Kevin Nicholas

Just to clarify the York game was a shared gate. We will not make anything whatsoever money wise on this fixture. Our aim is to not lose money on any coaches run and to seek to raise monies through sponsorship etc to break even with the cost of player wages and all the expense of travel, accommodation, meals etc. if we do that we will be very happy. I will not say anything more on this topic as i want to focus on the positives which is the achievement of getting to Wembley and enjoying the occasion. We know we will have good support which is another positive. So just enjoy the build up and the day.

There has been an increase in gates and secondary spend so far. Gate was 1624. We will try to announce the gate as i take your point just that many things going on both on and off the pitch on matchdays as sponsors been good as well. Due to risk we have taken every game is financially stressful especially when have to pay winning pay but that’s why we are here!!

On the issue of Recruitment as we finshed where we did the starting point is we need to recruit our existing team players who got us there surely? We lost Tom Gilmore and have replaced him with Josh Woods who in my view is quality and will show that in due time. Clearly Gilly is hard to replace but i think we have not done too bad there. Luke Hooley gone and good luck to him in SL. Again difficult to replace but we have McGowan who is an absolute tremendous prospect and Kear who played well for Wales in World Cup. So doing ok there in my view. Keegs returning to Club after proving himself capable of SL is a bonus surely? Kibula is a great prospect but we need to get the best out of him which hopefully we will. Richardson a local lad with something to prove which are both good attributes to have. So perhaps no star foreign players or big ex SL names but let’s see how we go. Not easy but a challenge which we are up for.

Where does it say Ben White has left theClub? It is news to me!!!!

The Full news wil be confirmed at 1pm today on social media. Merry Christmas to everyone and a Very Happy New Year!

After working on this for the last few months everything has at last come together and pre Christmas we have a major announcement which will be highly significant in the season ahead. We hope it has been worth the wait as our future depends upon it’s success.

Nigel are you able to present Forum award At Presentation Night?

Other Clubs can do exactly as they want and we will do the same. We did work on new signings then put it on hold awaiting IMG. Now we know there will be no adverse impact on us in 2023 at least we can breathe a sigh of relief and move forward. Now we are coppering up gate receipts and paying players to then see what is left in pot. Then we need to know our Rfl distribution. So it’s not easy running our Club on a budget but hey ho. Also still trying to enjoy the moment BUT we will now start announcing signings soon. A massive thank you to those who went to Leigh. That superb support gives us hope for the future which we have to try to build on and we have some ideas which we are already working on. We need more Facebook & Twitter followers and more OuRLeague App members saying they are Bulldogs supporters so you need to invite as many as possible to do that. It costs nothing but a bit of time and it helps us financially as much as getting to the GF. Rightly or wrongly this is the world we live in.

Can absolutely guarantee that Bulldogs have lowest playing budget amongst those Clubs in playoffs!! But.. we have the biggest team spirit budget and the best group of people money can’t buy.

Just to confirm that we have resigned some players and are hoping to resign other players as well as bring in a couple of new players but as i have said previously it is very difficult financially at moment and also we are waiting for IMG proposals to be announced later in September. if we sell out the £1,000 draw and get plenty at the Queen Tribute concert whilst it will go nowhere near resolving financial issues it will be an encouraging sign to enable us to take a certain level of risk to enable us to again challenge for the playoffs in 2023. We will announce signings shortly but for the moment are concentrating on this season both on and off the pitch.

As many people as possible need to complete the survey sent out by IMG to get views across otherwise can’t complain if get what you didn’t want. Maybe it won’t have much influence or maybe it will who knows but at least try to get your views heard. Our Club do not support two Leagues of 10 with all Clubs outside that no doubt cast aside. Our view is 12 & 12 or even 14 & 14 but play each other home and away and no loop fixtures. Also if not in that group don’t just forget about rest. Our Club view is there should be no French Clubs in our competitions. They should seek to develop game in France and that is not simply being critical of them it is just not practical even in SL in full time environment. Whatever your views are simply let them be known. Also buy another raffle ticket while your at it!!!!!!

There was a short delay in getting tickets on ticketing site but they are now on there and so can now be purchased. Didnt see Bash scoreline coming to be honest even if hopeful of a win!! Each win means this Draw and the War Chest are even more important as well as getting a decent crowd on Wednesday if we are to progress as we want to in 2023. Thanks for your support.

Just realised Tom Gilmore needs 7 goals to get to 100 for season. Not many players have scored 100 goals in a season at our Club. If he gets to 100 we will publish the list. Jonny Campbell now on 18 tries for season so for all time he is now 4th with 113 tries 3rd Wattie Davies 122 tries 2nd Glen Tomlinson124 tries Club Try record for season held already by Jonny is 30 tries. if you look at Club records on our website you will see most records now are held by players in recent years not going back a long time in history

mj1970 as you don’t give your name i have no idea whether you have ever made a mistake that you could be criticised for whether major or minor which is one advantage you have. As far as the fault of not publicising the winner of our draw then i suppose you have a point for anybody who bought a ticket but was not there. I was going to do a video today but i have been unable to and i have some further work tomorrow so will maybe get it out some other way. The half time draw was published as it was not claimed but it now has been. Presumably as you did not buy any tickets because of your withdrawal of support it did not affect you much in either draw. As for some people not coming to support us since 2003 due to my attitude then not sure what to say. If there is enough of you i am happy to listen to your frustrations in a face to face meeting or always listen to a bid to take over if appropriate but if you won’t meet up not sure what i can do. As for trying to attack my character and conduct as a solicitor that is unnecessary. There is no dishonesty there so not sure of relevance and that issue is over with so i will not get into any discussion further but you have tried to embarrass me for no good reason. i have practiced as a solicitor running my own firm since January 1989 and still do but from home only for people i know. I closed my office in Manchester when i sold the building and had thousands of old files to destroy and i paid a third party to do that. During that process a handful of files somehow found their way into a waste bin near the rear of my offices which clearly they should not have done. Luckily one person found them and handed them to a newspaper who could not then pass them into the wrong hands so nothing worse happened. The paper printed an embarrassing article. In truth i had no idea how they got into the bin as clearly i did not put them there but suspect a box was stolen from the rear of a van taking the files away and when the thief then believed them to be worthless put them in the nearest bin.It was investigated by the authorities and no action was taken against me. That was the end ot it. It was my responsibility but a third party either momentarily forgot to lock the van they were loading or for some reason put a box in a bin but took all the others to destroy them. i will say no more but it was regretable and embarrassing at the time but hardly something to attack me for linked to running the Club. If there are anymore personal attacks rather than criticism about running the Club then have the decency to put your real name to it but hopefully it is just mj1970 who for some reason i have upset. Anyway onto the Bash. Looking forward to this weekend.

We did it on the pitch at half time. We put all purchases in order 1- 1,000 and used a random number selector to pick 564 which we knew was Will Linley as we had a list and then Will came forward from the crowd. We will do another official one when we announce the next £1,000 draw.