Well, no, because almost everyone has told Jim he's an idiot.

Several super league clubs monitorerd and visited Keighley then launched their own "programs". It does not take a great leap of the imagination to assume a degree of copying.

Regardless of what other sports Keighley got their ideas from (and well done to the Leeds Cougars etc), they were brave enough to try it and make it work in RL, which at the time was as far removed from American football as netball. Keighley made a go of it - the rest followed.

I seem to remember keighley taking 1000+ kids down to Wembly, I'm sure they must have copied that from someone.

No, but calling them a "disgrace to rugby league" in the media, scoffing at "cougarmania" then calling your own program of all things "Bullmania" (how original) might be.

Only one person did that.
Bullmania is no more a copy of Cougarmania than Cougars (Keighley) is a copy of Cougars (Leeds)

Yes It is.

....and your point is????

I'm also sure those clubs (pre SL) also watched other sports using their stadia, and how they promoted their sports.
The nature of the sport on the pitch isn't really relevant. The elements outside of that don't depend to any great extent to what's on the field. It's beside the point that RL has as many similarities to american football as it does to RU.

I'm sure clubs have been taking thousands of kids to Wembley for decades.

If they really had any imagination, they'd have called them the Kougars and Kougarmania.

Name them

That you can't blame a team, club, or city, for the behaviour of one man.

No.

.....and you would come out in the daylight rather than sleeping under your bridge

It is a shame that SL clubs feel the need to go so close to smaller non SL clubs to recruit support , as for franchising being ' protectionism ' , well to some degree it is , as long as location is part of the criteria , then there is a case for it being so

Yes you can

Am I playing your game OK??

Yeah, best leave it to soccer clubs, watching TV, RU, videogames, etc, etc, etc, to recruit in those areas instead.

Why do you feel that?
This isn't a game. That's the bit that happens on the pitch.

I didn't say it was wrong , ilea gal , or should not be allowed , I said it is a shame , it shows how weak the bulls currently feel as a club , it also shows that they have probably given up trying to get the Asian community in Bradford interested in RL

I feel they are now on a slow decline that will see them never reach the heights they had a few years ago

your not doing to bad at all dreamer,

We don't know what Bradford Bulls are or are not doing in the city of Bradford (of which only a quarter of the population are asian) from this thread, only what they are doing in nearby areas.

No we don't , but we do know that whatever they are doing isn't working

Always makes me laugh to read comments from people who actually know jack , when you know the real answer is rather different. The massive expansion of the community development operation this year, with a load more staff, gives the lie to much of your bollox as it happens, and the pledge campaign is another example of what is being done under the aegis of a new full-time marketing director and a newly-focused executive board. But no matter, you keep thinking what suits you. You always have, from what I have seen.

On one specific point - as it happens, the club (and Bradford City) have continually tried to engage the Asian community. And the massive expansion in the community development team this year will see those efforts redoubled going forward. Want to know what the main problem is? They regularly get the kids interested - very interested. Kids are kids, and they get excited about what they see and what they hear, Then the kids go home and tell their parents. And apparently most of the parents veto them having anything to do with it. Seems its some sort of cultural thing. If anyone knows why this should be so, and has any solutions, I'm sure the club would love to hear them. I know it exasperates them.

It also does not help that the largely RL-disinterested Asian community is concentrated in a great central band east-west across the city starting just north of Odsal. This means you get an isolated RL heartland of south Bradford, right at the bottom tip of the district which has far more in common in sporting terms with the neighbouing towns than it does with the rest of the district. North of the great central belt tends more to soccer - Valley Parade's hinterland is North Bradford - and then you get to the Aire Valley, which generally wishes it was not lumped in with Bradford. And further out, over the moors into Ilkley, they have a Leeds postcode and generally despise their being included in the district. And its 40 mins drive from there to Odsal on a good day. And as you go northwest up the elongated district you get plenty of open high country before you get to higher up the Aire Valley and that hotbed of Bulls support known as Keighley.

Imagine what would happen if the planners decreed that St Helens was part of "Wigan"because it was not that far away, and the little matter of a load of open country and Billinge Hill in between counted for nothing? Well that is similar distance and circumstances to Bradford and Keighley - the two largest population centres in the "Bradford" artificial district.

I am sick and tired of people going on about the size/population of the Bradford district when they refuse to recognise the geographics. And the problem the club has of being stuck at one extreme end of a diverse, and totally artificial creation of a district where the whole, much larger in area northern part - in the main - wants little to do with the city, let alone a club stuck on the far side of it. If the club wants to attract support from within say a 7-10 mile radius, and much of that area lies outside the artificial creation of a district, so bloody what? No-one is forcing any supporter to switch allegience; few will. Those who profess that if you live in a certain area you are only permitted to support the nearest club - for that is what they are effectively saying - are treating the people of those areas with total contempt.

but it hasnt worked , isnt that what I just stated

Where have I mentioned the size and population of bradford ?

The last bit I posted was my opinion

So maybe you should read what is written , not what you think is written

Just for the record , I think you post total bollox as well , HTH

i used to work in batley in the early 00's and every time there was a bulls game on a friday night, there were literally hundreds,possibly thousands of people travelling from batley/dewsbury/heckmondwike/cleckheaton to odsal, so you can see why the bulls would want to target certain area's to try and attract these people back, ironically, a lot of them are now travelling to headingley on a friday night, so maybe the good folk of the heavy woollen district dont care too much about batley or dewsbury?

I wonder if the Bulls have learnt their lesson, OK target these people, but they have no loyalty or attachment to Bradford - and they will be the first to drop away when the prices go back up, like they did when the success dried up.

on this whole copying keighley thing as people have claimed that they were the first RL club to try and revolutinise the whole american name,razzmatazz thing,may i give you, barracudas and arena '84