Enjoyable & interesting articles on the T&A articles. Hopefully we will be able to purchase Odsal back from the RFL, will be a massive boost for the club. Marc Green has done a fantastic job with this club. I remember the first game against Cas last season and i honestly thought we were dead. All the barriers had been stripped, there were piles of mud and rubble at the top of the banks of the stadium. Odsal looked like a corpse.

Slowly but surely, Marc Green is making small, but noticeable improvements to Odsal to try and get it respectable. New club shop. a quality team assembled on and off the field. Clear business strategy. Superb merchandise. Strong season ticket sales and excellent away following with good home attendances. Feel good factor about the club. Don't think we appreciate the job he has done in his year. We could easily be in the state London are in now, or worse.

I thoroughly believe we will have purchased Odsal back this season which is massive considering the state we were in and the fact we have been relegated. He has delivered on everything he has promised since joining the club. No big, brash statements. His dream of transferring Odsal is probably the first bold statement he has made, but he has delivered on everything else, and while it will be many years before we see work being done on Odsal, if it were to happen, i could see it happening under him.

Anyway, well done Marc Green on your first year at the club

Agree with all that.

It almost seems as if at first he was a reluctant owner, who became involved over a debt. If only he could have bought the club when Omar, or Moore and Co, or pretty much at any time in the last 10 years.

Things happen for a reason I guess.

Nicely Understated



I honestly thought we were dead too!

The Hood / Khan years did immeasurable damage to our support base, thousands of loyal fans voted with their feet and I really couldn't see it recovering.

The one thing you haven't mentioned is Marc's commitment to re-building the trust between him and the fans, especially difficult with the background to his purchase etc.

The turning point for me was the first "Evening With the Bulls" at Cedar Court - that's when my gut told me this man was a good and trustworthy owner - the first in very many years.

I trust him and I like the way he works.

What he has achieved in bringing back sections of fans who have been away for many seasons is quite remarkable.

While we have lost significant numbers due to the price increase, that cannot be helped. Its better this way than the Hood plan of filling the stadium via cheap tickets and going bust, or the Khan plan - which only ever existed for the benefit of one.

I echo your sentiment completely, I think there is bags more to come yet, and more than well done Marc Green

Marc Green has, with the help of Steve Ferres, done what could only be described as a Lazarus job on the Bulls.

No pie in the sky Superdome plans, no unsustainable cheap ticket prices. Just hard work and honesty.

I remember being at, I think it was the squad presentation night, and Marc Green stood up and asked of those there "Who wants a SL club in Bradford?". Everyone in the room said that is what they wanted and so Marc Green candidly said that they would have to pay for it and that was reflected in both the cost of ground admission and season tickets. Many said it was foolish, that he drive what remained of the Bradford fan base away by pricing them out. But he hasn't. We're still getting around the same attendances at home that we were getting towards the back end of last season in SL. What's more than that, is that the teams we've played at home so far have not brought a huge following which means really our crowds are going up in terms of the percentage of people coming. We're averaging about 5k a game. Add to that we're taking about 2k a time to away matches then it's safe to say that the belief has come back to the fans.

Money and time has been spent in the right places this last 12 months. The right people have been brought in to do the job. Yes, the club has stumbled along the way, but Marc Green has picked us up, dusted us off and sent us forward.

Marc Green and his assembled team, both on and off the pitch have done a fantastic job for the club and it's supporters, all absent Bulls fans should hang their heads in shame for not keeping the faith.

Bulls till the end

Great article, although I just made the very silly mistake of reading through the 80+ comments. Wow there are some bitter and twisted people on the T&A forums...

But, back to the real world, all kudos to Marc Green, he's done a top job

You're lucky to escape with your sanity intact if you read below the bottom line on the T&A website. It's mainly populated with idiots who'd get the ban hammer not only swung but launched Thor-style at their head if they popped up on here

There is one good comment in there,re getting Gareth Roberts and Marc Green together,Marc has shown he has the Bulls at heart and a great business acumen, and Gareth Roberts has got the Avenue fans dreaming of better things and he also got his feet on the ground and MONEY.

Well I suspect he's taken on board ""el presidente's'' formula for producing a successful club that pays it's way!

Also to those knocking Peter Hood just remember Marc Green has not inherited the Toxic Debt that was the main reason of the Bulls collapse 3 years ago. If that was still there he wouldn't be and neither would this Club!

Usual rubbish about Bulls moving to Valley Parade on there.

There's a number of reasons why it's not on the agenda.

Firstly it's hardly a stadium fit for the 21st century itself. It's a shed with terrible access. The pitch in particular is a complete disgrace and way too small. It's not owned by City or the Bulls or the council so why should any of those bodies pay to do it up?

Secondly it costs City a fortune more to rent than Odsal costs the Bulls. I don't know if it's still £1M a year but I'll bet it's more than the £72K a year the Bulls pay for Odsal so how would it save us money? Do they not teach maths in school anymore?

Thirdly The Gibbs own it and meaning it will still continue to hamstring the club renting it and it will continue to fall into a state of disrepair. People think the council should buy it and have a multi-use ground like Huddersfield. Get real the Gibbs are making a fortune out of it and aren't going to let City out of their deal or sell up without it being an astronomical figure. Kirklees council also built an entirely new ground on a brownfield site. They could do that at Odsal the mountain of planning issues of doing it in the middle of Manningham mean it would be extremely difficult to do it at Valley parade.

I think it would be great if Roberts and Green spoke to each other. Whatever would come out of it I was very impressed with Roberts when I heard an interview with him on Radio Leeds a few weeks ago.

Can't let that one pass unremarked, how was ploughing a million of his own money into the club for Omar's benefit, exactly?

Hi Bulls
Think we all agree, we have the best people in charge of our own teams,
i have listened to your owner,
he seems like a top bloke,
it makes you appreciate, just what he has done for yourselves,
and it should make you appreciate the time and hard earned money he is put into your club.....
well done







We have our own Mr Beaumont
top top bloke
lives and breaths Leigh Centurions
will always have my 150% backing,
will always put the club 1st.

anyway good luck for the rest of the season

LoyalLeyther

Maybe Marc's plan to redevelop Odsal would be sufficient to change minds at City and get them, to Odsal?

I write that already knowing the answer of course, but if City don't actually make positive moves, moves which the Gibbs are going to take seriously, then they will be paying through the nose for evermore. In truth, I think City's management would consider the move to be, financially, a 'no brainer', but are obviously constrained by not upsetting a large number of fans who regard VP as a memorial to those who tragically lost their lives in the fire. To be honest, potentially, Odsal can be anything you can find the money for, whilst there are, as you rightly say, just too many impediments preventing much being done at VP.

Would love to hear what plans Marc has in mind for redevelopment. Sounds like he was hinting that the actual stadium might move, possibly across the road onto the Richard Dunn site?

Because of the visibility comment? I took that to mean fill existing in and then build on top. Suspect use of the existing bowl for that purpose will offset at least some of the cost.

I can't remember the actual figures but I remember during the Hood era that the amount of material neeeded to fill the bowl was astronomical. I'd have thought moving to another site would be a whole lot easier if another use could be found for the current site.

Pure speculation here, but Marc has always stated that he ultimately wants to own the [ifreehold[/i to the whole site. Does anyone know what area of land the freehold actually covers? Perhaps if it covers an area of land behind the stadium, he could have something up his sleeve for using that to generate some income, which could then in turn be used on Odsal itself.
Just a thought.

Well the idea of building a modern stadium on the Richard Dunn site makes sense and selling the old, costly, even dilapidated stadium. It is frankly unfit for modern RL. Fans want to be closer to the action and deserve a better more inclusive arena. Considering the concept of a sporting/Leisure village, not just for RL. Any steps with BPA would be a good business initiative and gets my vote. Considering Valley Parade is a non starter and would cost the club serious money and would not be worth that investment as the profitability would not be there. The old stadium "would sell" and contribute to creating a viable successful, profitable and attractive venue. C'mon Mark and Co make it happen.

Apart from the practical difficulties I would think it would take several years to fill in the hole and let it consolidate before building - so where would we play in the interim. With the Richard Dunn option you could at least build it and then move over.

Yes, he has said that, though I've not seen anything at all which suggests the council are actually interested in selling the site. Of course, with the current financial constraints it may be tempting for the council to 'cash in' their asset if the price were right.

Don't they act a bit more pro-actively these days and do something called 'pressure piling', rather than just letting the ground 'consolidate'? Not being a civil engineer, I don't know what that entails exactly, but the name does suggest some kind of compacting.

Incidentally, IIRC, when the Superdome was being talked about, didn't they mention "levelling the area", which I took to mean bulldozing the higher bits into the bowl to make it flat? Obviously they would have take care not to leave any surrounding bits unstable but no one was saying anything about any problems with that. After the compacting, that would hopefully leave the actual buildings above the parapet and in full view.