Odsal is No Way Fit Enough to Stage SL!!

[Wellsy4HullFC]

1 hour ago, Gav Wilson said:

Give any club with a big enough ground a squad that can win 4 Super Leagues (plus three losing Grand Finals), 3 World Club Challenges and 2 Challenge Cups in one decade and they will average 15k crowds - even Huddersfield.

It wasn't sustainable though.

St Helens literally won 4 on the bounce. Never have averaged 15k in a season. 

Bradford managed just shy of this on their way to winning the first of these trophies, so sustained success isn't the reason.

The idea that Bradford had large crowds purely because of years of success is a myth. Being competitive certainly helped, but there's more to it than just years of success on the field.

The idea that Huddersfield could average 15k crowds when they couldn't even draw 5 figures when they let everyone in free is laughable.

Not buying that at all, Gav. 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

3 hours ago, OMEGA said:

The truth is that it was a point in time, a perfect storm or the aligning of the planets and not the norm for Bradford Northern or Bulls. They rode on the back of the launch of Superleague, Peter Deakin stole Cougamania and made it Bullmania and they pulled together a squad that had the ability to draw crowds with individuals like Vainikolo, Robbie Paul and Jamie Peacock. Unfortunately it was all financed by money they didn’t have and breaking the salary cap rules.

If Bradford have to build on their traditional support levels they can’t and never could afford to build a squad that captures the publics imagination and reaches regular 5-figure crowds. When they did it before it was a facade enhanced by the new competition.

If anyone thinks Bradford Bulls will hit regular 10,000 + crowds again they’re not dealing with the reality that history shows us

There's a bit of rewriting of history to suit here. I mean Vainikolo wasn't even at the Bulls when they were first drawing big crowds for the first 6 years and Peacock didn't debut as a youngster until 1999.

You're basically just saying that Bradford had good players and a good marketing strategy to attract crowds like that was some stroke of luck for 10+ years.

How come other clubs with deeper pockets, decent players and some levels of success over the last decade haven't been able to achieve anything near this?

[Wellsy4HullFC]

3 hours ago, N2022 said:

Because the ground is rubbish and the pitch not big enough and, I would argue, potentially unsafe for having stock cars driven over it. Nobody's against them per se. It's the fact we are being told to tolerate a rubbish facility just because they can't / won't find a solution to that issue.

I'm not saying they should be allowed in with the ground the way it currently is. It's more the idea that is being perpetuated that it's a waste of time or not possible to get them back to being a big club and that they're easily replaceable. They've been gone 10+ years and no one has filled that gap.

3 hours ago, dboy said:

It absolutely should want to do that.

But it needs to be earned, it needs to be fair and transparent.

Perhaps they will/have earned it, but the noise of underhand favouritism sours that optic.

I think they will be in.

I agree they should earn it. I'm not saying they should be dropped in regardless.

[OMEGA]

32 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

There's a bit of rewriting of history to suit here. I mean Vainikolo wasn't even at the Bulls when they were first drawing big crowds for the first 6 years and Peacock didn't debut as a youngster until 1999.

You're basically just saying that Bradford had good players and a good marketing strategy to attract crowds like that was some stroke of luck for 10+ years.

How come other clubs with deeper pockets, decent players and some levels of success over the last decade haven't been able to achieve anything near this?

And you’re ignoring that they luckily combined Peter Deakin with the relaunch of Rugby League as Superleague and that it was all built on money they didn’t have whilst breaking the salary cap rules. It was all an illusion, one that Bradford couldn’t afford not then, not before then and not now!

Edited September 26 by OMEGA

[Amber Avenger]

I think there is a bit of revisionist history going on here. The club ran into financial difficulty 7 years after last winning a title, and the salary cap issue was 9 years after SL first started, so to imply it was always something built on sand and they cheated their way to every title is a little extreme. The argument everyone had in 2012 is the club should have cut it's cloth accordingly and it would have been fine - it's a big leap to now say ah it was all a decade and a half long illusion. I'm not asking anyone to like anything to do with Bradford, but to imply everything that went well was only down to luck or timing just isn't true. The truth as always is likely somewhere inbetween. 

And this isn't to say, so therefore get us back in SL. I actually think all that potential has been frittered away for good. Odsal is a red herring - although still a huge problem of course - but at this moment in time I'm really not sure the club can afford it, and I'm not sure what the strategy is beyond "build it and they'll come". It's been very unclear for some time what the medium term strategy is beyond "get into SL somehow". No long term thinking, no real vision, a lot of vagueries.

Even on the pitch, we've underwhelmed at pretty much every serious opportunity since relegation from SL. The best two results are two cup wins against SL opposition, both of which went completely un-capitalised on. It's crazy to me that we've never even had a sniff at the 1895 cup (not saying we have a right to a sniff...!) and even in League One we were thoroughly outclassed by York - and have seen many teams in the Championship surpass us and make a go of it in SL (look at tonight's semi final) - and yet I suspect the club will be pretty content to lose to Toulouse in the Championship semi for the third year in a row, if it means we'll get plonked into SL. Two years ago when London went up, I don't think anyone at Bradford thought "if we'd pulled out finger out, that could have been us" - but you can also look at Hull Kr, Leigh, Wakefield who have all shared the Championship with us in the past decade and think "what if we learned some lessons from how those clubs are run"

I suspect crowds will be curious again for year one in Bradford if it does happen, but there's also a total lost generation as well so I struggle to see where the growth is. It's not impossible but IMO though I just do not think we are a serious enough club currently and although I would love to see us back in SL, it's not by any means necessary and - perhaps this is just because of how the past 15 years have gone and I'm too cynical - I can only see disaster on the horizon. 

Edited September 26 by Amber Avenger

[Bulls2487]

5 hours ago, DEANO said:

Same happened in 2018 when it looked like York would win league 1. They moved the goalposts late on to give the dulls a second bite

No they didn't.

2 teams were always due to get promoted in 2018. York won the league Bulls won the playoffs. This was plan for the start of the season where 2 teams went up

Edited September 27 by Bulls2487

[lucky 7]

17 hours ago, Bulls2487 said:

It meets the minimum requirements. 

Well with a ground that's not fit for purpose and a pitch that's less than 100m long the requirements are a joke.

[lucky 7]

17 hours ago, Simon Hall said:

There should be a standard pitch size with a small tolerance. It affects the game massively when one team has a pitch that's almost 25% narrower and 20% shorter than the one a team played on the week before.

 

17 hours ago, dboy said:

The pitch precisely meets the minimum requirements...because the minimum requirements were reduced to match the maximum Bulls could squeeze out the space they have. 

It's not a coincidence.

 

 

16 hours ago, The Daddy said:

When was the minimum requirements reduced? I don't remember hearing anything about it  

You can't argue with facts

https://www.harrodsport.com/advice-and-guides/rugby-league-pitch-dimensions-markings

[DEANO]

3 hours ago, Bulls2487 said:

No they didn't.

2 teams were always due to get promoted in 2018. York won the league Bulls won the playoffs. This was plan for the start of the season where 2 teams went up

No it wasn’t always the plan

[Amber Avenger]

Edit Never mind 

Edited September 27 by Amber Avenger

[Bulls2487]

1 hour ago, DEANO said:

No it wasn’t always the plan

Can you provide evidence that the plan was changed late on to benefit the Bulls?

The structure was announced at the start of the year that 2 would go up one as Champions and one as play off winners.

The Bulls were play off winners so didn't benefit from any change of rules.

[Wolford6]

22 hours ago, dboy said:

When "whataboutery" is your best defence, you know you are screwed.

If the Bulls and their fans simply accepted that Odsal is not fit for SL, with the club making a statement that they were committed to making the necessary improvements, they'd get a much easier ride from the rest of the RL world.

Pretending that Odsal is anything but a shambles just makes you all look idiotic.

It's called BANTER mate. Get a grip.

[TrueBull]

9 hours ago, Amber Avenger said:

I think there is a bit of revisionist history going on here. The club ran into financial difficulty 7 years after last winning a title, and the salary cap issue was 9 years after SL first started, so to imply it was always something built on sand and they cheated their way to every title is a little extreme. The argument everyone had in 2012 is the club should have cut it's cloth accordingly and it would have been fine - it's a big leap to now say ah it was all a decade and a half long illusion. I'm not asking anyone to like anything to do with Bradford, but to imply everything that went well was only down to luck or timing just isn't true. The truth as always is likely somewhere inbetween. 

And this isn't to say, so therefore get us back in SL. I actually think all that potential has been frittered away for good. Odsal is a red herring - although still a huge problem of course - but at this moment in time I'm really not sure the club can afford it, and I'm not sure what the strategy is beyond "build it and they'll come". It's been very unclear for some time what the medium term strategy is beyond "get into SL somehow". No long term thinking, no real vision, a lot of vagueries.

Even on the pitch, we've underwhelmed at pretty much every serious opportunity since relegation from SL. The best two results are two cup wins against SL opposition, both of which went completely un-capitalised on. It's crazy to me that we've never even had a sniff at the 1895 cup (not saying we have a right to a sniff...!) and even in League One we were thoroughly outclassed by York - and have seen many teams in the Championship surpass us and make a go of it in SL (look at tonight's semi final) - and yet I suspect the club will be pretty content to lose to Toulouse in the Championship semi for the third year in a row, if it means we'll get plonked into SL. Two years ago when London went up, I don't think anyone at Bradford thought "if we'd pulled out finger out, that could have been us" - but you can also look at Hull Kr, Leigh, Wakefield who have all shared the Championship with us in the past decade and think "what if we learned some lessons from how those clubs are run"

I suspect crowds will be curious again for year one in Bradford if it does happen, but there's also a total lost generation as well so I struggle to see where the growth is. It's not impossible but IMO though I just do not think we are a serious enough club currently and although I would love to see us back in SL, it's not by any means necessary and - perhaps this is just because of how the past 15 years have gone and I'm too cynical - I can only see disaster on the horizon. 

I think every RL club needs 3 things to thrive. Good coaching, good recruitment, the right board of directors. They’re all connected. If one is off, then a club is going to have a 2-3 year cycle of less success than they are used to. 

Currently, the Directors have overseen financial stability since Covid. We’ve made a new coach appointment. Recruitment we will find out. 2 fairly big variables though. 
 

Disaster is harsh. 12th place will help massively as we seem to have a championship squad of a spend of about £700k on £200k tv money. If we get 12th, then we should be able to spend to the cap limit without our BoD having to support beyond a level they seem to be comfortable with. 

IMG has forced us to up our Social Media game (better late than never) which is the main(only?) way to engage with a new generation. 
 

I think there are some risks, but the potential benefits are significant. Both for Bradford and SL as a whole. 
 

 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

9 hours ago, Amber Avenger said:

I think there is a bit of revisionist history going on here. The club ran into financial difficulty 7 years after last winning a title, and the salary cap issue was 9 years after SL first started, so to imply it was always something built on sand and they cheated their way to every title is a little extreme. The argument everyone had in 2012 is the club should have cut it's cloth accordingly and it would have been fine - it's a big leap to now say ah it was all a decade and a half long illusion. I'm not asking anyone to like anything to do with Bradford, but to imply everything that went well was only down to luck or timing just isn't true. The truth as always is likely somewhere inbetween. 

And this isn't to say, so therefore get us back in SL. I actually think all that potential has been frittered away for good. Odsal is a red herring - although still a huge problem of course - but at this moment in time I'm really not sure the club can afford it, and I'm not sure what the strategy is beyond "build it and they'll come". It's been very unclear for some time what the medium term strategy is beyond "get into SL somehow". No long term thinking, no real vision, a lot of vagueries.

Even on the pitch, we've underwhelmed at pretty much every serious opportunity since relegation from SL. The best two results are two cup wins against SL opposition, both of which went completely un-capitalised on. It's crazy to me that we've never even had a sniff at the 1895 cup (not saying we have a right to a sniff...!) and even in League One we were thoroughly outclassed by York - and have seen many teams in the Championship surpass us and make a go of it in SL (look at tonight's semi final) - and yet I suspect the club will be pretty content to lose to Toulouse in the Championship semi for the third year in a row, if it means we'll get plonked into SL. Two years ago when London went up, I don't think anyone at Bradford thought "if we'd pulled out finger out, that could have been us" - but you can also look at Hull Kr, Leigh, Wakefield who have all shared the Championship with us in the past decade and think "what if we learned some lessons from how those clubs are run"

I suspect crowds will be curious again for year one in Bradford if it does happen, but there's also a total lost generation as well so I struggle to see where the growth is. It's not impossible but IMO though I just do not think we are a serious enough club currently and although I would love to see us back in SL, it's not by any means necessary and - perhaps this is just because of how the past 15 years have gone and I'm too cynical - I can only see disaster on the horizon. 

Fantastic response.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

10 hours ago, OMEGA said:

And you’re ignoring that they luckily combined Peter Deakin with the relaunch of Rugby League as Superleague and that it was all built on money they didn’t have whilst breaking the salary cap rules. It was all an illusion, one that Bradford couldn’t afford not then, not before then and not now!

When did Bradford run into money troubles?

When did they break the cap?

You're revising the timeline.

[Amber Avenger]

11 minutes ago, TrueBull said:

I think every RL club needs 3 things to thrive. Good coaching, good recruitment, the right board of directors. They’re all connected. If one is off, then a club is going to have a 2-3 year cycle of less success than they are used to. 

Currently, the Directors have overseen financial stability since Covid. We’ve made a new coach appointment. Recruitment we will find out. 2 fairly big variables though. 
 

Disaster is harsh. 12th place will help massively as we seem to have a championship squad of a spend of about £700k on £200k tv money. If we get 12th, then we should be able to spend to the cap limit without our BoD having to support beyond a level they seem to be comfortable with. 

IMG has forced us to up our Social Media game (better late than never) which is the main(only?) way to engage with a new generation. 
 

I think there are some risks, but the potential benefits are significant. Both for Bradford and SL as a whole. 
 

 

I'm certainly not knocking the directors for bringing some stability (although I can't say I've ever been completely satisfied with Nigel Wood's involvement or specifically his motivations, but that's probably for a different topic). I also completely admire that optimism and hope you are right - I don't disagree the potential is there, but I also don't think the right people are in place to capitalise on it, either at the club or in the sport at large. 

My thoughts are is the current BoD have "found their level" in terms of vision and financial backing - and that's completely fine IMO - but the unspoken catch 22 is that the club will never in a million years admit that and for some (but not all) the club has been in a state of arrested development for a decade and a half as it's been too afraid to admit just how far off the pace they are from SL 

Disaster for me isn't necessarily finishing bottom of a 14 team SL in the short term - it's a medium term here we go again admin situation. I'm not saying it's nailed on by any means, but if we do get promoted at the end of the year, I'd want to know that internally there was some understanding of what lessons the club has learned 2010-now. We got into big trouble in that period by pushing the club beyond what it was capable of at that period in time. We stand at the start of a (potential) new era where the same could be said about being plonked into SL. I remain unconvinced many lessons have been learned but hope to be pleasantly surprised 

[DEANO]

4 hours ago, Bulls2487 said:

Can you provide evidence that the plan was changed late on to benefit the Bulls?

The structure was announced at the start of the year that 2 would go up one as Champions and one as play off winners.

The Bulls were play off winners so didn't benefit from any change of rules.

I can’t find the link but there was only 1 up that season. The rfl changed it to 2 with about 6 games to go

[Gav Wilson]

22 minutes ago, DEANO said:

I can’t find the link but there was only 1 up that season. The rfl changed it to 2 with about 6 games to go

That's incorrect. 

The format for the league was confirmed later than normal due to Oxford and the All Golds dropping out, but it was always 2 up 2 down.

 

[paulwalker71]

26 minutes ago, DEANO said:

I can’t find the link but there was only 1 up that season. The rfl changed it to 2 with about 6 games to go

You are talking nonsense. It was always two up - one automatic, one via play-offs

Find a link to back up your statement, and I'll gladly apologise. Otherwise, I'm calling b.s 

[Gav Wilson]

Deano, I think this is what you are remembering:

"Following a special general meeting of the Rugby Football League on 14 September 2018, the promotion criteria were changed to allow the expansion of the 2019 Championship from 12 clubs to 14 clubs. Two teams would be promoted as previously agreed however the loser of the Promotion Final would have a further chance at promotion in a single-leg play-off against the team finishing bottom of the Championship with the winner playing in the Championship for 2019.^[6]"

(From Wiki)

[Bulls2487]

29 minutes ago, DEANO said:

I can’t find the link but there was only 1 up that season. The rfl changed it to 2 with about 6 games to go

As said by Gav above they didn't change the rules it was always 2 up in 2018 you are mistaken.

Edited September 27 by Bulls2487

[Gav Wilson]

"Bradford were also promoted after beating Workington Town 27–8 in the promotion final on 7 October 2018. Defeat for Workington gave them a further shot at promotion in a promotion play-off final on 14 October against Swinton Lions, who finished last in the Championship Shield. Swinton had home advantage in the play-off final following a coin toss between the two clubs and retained their Championship status with a 33–20 victory consigning Workington to another season in League 1."

It was Workington that got the second shot.