My apologies, as I don't follow City news closely (although, being a Bradford team, I wish them well), but is there currently a prospect of the club going into administration - either as an unavoidable or an engineered step?

The club has made a small profit, then a small loss in the last couple of financial years so, on the face of things, there aren't that many problems.

The spectre of an engineered administration has been raised over the last few weeks by people as being the only way the club could get out of the leasing arrangement with Gordon Gibb, or the Flamingo Land pension scheme.

It would be easy to dismiss it as nonsense, but the last administration was (allegedly) engineered by the powers that be at Valley Parade to get Gordon Gibb off the board - the money that they were using to pay the creditors from the first period (allegedly) dried up after the Gibb and Rhodes families fell out, but luckily the Rhodes family were able to find enough money from somewhere to put together an acceptable deal to the administrators.

If City do go down the road of shafting creditors again because of personal vendetta's then I know I won't be the only one who gives up on them until the present administration is removed, and I'd like to think the issue has only come up as a bit of scaremongering.

That T&A story in the paper was presented in such a manner - big pics of VP with a tick by it, Odsal (sorry, 'Vanity Parade'

) with a cross that the casual reader would assume that the T&A itself was coming out against the OSV. Can we expect a similar amount of space devoted to a rebuttal?

I saw that and was unhappy with it. It's a Bradford City fan who wants some income for his club from the Bulls using the stadium under similar conditions to last time, wants to stay at VP and doesn't care what it does to the Bulls.

Aren't the council in danger of losing funding if they don't provide a replacement for Richard Dunns?

Surely it's therefore in the interests of the council tax payer?

most of the stories in t&a seem to take a similar pro vp / anti odsal stance. Think its a case of city supporters trust being very active in providing copy to the paper. Bulls as a club need to get a bit more pro-active in this regard ( although I can see why they may feel they have to take a bit of a backseat as if they make too much noise we fall into the trap of odsal being seen as just a new stadium for bulls when its a much more involved project than that. this has always been problem with the marketing of the project in my opinion. too much emphasis on the stadium part and not enough on the rest of the development).

I'm sure the T&A would like to see us cosying up to City at VP.

I think you've explained why there's been no Bulls comment there.

Anyone talking up the Odsal scheme needs to do it without sounding partisan like the City fans are.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... d_players/ Bulls football manager Stuart Duffy said: “These boys are champing at the bit and it’s great news that they’ll get the benefit of the Odsal atmosphere in their first season. “It will be confirmed next week that we’re at Odsal for the whole of the season and that means the new lads can sample our unique game-day experience when they don their shirts in February.”

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... d_players/ Bulls football manager Stuart Duffy said: “These boys are champing at the bit and it’s great news that they’ll get the benefit of the Odsal atmosphere in their first season. “It will be confirmed next week that we’re at Odsal for the whole of the season and that means the new lads can sample our unique game-day experience when they don their shirts in February.”

What does that mean then?

a) A plan will be set out for the redevelopment, working around us in 2010
b) It's fallen through

I know where my money is.

It's not fallen through yet. But it will never happen by 2012.

Does this mean we're on shaky ground re our super league franchise?

No.

Well that's good news!

I think the important phrase is whole of next season, if it had fallen through think they would say foreseeable future. dont think they could have realistically expected work to start before end of 2010 season without saying something in season ticket literature.
we havent had a warnig about stadium unlike 5 other clubs so it wont affect our franchise although it may lose us a point or two depending how they award points this time.

I agree with that but we a seem to be in a bit of a bind with how the stadium development should be presented.

I had a discussion with a few City fans over the weekend and, naturally enough, the subject of grounds came up. Now I played a pretty straight bat regarding the OSV, how it`s not really about a stadium for the Bulls but whilst that is obviously part of it, the bulk of finance and work was to be spent on community sports facilities etc etc.

The seven or eight fans I spoke to didn`t have any ingrained hostility to going to Odsal per se, on no; their biggest problem with going there was that the stadium at Odsal would only be an 18,000 seater, and that, in their eyes made it unrealistic, not forward looking enough (I tend to agree, btw). So it would seem that one (small?) rump of City fans think that more should be spent on Odsal.

There really are so many differing points of view over this development it`s impossible to get a handle on it sometimes.

Thats for certain, and so many vested interests., both emotional and financial.
Suspect that in the long term the preference of both sets of fans will come a reluctant second to commercial pressures.

Sorry if its posted elsewhere but I couldn't see it;

[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/4778206.Village_project____must_involve_fans___/City supporters think VP would be better than OSV shocker[/url


[i"The Trust believe it will be easier – and much cheaper – to shift the Bulls into Valley Parade instead of housing both clubs at a new multi-million pound complex."

"As things stand, City supporters cannot see that it makes much sense to move to Odsal. Ground-sharing at Valley Parade is likely to prove much easier and cheaper to accomplish."

"But ground-sharing at Valley Parade is not going to work without the support of Bulls’ fans and ground-sharing at Odsal won’t work without the support of City fans. "[/i

Unsurprisingly the city supporters trust think that VP makes more sence then Odsal. Maybe this is just the thing that our fledgling supporters group could lend a voice to?

Otherwise its hard to see where Bulls fans views might be accounted for other than individual representations to the clubs/council/whoever.

The bit about groundsharing will only work if both sets of fans are behind it is true to an extent, and is why I can't see it working. I dont think there is the mood for that sort of change amoungst enough of the fans on either side.

It's something the supporters trust have decided to stay away from (for now anyway).

I think it is too much of a political hot potato for us to be airing "the bulls view" on, especially without knowing all the facts.

Opinion is / was (at the last meeting) that the trust didn't want to have a public voice on anything that would conflict with the clubs official line.

Sounds like the best strategy.

And I think thats a fair stance, the only problem is if the people in charge of what to do with OSV start to listen to the fans and the only organised fans are the city fans then we might lose out.

If momentum swung behind a move away from Odsal (and I know there is nothing yet to suggest this is the case) I would hope any organised fans group would put forward a case for Odsal on our behalf or at least offer a view.

I'm sure it would be something we'd sound out with the club in private. I think it's fair to say the majority of fans would pick their first choice "home" as Odsal.

It maybe (and I'm not suggesting it is at the minute) that we have no alternative but to move to VP down the line.

got to admit thats my worry too. city fans have only talked about possibility of a ground share since the OSV started to look likely to go through. Before the money from the airport sale was earmarked for OSV they were pretty opposed to us moving to VP. ITs only because they see a possibility of using the money for their own benfit that they are suddenly so keen to ground share. What they never mention is that while it may only take 6 million to buy VP back from gibb, they are also committed to pay rent their for next 20 years or so and would have to come to a settlement figure with the pension fund to get out of that arrangement, hence the true cost of buying VP back would be substantially more.
They also fail to mention any of the wider aspects of the OSV and constantly refer to it as purely a new stadium for the bulls and ignore all the other facilities which are part of the scheme. Whilst the club has to keep itsellf at a distance from the scheme to an extent, the damage is being done by the city supporters trust constantly getting their views presented to the public whilst we say nothing.

If there was a group of non Bulls supporters that spoke for the different people who'd benefit from the OSV then that would be ideal but their isn't. I think Bulls fans should be wary of being drawn into the argument and appearing to be just out for themselves. The reason to build the OSV is to provide better sports facilities long term for people in the south of the city and beyond. If that means a new Stadium for us and City in a perfect out of town location with good transport links then all the better.

Latest update (from AGM) [url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/4782018.Hood_s_high_hopes_for_Odsal_project/here.[/url

Hood still very positive.

Not the most flattering pics of our Chairman though...suspect from his expression he'd just been reading some of the garbage posted on the T&A forum (or on here...) when it was taken? Or maybe just had to shake hands with someone from Leeds...