If the locals haven't already gone to a local game how can Bradford be 'stealing' their fans?

I'm sure the protectionist luddites on this thread will come up with an explanation.

You, though, are clearly way too sensible and objective and perceptive. Characteristics that seem to afflict too many Quins fans.

Incidentally, all this fuss over a few hours of a bus driving round the Odsal hinterland speaks volumes, does it not? Or that this few hours one-off is, bizarrely, viewed by some who have jack shìt actual knowledge as "heavy marketing"?

You keep pedalling this line implying its something I've said. I have neither said nor believe that Keighley "invented" [iit[/i.



And if you had any honesty you would change your user name to Bichie

Perhaps you would like to qualify what you do believe?

The whole 'Bullmania' thing was clearly pretty solidly based on what Keighley had done and, as has been pointed out, on many earlier examples of the same sort of thing. There is, after all, little under the sun that is truly 'new', Bradford, in fact, had cheerleaders back in the early seventies, no doubt the idea then coming from American Football, that's certainly what we fans believed anyway.

There was, incidentally, no reason for any other club not to go down the 'mania' route; what worked in Keighley and Bradford would have worked anywhere else. Though I should point out that it wasn't the club who installed the 'mania' suffix in Bradford, it was added in the fashion of the word 'gate' being stuck on the end of every political scandal, by the press and public. Though, once run up the flagpole, a very willing and pro-active publicity department certainly saluted it.

Odsal even featured cheerleaders, marching bands, music in the stands at matches. In 1988. Just not when the rugby league team were there

Perhaps you would like to actually read what people write.

Thanks for that, this was getting rather tedious.

Its probably fair to say that you did it bigger and better than we did, but once we were denied superleague we were pretty much dead in the water overnight.

It would be nice to get those days back, and our new directors certainly have ambition, but I personally think the moment has been lost and it will need a different approach to revitalise a small town club like ours.

Lots of emotive ranting about Chris Caisley, a poorly thought out and quickly shot down argument about franchising being protectionism, and lots of silly stuff about being raped, shafted and pirated.

What I saw within all that, I felt, was a mistaken belief from you that Keighley somehow somewhere led the way in sports marketing. And a lot of resentmet of the Bradford Bulls.

My younger son's rugby union club got a load of free tickets and giveaways today, from Wasps. I think Wasps play in high wycombe. That's about 90 miles and best part of two hours drive away.

And here we have a RL club being criticised for doing some marketing all of 10 minutes away from their ground?

This is a total myth. Caisley praised Cougarmania but said the directors let themselves down in negotiations. The idea that Bradford, who'd had cheerleaders and music after tries in the 80s were sneering at the Cougars (maybe some fans but no more than fans of other clubs, definitely not Caisley) is just plain wrong.

What evidence have you got that Bradford residents are loyaler than those outside the city boundaries. Could be true but it's far from a given.

If I ran a National League club I would offer reduced price tickets for supporters of any SL club on production of their current SL season ticket. Encouraging new (even if transient) supporters, I think, is far better than attracting no new supporters. 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

100% agree.

I posted something a while back about SL clubs offering a 99 quid add on to their ST's that would let their fans gain access to any CH, CH1, CH2 games......with the entire 99 quid going into a pool to be shared by all the teams in those divisions.

Of course I can't prove it, but going back 10 years or so I spent a lot of time in Pudsey and Drighlington and there would be Bulls shirts, car stickers, stickers in windows etc all over the place. Nowadays it's a different picture, Leeds woke up and now those areas reflect that.

Slightly differently I always remember lots of kids at school supporting Liverpool, Everton and Man Utd, and giving those of us who were City fans all kinds of grief, it's amazing to find out how many of them are now City fans, as they've got older they increasingly come to identify their team, and culturally sports support in this country has always been tribal. Back in the late 90's my younger brother played RL for Rodley and, at the time, most of the team were Bulls fans - a couple of them I still loosely know are now Leeds fans, after all that's the city they are from and that's the team representing their city.

These are the kinds of things I think the RFL should be looking into (and maybe something like this will come from the KTP partnership they are now involved in) because I think individual clubs need to stop viewing other clubs as competitors (apart from on field) and look at ways that RL clubs can collaborate for the benefit of all.

Finances are tight in SL let alone the National Leagues so why don't for example, a group of National League clubs (who individually may not be able to afford a marketing manager say) get together and employ one to work for the group?

It isn't a marketing manager , it is ' troops ' on the ground and a budget to work with

As for competitors , the Championship clubs biggest competitors are SL clubs and football clubs , so tell me why we would want to ' work ' with them ?

Manager or troops on the ground the principle remains.



I believe that despite the apparent paradox to a Western business mind set, even "competitors" can work collaboratively for the benefit of all in an industry. One example is the major mobile phone manufacturers now getting together to agree on a standard charger so any phone can be used with any charger. This will reduce costs of R&D in each company and with one standard charger production costs will fall benefiting businesses and the consumer.

The areas of mutual benefit in RL may not be so obvious but I believe that they are there if the people that run the clubs and the sport can see that their compeition does not come from the nearest RL club (SL or otherwise) but from football, Rugby Union, the cinema, theatre, the pub, concerts, tennis and whatever else people choose to spend their leisure £s on.

Sorry bill you are wrong , a Championship clubs biggest competitor is the nearest SL club , the Championship clubs however should be working together

SL is the ' enemy ' of every Championship club and fan

It's perhaps a "leap of faith" but I think there are at least two facts which support my view:

1. Harlequins are the only SL club in London (or near London) why are they not playing to a packed house evey other week? Because the competition is not from RL therefore there must, by definition, be competition that does not originate in RL and huge competition at that.

2. In every case where a Championship side gets promoted their fans base swells hugely. This is not (to my knowledge) met with a corresponding decrease in support for the nearby SL clubs (in fact when Hull KR got promoted Hull FC's average crowd went up). Therefore those fans are there but are not going to any game Championship or SL.

I'd have thought apathy to be a far worse enemy.

Of course it is.

The Luddites would rather a residents of "their area" went to NO games than to the games of another club.

Not expecting you to have excel documents but you have to take my point that however disloyal Pudseyites are, I'm pretty sure the people of Bradford can match them in the 'can't be .rsed to go watch that rubbish' stakes.

Didn't Keighley just steal all their ideas from Eddie Waring?

Your arguments about protectionism (and every thing else) are your opinion, which you are perfectly entitled to, but I don’t actually view you as the arbiter of what is right or wrong.

The franchise system as it stands is a form of protectionism – that’s the whole reason it was devised – to give those clubs in it protection from relegation whilst they built a stable business. The fact that some clubs have been unable to do this and therefore risk relegation is down to their poor management of the situation. If new stadia had been built as promised, if crowds had flocked in to see them and if new major sponsors and financial stability had been achieved do you seriously think they would be relegated?

The RL promised to promote a championship club (if they met the criteria) but I’m pretty certain that they would have found a reason to expand the league and keep successful teams rather than relegation.

Relegation within the franchise system was a threat (of the big stick variety) with the sole aim of bringing clubs into line and telling them that if they promise something then they had better deliver – or else. As someone has already pointed out, the fact that one of the criteria is proximity to existing clubs is in itself a degree of protectionism.

I am not a complete fan of franchising but I agree that something had to be done to save our game.

I still can't see how you can sensibly call the previous league system with P&R "protectionism"