While Fax were getting kicked back for SL Crusaders and Bulls were getting massive financial advances for Lewis and Wood. It is disgraceful.

Whilst i agree with your assessment that the RFL must have rested their coffee cups on Bradford's application i have no doubts that the Halifax decision was the right one. As three Chairmen have already alluded, a wealthy backer will see clubs through the turmoil and Fax don't have one. We are better staying where we are until we do.

Oh you are precious! You don't really know the facts do you!

I'm a Keighley fan and am quite aware of what has gone on.

Care to give any facts about the RFL "takeover" of Cougar park (apart from bluster and forum chat)

Care to give any facts to back up the John Kear pre match mind game ramblings?

I await with baited breath.

Or do you just prefer to read forums, add 2 and 2 together and make 5?

Yes, really enjoyed it, the outcome was uncertain right up to the end.

Nice stadium you have there, must admit to being a bit envious - maybe we can tap the RFL up for some money



Mind you, there are some that call us the "Manchester City" of the Championship you know

Abu Dhabi Cougars

Whilst the RFL do many many great things for the game (and very rarely get any credit for it), the issue I think many fans and chairmen have is that there is very rarely anything negative said by the RFL when bad things happen. There is a lot of spin, and a lot of negatives get brushed under the carpet (leaving us in the situation we see ourselves in now). This is what I think McManus is referring to when he says "honesty".

To make a comparison to my club's administration, whilst we had Kath and Rule, we were running a great business, selling merchandise, growing crowds, etc. However we cut corners in places that really needed investment, resulting in shocking on-field results. There's only so long you can do that without the house of cards coming down. We pushed a lot of spin to keep the fans onside, but the problem with spin is that eventually people stop listening. We needed someone to just tell us how it was, why it was, and what was going to happen.

We have that now in Adam Pearson, and whilst we haven't had long to qualify the results (although his actions and current results show he's off to a great start!), I personally believe this is what we need running the game. It appears that those running the game aren't honest enough to admit their flaws. There is nothing wrong with having flaws, but if you don't own up to them then there won't be any change.

I am very happy with the majority of how the game is run. It's 100x better than it used to be in the past (anyone that disagrees I challenge to give me an example of another administration that has seen the game in a better state of health). Perhaps the game has outgrown its current administration and we need a new one to take us to the next step? Much like a coach of a team that can turn a clubs fortunes around and make them competitive, that same person often can't break through the next glass ceiling. I just hope that if we do end up with a shake-up, people remember the current administration for the many many great things they've done to turn the game around, and not for the few poor decisions made. But in true cynical RL fashion, I can't see that happening as all the majority want to do is concentrate on the negatives of everything and then complain when no-one wants to take on the job!

considering Saints have at least 3 multi-millionaires on board and have just built and completed their own new stadium, I'd suggest that at least 1 of them is fully cashed up in the process, not that i'm stating they have money to throw about......

Yeah but Saints chairmen are always first in line for the whinging queue

Quote ="Dreamer"Oh you are precious! You don't really know the facts do you! I'm a Keighley fan and am quite aware of what has gone on. Care to give any facts about the RFL "takeover" of Cougar park (apart from bluster and forum chat) Care to give any facts to back up the John Kear pre match mind game ramblings? I await with baited breath.'" Oh dear a lil cougars fan who knows nothing about his club. try here : www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... adium.html [uand particularly here[/u: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ear_lease/ i think this captures the tone of the article: Your ,then chairman, said "........both the Co-operative and the RFL bent over backwards to help us keep the Cougars operating and I don’t think many people appreciate what they did to help us keep going" And the final statement: " Under the terms of the new agreement, the Rugby League Facilities Trust will take a lease on the land and Keighley Cougars will become their tenants." Dress that up whichever way you need sunshine...the RFL own the stadium lease

Quote ="Dreamer"Oh you are precious! You don't really know the facts do you! I'm a Keighley fan and am quite aware of what has gone on. Care to give any facts about the RFL "takeover" of Cougar park (apart from bluster and forum chat) Care to give any facts to back up the John Kear pre match mind game ramblings? I await with baited breath.'" Oh dear a lil cougars fan who knows nothing about his club. try here : www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... adium.html [uand particularly here[/u: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ear_lease/ i think this captures the tone of the article: Your ,then chairman, said "........both the Co-operative and the RFL bent over backwards to help us keep the Cougars operating and I don’t think many people appreciate what they did to help us keep going" And the final statement: " Under the terms of the new agreement, the Rugby League Facilities Trust will take a lease on the land and Keighley Cougars will become their tenants." Dress that up whichever way you need sunshine...the RFL own the stadium lease

also HKR are doing some significant stadium improvements. Hudgell and Mcmanus have every right to question the farcical way Wood and lewis have propped up Crusaders and the bulls.

Hudgell, McManus & Hood do have every right to question how the game is being administered, just the same as all other club chairmen. They also have the opportunity to voice their concerns at regular meetings (one of those mentioned hasn't bothered attending for two years). They are the ones who formulate and approve the the way the game is administered and by whom. If they are unhappy with the way the game is currently being administered and the people that THEY have appointed to administer it, the solution is in their own hands. Mind you, any changes would require a majority to approve, maybe what they really don't like is democracy?

If they're moaning now, they obviously didn't see the state of the game under Fallowfield, Oxley and Lindsay

Quote ="Cripesginger" Quote ="Dreamer"Oh you are precious! You don't really know the facts do you! I'm a Keighley fan and am quite aware of what has gone on. Care to give any facts about the RFL "takeover" of Cougar park (apart from bluster and forum chat) Care to give any facts to back up the John Kear pre match mind game ramblings? I await with baited breath.'" Oh dear a lil cougars fan who knows nothing about his club. try here : www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... adium.html [uand particularly here[/u: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ear_lease/ i think this captures the tone of the article: Your ,then chairman, said "........both the Co-operative and the RFL bent over backwards to help us keep the Cougars operating and I don’t think many people appreciate what they did to help us keep going" And the final statement: " Under the terms of the new agreement, the Rugby League Facilities Trust will take a lease on the land and Keighley Cougars will become their tenants." Dress that up whichever way you need sunshine...the RFL own the stadium lease '" I was right, you are precious! The Daily mail article is incorrect: the Co-op own Keighley's ground, the RFL own the lease. You implied that the RFL had "taken over" at Cougar park, which has quite different connotations to being the middle man in obtaining a new lease. I have never disputed that the RFL own the lease, it's common knowledge. You also implied that some sort of financial benefit from the RFL made Keighley the "Manchester City of the Championship" which is also complete nonsense. The RFL were doing what you would expect it to do - help it's member clubs - and at no risk to itself. Oh dear, a lil keyboard warrior. Never mind, you'll be back at school soon (or is that drama school?)

Quote ="Cripesginger" Quote ="Dreamer"Oh you are precious! You don't really know the facts do you! I'm a Keighley fan and am quite aware of what has gone on. Care to give any facts about the RFL "takeover" of Cougar park (apart from bluster and forum chat) Care to give any facts to back up the John Kear pre match mind game ramblings? I await with baited breath.'" Oh dear a lil cougars fan who knows nothing about his club. try here : www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... adium.html [uand particularly here[/u: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ear_lease/ i think this captures the tone of the article: Your ,then chairman, said "........both the Co-operative and the RFL bent over backwards to help us keep the Cougars operating and I don’t think many people appreciate what they did to help us keep going" And the final statement: " Under the terms of the new agreement, the Rugby League Facilities Trust will take a lease on the land and Keighley Cougars will become their tenants." Dress that up whichever way you need sunshine...the RFL own the stadium lease '" I was right, you are precious! The Daily mail article is incorrect: the Co-op own Keighley's ground, the RFL own the lease. You implied that the RFL had "taken over" at Cougar park, which has quite different connotations to being the middle man in obtaining a new lease. I have never disputed that the RFL own the lease, it's common knowledge. You also implied that some sort of financial benefit from the RFL made Keighley the "Manchester City of the Championship" which is also complete nonsense. The RFL were doing what you would expect it to do - help it's member clubs - and at no risk to itself. Oh dear, a lil keyboard warrior. Never mind, you'll be back at school soon (or is that drama school?)

Lets just get this straight...

You'd have preferred that the RFL didn't advance money to Bradford in 2011 - money they have since recovered in full - and let them go bust?

Oh, and BTW, the RFL have advanced Sky payments to a number of clubs to ease cash-flow issues over the years - including HKR. Maybe Hudgell forgot about that when writing his whinge.

Nail on head.

Bradford went through period of unprecedented success from 1997-2005. Hood took over a business on the crest of a wave and has managed to knackered it by not being business savvy. To bleat that his clubs losses have increased ten fold is effectively telling us all how poor sow of his business decisions have been

Hudgell at hkr is a born moaner. For some one who is the head of a relatively profitable [delAmbulance chasing[/del er, law firm, his myopic view and business decision making for hkr is astonishingly poor. His obsession on getting one over Hull FC is coming back to bite him (and rovers) on the back side financially.

There is a salary cap in place for a reason, to prevent clubs overspending. If some clubs are not clever enough to maximise their position, it's not the RFL's fault.

Total absolute unmitigated complete bollox.

Absolute Bollox.

Bollox by several orders of magnitude.

It goes beyond Bollox.

Maybe I should get off the fence and say what I really mean...?



Seriously mate: the Bulls were heading towards insolvency in 2005. I was involved - I know. Big losses every year since the return to Odsal, spending the Odsal settlement cash at an alarming rate.

The only way they were able to survive was to slash costs dramatically.

And then we had an action (and it was very real - it was no PR game) from Leeds for £3.2m plus costs. Because of our former chairman's obsession with winning a pìssing contest with Hetherington, it would seem.

Why the hell do you think Caisley stood down when he did? The man appears to have an ego the size of the known universe, second only to Lindsay. And I have seen him in action. If all was well and we were "on the crest of a wave" why the HELL would he have left?

And read what Hood wrote? He said that SL Clubs' losses had increased ten-fold. Not ours. Go on, read it again?

In fact, go call off the accounts from Companies House? You will see his regime stemmed the totally unsustainable losses - you can see sets of accounts showing losses of over £600k p.a. under Caisley, and him berating fans for not turning out to watch the club in the annual reports - and turned them into modest profits until the Great Recession hit.

His point is that without a rich owner, clubs like Bradford have to live hand to mouth. But if the AVERAGE SL losses are £500k, then Bulls have done far far better than the average for quite a few years now. We just lack the liquidity and the reserves to cope with unexpected knocks, where monied clubs' owners can just write a cheque.

Grrrrrrr.....

As I implied (albeit it I tried to hide it well) - your statement is, well total bollox. Please tell me you spoke through ignorance and not motive? If you do, I will happily apologise for the tone of my response, since we are all a bit touchy at the moment about disinformation spread about our club. Our board is quite capable of snatching a PR defeat from the jaws of success on its own account right now, without any help from its friends!

Peter and Ryan have really sold you the dream, haven't they Adey?

EDITED for 100% accuracy

What happened to 'bolloxwongy©[size=50gutterfax[/size'





Edit: Apologies and thanks to the mild mannered janitor..

The facts don't lie. If you take the trouble to check them out. Go look at the accounts. Then go call off the accounts of the other SL clubs over recent years.

And as for me being in a position to comment about the circumstances at that time, if you are smart while you are on the Companies House website you will be able to work out why.

Now, are we fighting facts with facts, or just derision? Because you are worried about acknowledging the truth?

Incidentally, I have known Ryan for years. Well before he got to the poisoned chalice of a position he holds now. And I am a lot lot older than him too.

Please accept my apologies to you and many other Bradford fans. I have not malice against you or your club, and I fully felt your pain 13 years ago when my club nearly disappeared were literally hours from going put of business. I also recall my club having to sell off it's prize assets in the late '80's due to rank bad miss management but at the time the sport was genuinely tin pot.

My point about Bradfords situation is, even more so now you have openly stated you were involved (be careful of confidentiality issues there

) at the time, if Caisley was wracking up large losses and Hood still took over the reigns, Hood must have thought he could turn it around OR have a sugar daddy in the background. Otherwise his sporting hobby was ruling his business brain.

I have seen Financial Statements of 7 SL clubs over the last decade and unless the ones I have not looked at have had huge losses (admittedly, a possibility) then your chairman has over egged the cake with his comment, basing it around his and a couple of other clubs with poor business personnel.

Ask yourself this, if your club has been spending full cap, with stadium up keep, admin costs, et al, and you knew you were going to be in deficit, then why reduce season tickets so drastically? If it's because your previous CEO had raised expectation too much and fans were only going to turn up if your team was able to be in CC and Grand finals, yet still Hood takes charge without having a realistic business plan, then I don't see your argument.

For what it's worth, I hope your club does pull through.

I still want the fans to have a club to follow, but I would rather they weren't held to emotional ransom so as to bail out a failing administration to achieve this.

At the start of this whole saga, I too wanted the Bulls to pull through, but a combination of the begging and emotional blackmail that has been used, together with the multiple posts from ady blindly defending the ineptitude and bad management that has seen the club placed in this position, together with the constant bitching about "other clubs" folding, has altered my stance.
Yes, Bradford Bulls for ESL....but after admin and with a clean slate....not a bandaid stuck over a wound requiring 35 stitches.

Oh dear I provided evidence that the RFL own cougar park as part of their portfolio.

Poor lil dreamer



That's right numbnuts...the RFL own the lease. You really are dumb if you cannot grasp that...and you can't.

And you are so dumb you cannot work out that the RFL helping to save the Cougars does make it easier to sign plenty of players. Get one of your more intelligent friends to explain to you what your chairman's quote meant.

Now sweety you keep digging

The bulls couldn't make the payments so Wood and Lewis, having painted themselves into a corner, had to do the odsal lease deal. If Wood and Lewis want to advance £700K to a club they should use their own money or seek RFL council / SLE aproval. They did not bother and now SL clubs are biting back. Even the Bulls are not defending the rfl executives.

Sadly you seem unable to differentiate between clubs getting a single
pyment a couple of months early and a club getting £700k plus and not making repayments.

If you have proof that HKR got £700k in advanceslets see it.