33 replies to this topic

[Padge]

The polarization of opinions regarding the Bulls I find disappointing but not surprising.

Let the RFL run the game and let supporters support teams.

I don't want to see any club fail, and I am disappointed when one does. I will have a go at clubs that, in my opinion are heading for failure (as a business) but when it happens it isn't the time to be spiteful to those that carry the can after the directors responsible have legged it.

The RFL is charged with doing the best for the sport as a whole, that will always mean that they make decisions that affect individual clubs in a way that the terraces will see as unfair to their club. Its time to learn to live with it. More importantly its time for the RFL to plough ahead and ignore the vociferous few who are only interested in their own club agenda.

The terrace warriors need to learn to live with the fact that the RFL are going to have more and more control of the game and they will make decisions you don't like.

Edited by Padge, 25 July 2012 - 11:43 PM.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

It's always been like that, it's just that with forums and the social media it's in the open for everyone to see.

[Mulberry Bush]

The polarization of opinions regarding the Bulls I find disappointing but not surprising.

Let the RFL run the game and let supporters support teams.

I don't want to see any club fail, and I am disappointed when one does. I will have a go at clubs that, in my opinion are heading for failure (as a business) but when it happens it isn't the time to be spiteful to those that carry the can after the directors responsible have legged it.

The RFL is charged with doing the best for the sport as a whole, that will always mean that they make decisions that affect individual clubs in a way that the terraces will see as unfair to their club. Its time to learn to live with it. More importantly its time for the RFL to plough ahead and ignore the vociferous few who are only interested in their own club agenda.

The terrace warriors need to learn to live with the fact that the RFL are going to have more and more control of the game and they will make decisions you don't like.

A thinly veiled way of saying, “ my clubs in the inner clique. We’ll take all the advantages of that position but please no criticism”.

The worst of the terrace spite out there is from fans that go around with a snobbery attitude looking down on perceived lesser clubs. The worst of this spite goes comes from the top of SL working its way down.

[Padge]

A thinly veiled way of saying, “ my clubs in the inner clique. We’ll take all the advantages of that position but please no criticism”.

The worst of the terrace spite out there is from fans that go around with a snobbery attitude looking down on perceived lesser clubs. The worst of this spite goes comes from the top of SL working its way down.

Oh FFS.

[Johnoco]

A thinly veiled way of saying, “ my clubs in the inner clique. We’ll take all the advantages of that position but please no criticism”.

The worst of the terrace spite out there is from fans that go around with a snobbery attitude looking down on perceived lesser clubs. The worst of this spite goes comes from the top of SL working its way down.

Do me a favour. Some (most?) of the snobbery comes from Championship/C1 fans who think they are the only true RL fans and everyone else is just plastic (to use an oft thrown around term)

[terrywebbisgod]

Do me a favour. Some (most?) of the snobbery comes from Championship/C1 fans who think they are the only true RL fans and everyone else is just plastic (to use an oft thrown around term)

+1

[chuffer]

I think people just want consistency......perhaps that's too much to ask

[Johnoco]

I think people just want consistency......perhaps that's too much to ask

If that's the case how come lots of Champ fans are asking why the bulls didn't get more points deducted, despite them getting the max allowed?

We even have a well known Leigh fan comparing number of games in the Championship.

[Exiled Wiganer]

Is this a topic about the Bulls or more generally?
If the central point is why don't we all get along better, then perhaps we should read the Bible and Shakespeare to remind ourselves that human nature has always been and will always be the same. People view things from their own perpsective.
On the Bulls, I really like what they have done since 1996 and think the game is better as a result.
On the Bulls' current plight, I am furious because:
- it looks like they will walk away from all their debts, have a points deduction they can live with, get their ground back and stay in SL. Meanwhile...
- the tax man will lose out, as will lots of creditors. The rest of the game will suffer as a consequnece;
- they have been playing a team they cannot afford, and have kept that team together, despite being in a position in which they could have sold some of them to pay creditors;
- they appealed to the wider rl community to help raise 500k - what happened to that money?
- this has dragged on and been pretty much the only story getting coverage for week after week for a game that struggles at the best of times to get any column inches. So again we all suffer;
- they beat Wigan with a team they could not afford to field, pumped up on the adrenaline of its possibly being their last game, which is a point of personal (and selfish) annoyance.
Now, to equate being annoyed with this to bearing a spiteful grudge against a comrade in arms strikes me as absurd. if anything, my sense of kindred spirit with the Salfords and the Fevs of this world - clubs trying to live within their means as far as I can see - would increase my annoyance at the state of affairs at the Bulls.
Ergo, it is perfectly possible both to condemn the Bulls, and feel immense kinship for the wider RL community. Indeed, I am struggling to see how else you can view this sorry tale.

[a.n Other]

The polarization of opinions regarding the Bulls I find disappointing but not surprising.

Let the RFL run the game and let supporters support teams.

I don't want to see any club fail, and I am disappointed when one does. I will have a go at clubs that, in my opinion are heading for failure (as a business) but when it happens it isn't the time to be spiteful to those that carry the can after the directors responsible have legged it.

The RFL is charged with doing the best for the sport as a whole, that will always mean that they make decisions that affect individual clubs in a way that the terraces will see as unfair to their club. Its time to learn to live with it. More importantly its time for the RFL to plough ahead and ignore the vociferous few who are only interested in their own club agenda.

The terrace warriors need to learn to live with the fact that the RFL are going to have more and more control of the game and they will make decisions you don't like.

So you want all fans to just agree with the RFL? Who else is going to challenge the RFL on decisions that they make? The RFL media in this country dont seem to do it, so its left to people to discuss this on forums such as this. If you are just going to agree with everything the RFL says, then i care more for the game and your club than you do.

Edited by a.n Other, 26 July 2012 - 10:32 AM.

[Johnoco]

The key phrase there being 'as far as I can see'. Would you have predicted the current Bulls situation? How do you know what clubs are 'living within their means'? You don't and that's the point. Its not about consistency for some, just sticking the boot into Bradford.

IIRC it was Wakeys second spell in admin within a few years....why weren't they treated more harshly?

[clement]

Oh FFS.

Why,it's true.

[Dave T]

I must say I agree with Exiled Wiganer's excellent post on this (apart from the defeating Wigan part - I can live with that!).

I also agree with ANOther, just because you disagree with some of the decisions within RL it doesn't mean that you are bitter or a warrior - although I do find plenty of individuals extremely rude, angry and arrogant in RL circles from both sides of almost every debate.

[Maximus Decimus]

So you want all fans to just agree with the RFL? Who else is going to challenge the RFL on decisions that they make? The RFL media in this country dont seem to do it, so its left to people to discuss this on forums such as this. If you are just going to agree with everything the RFL says, then i care more for the game and your club than you do.

I think his valid problem is more to do with the fact that the RFL seemingly never get anything right. This being despite the fact that numerous different people over a number of years have been 'the RFL.'

Either these different people are always wrong or the people criticising them have unrealistic expectations. It's similar to the DD post on the redvee site where he announced he'd fallen out of love with the game. He went on and on about how the RFL had made disastrous decisions but again forgot that the RFL is not one person and that most of the decisions the RFL make are heavily influenced by uncontrollable outside factors.

[Exiled Wiganer]

The key phrase there being 'as far as I can see'. Would you have predicted the current Bulls situation? How do you know what clubs are 'living within their means'? You don't and that's the point. Its not about consistency for some, just sticking the boot into Bradford.

IIRC it was Wakeys second spell in admin within a few years....why weren't they treated more harshly?

I don't know if that's the key point at all. But I wrote "as far as I can see" because they are not in the Bulls' position and I do not recall their having been. If you genuinely believe that anyone who is critical of the situation is motivated by a wish to put the boot into the Bulls then that really is a pity. This situation has damage the entire game.

[Ackroman]

At the end of the day, on the terraces, everyone is the enemy. You need that passion to get behind your team. Once the blood has cooled then most people look beyond their own club and acknowledge the value of other clubs and accept most of what the RFL do.

However there are those who are a bit obsessed with their opinions who feel the need to preach like a bunch of zealots that they are right.

However they exist on all sides of every argument, not just one.

[Just Browny]

The answer to the original question is no, unless we are taking the views of a few people who hang out on internet messageboards as representative of 'the game'. What I would consider the game would be the governing body and RL clubs, all of whom seem to have rallied around the Bulls and done plenty to help them out where possible.

[Padge]

I didn't start the thread as a Bulls thread, they just happen to be highlighting the point that I was making that, as Maximus Decimus points out, for some the RFL can't get anything right, unless of course what they do is give your club enough money to become the big one and rule the SL roost.

The RFL are not out to 'get' certain clubs, neither are they protecting certain clubs, they are custodians of the game and they will do what they see as being the best for the game. Fans should really learn that everything that crops up, from sendings off to clubs going to administration has to be looked at on its individual merits. No two cases of anything are ever exactly the same.

There is little benefit to the game in the RFL spending a fortune attempting to save a club with 200 supporters, but there is a big benefit in investing time effort and money in trying to save a club with 15,000 spectators. Everything else lies somewhere in between.

We have to accept that to the RFL as a business different clubs will have different values and the same clubs can have different values at different times.

The help (with different problems) that the RFL have given to Leigh, Keighley and Featherstone over recent years is swept under the carpet as if the RFL never do anything for anyone except the 'big' clubs. Its just the big clubs get the headlines, the big clubs, because they have more supporters have more people responding to discussions, they have more people lobbying. Nobody is out to get anybody.

Just because someone supports a club that happens at this moment in time to be doing relatively ok, doesn't mean that their opinion isn't valid, or that they don't care, some people need to get themselves out of victim mode.

We don't operate in a sporting utopia, we never have and we never will.

[The Parksider]

It is perfectly possible both to condemn the Bulls, and feel immense kinship for the wider RL community. Indeed, I am struggling to see how else you can view this sorry tale.

That's a bit sad because you can view it your way, you can take a view that the Bulls always traded on the edge because they had no rich director and trading down would have ruined them for sure, you can take the view you don't like the bulls so it's fun to put the boot in with extreme language etc.

There's several ways it can be viewed shame you can only spot one............

[chuffer]

real shame....