Maybe it (the signing) all came down to timing. Maybe we needed the cash by a certain date and the RFL left us in a position where we had to sign, get the cash, (that may have been promised elsewhere, such as HMRC) meaning that they pretty much could renegotiate the terms to suit them as ee were over a barrell with our pants down.

This sort of ties into things that have come to light, eg, the RFL calling in its loan unexpectedly.....

As I posted many weeks ago, the ground deal with rhe RFL had to happen because Bulls had not made a single repayment on the £ 700,000 loan from the RFL. Rfl loaned Bulls £ 700,000 in Jan / Feb 2011, repayment schedule was agreed and Bulls did not meet a single repayment. The ground sale was a good way for RFL to get the £ 700,000 back and put the balance into the Bulls. RFL were very very understanding to Bulls and were more than helpfull.

That's interesting. Do you mind me asking how you know this?

I appreciate all the previous posts are hearsay based upon some form of inside knowledge. However added together they show what an absolute farce that our club has become. The financial mismanagment makes Enron look good!!!

10am on a Friday before an extended bank holiday with a home game in the middle never struck me as being a sensible time to go into administration

To be honest for a couple of years the wizards in Houston were considered the Dogs Bollocks of the corperate world, and don't think the reputation of the Bulls management has regularly managed to get above total - and before you all start I know I am being very generous today!

You learn something every day - how very gentile the language is on this forum I could have sw****n I typed something else?

HMRC. And, just possibly, the Council.

The rest of the creditors...I tend to agree.

HMRC would likely be owed enough to very much NOT take it lying down. And their current policy is to be far more active and challenging than in the past, since Crown Preference was abolished and the taxpayer has been taken for a ride too many times by failing businesses, especially in the leisure industry.

I suspect any challenge would only come from HMRC, and would very much depend on how much of the total creditors they represented, how much they were owed and whether any of the monies were overdue. I suspect the latter will approximate to nil.

There are precedents for new investors picking up the debts - certainly other than any debt to HMRC - voluntarily. Usually where they perceive the need to retain the goodwill of and services of suppliers outweighs the financial benefit. Brintons Carpets was a good example of this, last year. My guess is that such debts in total are quite modest, since who in their right mind would advance significant credit to the Bulls right now? The costs of settling these trade creditors, especially local ones, could easily be less than the consequential effects on PR and goodwill if they were not settled, IMO.

And the new owners could (and surely would) agree to honour existing season tickets and prepaid sponsorships, which otherwise would of course represent significant creditors.

And would the incoming owner/s leave players and other employees unpaid? They would be creditors too in the event of insolvency.

In any case, any employees kept on would presumably be TUPEd across anyway, so that is automatic assumption of (actual and contingent) liabilities.

So yes, I certainly COULD see an incoming investor, at least one who wanted to maintain the goodwill of the fans, sponsors, players, staff, local suppliers and the wider community, deciding it was in his/her/its interest to settle various existing debts voluntarily. That is what the vehicle formed to buy the Brintons business did. Whether one WOULD is something I hope we never have to find out.

The bigger issue could be with all the other contingent creditors - such as the council under the Odsal settlement. Liabilities that would crystalise only on insolvency (same as the employee claims) Any settlement with these would I suspect consist of assuming the contract and therefore the contingent liability if the other party demanded it.

That said, the council took out a charge on the club's assets concurrent with the lease sale, so they would get first dibs after the prefs anyway.

And of course there is the matter of what the RFL would insist upon, both on its own account as a probable creditor and to protect the interest of the players and the wider game. Although the precedents there seem far less clear-cut!

This entire thread is an irrelevance we are not going into administration.

Watch this space and the programme notes on Monday make interesting reading

Interesting, I think you're the second poster now to seperately mention the programme notes on Monday, with an implication of at least not bad and certainly interesting news. I'd take this more seriously than the op. I have'nt bought a program for over 10 years...will it be worth my cash on mon? (I don't even know how much they are now, think they were about a quid last time I bought one!!)

Plus I tend to agree with your first 5 words anyway.

I've said or hinted in several posts now that I suspect it won't now get to administration. Not least because (and sorry for keep repeating myself) I really can't see how that would now solve any financial problems without creating far more. And anyway, the longer this has all gone on the less likely resorting to administration seemed, IMO, especially since my own guess has been that (and again, sorry for repeating myself) that the pledge cash removed the immediate crisis and we now need to find ways of generating more monthly income.

Mitigating against that is the total lockdown of info coming out of the bunker. That is ordinarily an indication that bad things are coming and everyone has been told it is essential they say nothing. But it COULD mean the opposite.

I hope FW is right. And, in the full realisation that I'll look very stupid if I'm wrong, I'll stick my neck out and say I suspect he may well be proved right.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ord_Bulls/

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ord_Bulls/

I find this statement absolutely damning of the Hood/Bennett administration

"Peter Hood & Andrew Bennett budgeted to lose over £1,000,000 this year" Stephen Coulby.

Now while Mr Caisley, Coulby & Agar remain quietly confident of raising the necessary funds needed to avert administration, £1,250,000 is serious money.

The skeletons have been exposed.

Losing £100,000 per month. Easy - we only use £600,000 of salary cap next year

Would anyone have put any money in had they known that? I doubt it but if the 500K hadn't been donated we would not be here now discussing it as the Club would have folded, and its doubtful any investment would have been forthcoming in those circumstances. So Peter Hood took a brave decision considering the alternative, The figures Coulby has quoted are probably the original losses from Caisleys tenure which has grown like a cancer!

Once again we see this quote that the Bulls are 'losing 100k a month'. Is this really true or is the situation being exaggerated for some reason. I've largely stay out of the debates on the financials but I can't get my head around how we're apparently losing such huge amounts and what further cuts the club can possibly make to turn this around. Other than have a drastic reduction in the size and quality of the playing squad.. what else is there left to cut, up at Odsal?

I'm guessing this isn't losing £100K a month though, surely thats the c£1m they anounced from creditors pulling their credit plus the £300K thats operating loss thats been reported in previous accounts? If thats the case then this isn't really news is it? We knew this already.

Well the new lot were never going to say that actually things aren't that bad. But it certainly doesn't look great from the figures quoted. Hopefully some of the more clued up financial folk on here might be able to add a bit more infomation.

I'm pretty sure I remember someone posting on here that there was a big VAT liability that the previous incumbents/incompetents hadn't budgeted for, but they were written off as a troll/troublemaker by the usual suspects because they supported another club.

Coulby would be on very dodgy ground coming out with these figures and statements in public if they weren't true, and the whole pledge thing looks more disingenuous to me by the day.

I am equally sceptical that the new lot have a big money backer ready to step in either, these people don't just appear from thin air.

It can be misleading because they readily confuse accounting losses and cash flow. It's likely that our cash flow is very bad at the moment because all of the season ticket money was received up front and been spent. It's quite conceivable that we are paying out £100k every month more than we are taking in.

That doesn't necessarily mean we'll make an accounting loss of £1.2m over the course of the year.

It's pretty obvious how we are losing £100K per month

Almost all of the gate income for the year was front-loaded via the season ticket sales, and presumably already spent. We have virtually no income on a week-to-week basis, yet there is still the outgoings on wages, stadium upkeep, match expenses and so on.

It seems increasingly obvious to me that the initial 2011 pledge scheme was a desperate last throw of the dice to re-launch the club. That failed due to poor on-field performances, among other reasons. The more recent 2012 pledge was a further desperate gamble that has led to us being in the sorry mess that we now find ourselves in.

Moving forward, we're surely going to have to expect season tickets to be considerably more expensive next year. I foresee them doubling in price, with the number sold dropping to about half of their current levels. I'm expecting gates of 7-8K next season. It's the only way to make the books balance.

Which is sort of my point, coming out with statements that we're losing 100k a month paints a worse picture if over the year we aren't losing 1.2M or more. I just want to hear the full truth.

Well - the first pledge was an impressive marketing tool, but it was a "loss-leader" and was a gamble in that it needed on-field success to work properly. The second pledge (with hindsight) was folly. Overheads seem to be about £200k per month and we will lose £100k per month until October when we will get our next lot of season ticket money in.

That will go to a traditional model and our "walk-ins" through the year will recover and spread income throughout the year.

I had been supportive of the las BOD efforts however if these facts are true they dont deerve any respect. the treatment of fans and creditors beggars belief. Sadly they have prooved to be liars and cheats.

Regarding the future I cannot see any alternative but administration. No one in the right mind would invest £500k in the shambles of a business the club is.

Time to wipe the slate clean and get on with rebuilding and accepting we may have a few more painful years.

Thanks for at least trying mate.