, as everyone would have seen them at the matches. So, who is there? Not many spring to mind. I used to have that bloke from Smokie sitting behind me - he must be worth a few bob, maybe give him a ring?

I look across to see Duncan Preston at home matches. Guess he's not in the same league as Russell Crowe though...?

To add insult to injury, this is what I'm getting from the Bulls' website:



Is this another symptom of the general malaise, or are they just picking on me?

IIRC It was back in 1989 that the then board of directors increased their shareholding so that they held the majority of shares. This does kind of leave us without much to form a board with out of the shareholders given that it's made up of the same old people that have been around for years.

It's just you

Are you sure? Chrome won't have it, and IE gves me this:

So should we sack the web designers?

(It works fine for me btw in Chrome)

It's fine on my IE & Firefox. Maybe you should clear your cookies and start again?

Done it, cleared everything, so it clearly must be a conspiracy. There is no other possible reason.

Maybe this is the problem with the club. We started trying to solve the Bulls problem and end up rewriting IE.

My previous comment was meant to be funny but it may not be far from the truth. How much time and effort has been spent in the past trying to fix the problem of Odsal and not concentrating on the team.

I know that some on here know the complete story but whatare the restrictions on leaving Odsal. Would the current country have to be reformed? Would we have to play outside the city limits? And I'm not talking about moving to VP but could there be some way of combining forces with City at a new venue?

We have to pay a seven* figure sum - its about £1.4m at the moment - back to the council if we do not play more than 90% of our home games at Odsal up until May 2019.

There may well be other obligations in the long lease.
[size=85
* thanks to that that damned pesky Tigertot[/size

Isn't that seven figures? =#FFFFFFSorry.

Why, sir, I do believe it is!

I'd jolly well better go back and fix it before anyone notices...

Either way its money that we don't have

£1.4 m over the next 7 years is 'only ' £200k / year. surely it costs us more than that to keep it open. Plus if we just walked away I'm sure the council would pursue us with the same enthusiasm as they've chased Westfield.

One thing I'd like to know is - Have the current board and shareholders actually been looking to sell the club to a wealthy company or individual?

Not being funny but what is in it for Allam to stick £1m into Hull KR (whilst interestingly not putting money into the RL club that share the same ground as his football team)? I'm sure his intentions are as stated and they are admirable but it's a million less than what he could have spent on the Tiger's transfer fund to get them back in the Premier League.

I don't know whether there actually is anyone around interested in putting money into the Bulls but do any of us actually know whether a. the current lot have looked or b. the current lot have had offers or c. the current lot don't actually want to sell.

Caisley is still one of the biggest shareholders isn't he?

The OP (v1.0 and v2.0) and I have debated (with some heat) that question at length already on this thread and previously. No-one appears to have any indication that any outside investor has approached the club. The OP believes no such investor has actually ever been sought, despite the public appeals for one when Caisley went; I have assumed none has actually ever come forward - or at least none deemed a realistic option. Neither of us (I think) knows who is right.

I have already summarised the shareholdings earlier in this thread. Unless anything major has happened since January (not impossible, but no evidence) The current BOD owns less than 7% of the shares. As last reported, well over 2/3 of the shares are in the hands of former/retired directors. Caisley - he who seemed so keen to see the Burgesses move to OZ, just happening to be their agent - was reported as holding around 26% - enough to block a Special Resolution should he so wish, the only shareholder with a holding big enough to do so and therefore remaining the most powerful shareholder.

The OP has made the very pertinent point earlier that this shareholding setup is hardly ideal or conducive to securing external investment. On that, if not maybe on some other matters, we are both in violent agreement.

thing to remember is we only pay a peppercorn rent for odsal. so the 200k upkeep is effectively our 'rent'. If we walked away we'd have to pay back the 1.4 million as a lump sum immediately plaus shell out a decent sum to rent a stadium as well. Not sure what going rate is but arent city paying out 700k+ a year for VP?. makes the 200k figure seem like a bargain (although I expect the actual maintenance costs are a fair bit higher than that, but still less than it would cost to rent somewhere else).

I'm sure I remember at the last fan's forum Andrew Bennett saying information packs had been sent to potential wealthy backers

Yeah he did. They were writing to all sorts of potential investors to try and get them involved.

I do hope to God that we never actually managed to attract any. Not sure how I'd feel if I'd invested and then saw the club p!ssing the money away on the quality of players we signed.

Adey, do you not feel that if a potential investor had been rebuffed by the board or chairman (s)he would have gone public with it? Speaking personally, if I were (I should be so lucky, btw) in that position, as a fan who wanted the best for the club, that is [iexactly[/i what I would do.

Indeed I do:



Which is why I find it hard to subscribe to the OP's argument that the club has either not sought investors, or has rebutted any who might have been interested.