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

So what you are saying is that "Bradford Northern" want nothing to do with Bradford Bulls



Joking aside, you are correct in that people from Ilkley, Skipton and Keighley want very little to do with Bradford per se.

Having said that, I regularly see people with Bulls and Rhinos shirts on (and Bradford City, Leeds United, Manchester United) and I don't have a problem with that, although I know some that do.

What I did and still do have a problem with was the ridiculing of Cougarmania by some in the Bradford camp then the creation of Bullmania as an almost carbon copy. Apart from that I am indifferent to the Bulls and any marketing they do in Keighley has zero effect on me. I do however, think the Bulls pledge is a brilliant idea and I wish my club had thought of it.

I find it interesting that the much praised "sporting chance" run this year by the Cougars to give 13 to 19 yera olds and "alternative" GCSE is being taken up by the Bulls and Bradford City. But no doubt there are some posters on this thread who will claim the Bulls are not copying the Cougars as the the old Ionian Quoit team first did it in 1746

Didn't the Cougars nick their name from the Leeds American Football team? Wasn't all the razzamatazz nicked from the NFL? Hudders tried it before as well. The ARL had been calling teams names like Sharks, Sea Eagles, Eels for ages too.

I always do find it fascinating that the people of Kirklees as a whole find going to RL games in their own area not something they think thet should do.

But surely the blame should be laid at the feet of the clubs of that area rather than the Bulls for attempted to attract floating supporters?

That was a bit more down to Caisley, however the marketing team at the Bulls saw what Keighley had done, saw it was working and did it on a bigger scale. Think you'll find that true of most types of business. Someone does something that becomes a success and others in will attempt to duplicate it.

If you have read the thread you will find that the above questions have been answered several times

True. I don't have an issue that it was done, but rather the way it was done.

Keighley invented it all themselves, and copyrighted in and patented it. Their court case against the Dallas Mavericks is due to start next week.

Is ' blame ' the correct word , or is it more a case of looking why small local clubs cannot match larger clubs in the marketing business ?

They're happy to "blame" Bradford for "stealing" their fans. Or at least some fans on here are

So you don't think it is something that should be looked , not that Bradford are heavily marketing in Batley/Dewsbury , but that those two clubs possibly are not doing so

It's the responsibility of all clubs to attract the maximum number of fans available to them

Kirklees is an artificial creation, same as is the Bradford Met district.

Odsal IS "their own area" to many people in the Odsal hinterland just south of Bradford.