It seems the poor running of the club continues
Even though this is a supposed totally new regime..
There are only a couple of faces left from past companies that could be to blame.. .
Duffy been one, especially as he seems to have a hand in coach gate.....who keeps getting things so wrong and why?

Is anyone else sick to death of reading constant negativity on this forum? Maybe it's the lack of admin that's getting everyone down, god knows but I'm taking a long break from this forum for no other reason than I'm sick of the monotonous moaning our fans are currently capable of.

You got there before me lol, my thoughts exactly.
Some of you guys just love to moan!

I think the major moan would be 'comminicationgate', the other stuff, coach etc is unfortunate, but ultimately recoverable - well it is if the money is there.

As for the future, let's get past the legal shenanigans scheduled for January and hope for the best.

Hopefully we'll cheer up once we get a proper coach and a few more signings.

I guess the decline of the last 11 years has left me at least very sceptical. The lyrics of the song "Won't get fooled again" keep occurring to me.

I agree some may be overboard but other comments aren't. Where as other social media sites people are blindly supportive and wont have a bad word said against the club or the people involved. I find on here its constructive and not moaning per se, I think a lot of people on here (probably like yourself) have parted with thousands over the years and to be fair are well within their rights (IMHO of course) to be annoyed with the current goings on. This search for a coach and the people involved won't help with the chairman not wanting to front the incoming coach up at interview stage. I do think fans on here particularly have been of the most patient and to see people who have been posting for years saying the things they do I find it more than understandable

I actually feel that it's fairly balanced on here and certainly not constant negativity although it would be nice if the club addressed some of the issues so that there is less to moan about wouldn't it?

However there are plenty of Facebook groups that will welcome anyone who likes to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is fantastic and that we should just 'get on with supporting the club' and not dare to question what we are backing with our time and money.

Speaking personally, I know quite a few long term supporters who would definitely have been classed as 'hardcore' supporters who aren't bothering next year, isn't that concerning and worth discussing? I don't think that they enjoy moaning about the club, I think they just care deeply and don't wish to see us fall any deeper. That's how I see it anyway.

I’m giving the benefit of doubt over the coach, as all the other backroom staff appointments over the last few weeks have been filled by experienced people. The youth setup is still intact and actually seems to be expanding. So the right coach will set us up nicely for this season

Reasons to be cheerful...

1 - We have got a club, which (currently) isn't going under. It even appears stable, despite relegation.

2 - We have signed some great players for next season. At the moment that is.

3 - This is a quiet time of the season, and one where a head coach isn't necessity. Although the club really should have put some thought into this before, I would rather spend time getting the right person than rush into it and end up with someone whose heart isn't really in it.

[size=50Apologies to Ian Dury[/size

My thoughts too

Bowlingboy, can you please give a bit more detail of what you think is poor running of the club? It seems a strange comment a day or so after the club announce a structured managed process with a clear timetable to appoint a new coach, one that any HR manager in any organisation would recognise as good practice. What the press release does not refer to is the job and person specification, and I would expect Chalmers and Lowe had a big say in that as owners, giving the gang of three the criteria to use in selecting the shortlist. Nor does the phrase "a recommendation" limit that recommendation to one person, they may well say in early December that Chalmers needs to do final interviews on several coaches that met the criteria. Hence the time gap between making that recommendation and the appointment.

I think that getting from where they started to this point without going under shows superb management skills, forget relegation, I am simply happy there is a club to relegate. Let's see what this season brings not write it off a month before the first opportunity the new coach will have to assess where the squad is at. Which will be far ahead of where it was a year ago.

There's a difference between negative for the sake of negativity (which seems to have been the OP's motivation in starting this thread) and fans of the club voicing their genuine concerns of aspects of the running of the club.

My viewpoint on the club is currently one of cynicism and skepticism. Which given how this club has been run over the last decade is, IMO, a fair way of thinking.

Personally, I don't trust Chalmers and Lowe. It's not really anything personal against them, other than they don't seem to be too bothered about trying to get the fans on side - case in point the first fans forum of their reign happens when the season was all but over with AND took place during the beginning of August when a great many people are taking their summer holidays and thus you cut down the number of potential attendees.

Now I attended that fans forum and was shocked that it had not taken place back in February. The whole RFL forcing the club to start in the Championship on minus 12, plus having the bulk of it's central funding taken away AND the having to pay out additional cash to a player support charity is the perfect ammo the club could have used to get the fans onside in a "Yes, we're behind the 8-Ball and we are going to try everything to avoid it but relegation seems a certainty". Then you could use the clubs favourite saying this season "stick with us"

But communication with the fans doesn't seem to be even anything like a priority to the new owners. I don't want to know every little in and out at the club (although I know some do and seem to consider it an affront that they're not personally consulted on every decision

)

As it stands, there are 3 things the club and it's new owners need to do to get me, and probably others who think as I do, back on their side.

1. The hiring of the most qualified coach who throws his hat in the ring. I'm not interested in having another "club legend" take the reigns as I'm not convinced there's been that many ex-players who've got the necessary credentials to be a head coach
2. Work to ensure that we don't simply become a feeder club for SL - at the moment, there aren't that many SL clubs who don't have at least one ex-Bulls academy graduate on their books
3. The club cannot go bust or have any other financial scare story reported about it for the next 12 months. And that doesn't mean wait until Dec 2018 and go belly up then either.

Poor running,
Letting half last year's squad walk that could be retained. .chistole been the most ridiculous example.
visa gate
away shirt gate
poor communication
Damaging poor press releases
not having a coach lined up when pre season has started
Not having the new coach pick their own squad as it's too late
inviting rimmed to a fans forum
Making date announcements at said forum but letting said dates pass with no news..

I'm not been overly negative here
my point been that if I were Chalow there are two senior management staff members that have been involved in catastrophic failure in the past.. why would you have them anywhere near the place?
To top it off one has just arrived back in from the crash at Salford...
I would like to see this regime be a success more than anyone trust me and I hope they are I'm just surprised some manage to keep their position unquestionably

Just to add...

'Buy your seat before general sale, guarantee your seat!'

The reality is, go into the office and give them your name and they haven't a clue where you sit or you who you are. They did last year but this year 'we have a new database!' I could build them one in MS Access that blows away what they have sadly.

They even offered to sell the seat of the old fella a couple of seats along from me who's been in that seat as long as I can remember, said it was a free seat when the deadline hadn't expired.

'Junior ticket for the stand is £99'

Ok so what's gate entry for juniors, they usually miss the first couple of home games as it's too cold, then there's holidays, I need to make sure it's not cheaper? They had no idea. Not a clue... They even asked Chalmers and then rang me back to confirm they didn't know.

Never mind running the team and stuff like that, if they can't get the basics right to keep fans onside it's looking bleak.

It's fundamental mistakes like this that make me extremely sceptical about our new owners and the people they employ to run the back office. Doesn't this come under Ross McFarlane's authority? Surely you'd think they'd know basic information like gate entry prices? How else are they able to budget if they don't know what they're charging for entry? I'm flabbergasted.

Didn't they say at the fans forum that they were freezing season ticket and matchday prices? So they'll be the same as last year I assume (the one where they first mentioned freezing prices and aiming for 3,000). Which if true, would mean the season ticket is less VFM than last year, as you'll get one less game for free with it. Which is maybe why they're keeping quiet. Or they're just going to make it up at the last minute based on season ticket sales.

It does seem bizarre that you're selling season tickets but don't tell people what the saving is because you don't announce the matchday price though. Or when the "early bird" period expires. I think it's fairly clear they're winging a lot of it.

They still have last year's details on file though, or at least they did when I ordered my ticket. I handed over last year's card and they printed out a receipt with the seat number on it. Surely any database would be searchable in all fields? Surely..

Same here. Simply handed over last year season ticket and had a new one very quickly and easily.

Were your seat numbers not on your tickets from last year though? Mine was.

That would be how they renewed it. Not through a database which was Scarey's point? So if you had last year's, it was easy. If you didn't, they had no idea where you were sat. Or am I missing something obvious?

(That said, surely you know where you were sat without needing to look at your ticket after sitting in the same seat all year, although if they didn't actually have the info on file, you could have told them any seat and as long as someone hadn't already bought it, they'd sell you it before the deadline)

"Poor running"? Have we gone tits again, then? Or are we, despite being relegated, still somehow going with a (comparative) quality squad the coming season?

Yes there is a lot of adverse comment but to call it "negativity" is unfair. People are saying what they see, and that's after several years of taking it regularly up the sunshineless and STILL being here. You should be applauding them still being here rather than cribbing. Expressing concerns? Why would a fan of a club that has nosedived and gone bust about 99 years out of the last hundred have any concerns? Surely, we should all be whistling along with a skip and a jump, alls well at the bulls in the Bottom league, nothing to see here/

If ANYONE deserves to say what they see, then , of all people, it must be the Bulls remaining faithful. If that broad church includes many who have a somewhat jaundiced and suspicious and even cynical angle on the ongoing debacles, then I'd say they have every right.

Of these, we have had more taking up the RAB sponsorship than for many years. We have people buying big price season tickets, only to watch the likes of West Wales, Hemel Stags and Keighley, where not long ago it was Wigan, Saints and Leeds (I bought mine last weekend). At the same time, we know financially things can't be that great, despite the refreshing lack of public disgrace, and if people are worried and see stuff they think is wrong then they have every right to speak up. if some of that is negative, might that not be because we've been force fed a diet of boiled negatives, steamed negatives, pickled negatives and fried negatives for so long by so many owners and our good friends the RFL?

No, nail on the head. Renewing for a group of people was a pain in the 'arris. And as for saying we could move and take another set of seats where I know there's a family of ST holders BEFORE the renewal deadline is just asking for trouble.

To be more exact Hamster, I handed over my card and she took my 'member' no. (are we still members?) and returned my card. It's clearly possible she could have taken the seat number at the same time but she appeared to take the info from whatever they have about me on file. Maybe they've had some kind of data crash in the last few weeks, which would certainly be one reason for Scarey's experience, though I feel pretty sure someone on here would certainly have mentioned any 'crash', if there had been one. They still have my address and email on file so clearly have some details on their system.

Perhaps some staff are more up to speed with the database than others? It's not unlikely there is a "training issue" with a member of staff.

Their excuse was 'new database, we lost a lot of data when we moved suppliers.' Data is my profession and that excuse is a shocker.

But like you say it could be a stock excuse to cover up another inadequacy... like the old 'Sorry my computers running slow' call centre excuse?

That's a very valid point, Bullseye.

I was in the shop, a month or three back and the young lady behind the counter was having difficulty with the till, or more specifically how to find the items on the digital computerised list contained within the till. I bought the Leon Pryce autobiography and found out later (by using the cunning plan of looking at the cover) that she'd 'done' me for two quid, because she couldn't find the book in the till/computer so guessed the price. Anywhere else I'd have moaned but it was the Bulls so I didn't.