BradfordsBulls Blog http://www.bradfordsbulls.co.uk/ BradfordsBulls Blog en-us Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:07:55 +0100 <![CDATA[Hail the Marketing Men!]]>

Let me be the first to congratulate the Bulls Marketing Department on their ‘mates rates‘ and shirt discount promotion.

Any relationship between and organisation and their ‘client‘ (us in this case) is a very complex game. Recently our beloved club has been experiencing a down turn in form and the fair weather boys have taken flight dropping the attendances badly.
In these times, when the team is not pulling in the revenue, the marketing department is the engine driving the revenue streams through building engagement with the fans and thus building brand loyalty. This is why I applaud the efforts of the marketing team in giving the fans another reason to attend the game this weekend.
Few people realise that the only department in an organisation that actually thinks with the customer interest at heart is marketing. All other areas are concerned with protecting the company and anything done is with the organisations well being front and centre. Marketing is the polar opposite.
Already I am concerned to hear that people are upset as they already have the shirt and feel they have been ripped off. The harsh reality is you haven‘t. Your choice was to buy the shirt and so you really can have no complaints. The main thing here is to be objective and look at the club and realise it is actually taking an interest in us as fans. What do we want, when and how?
By building this engagement our loyalty to the club grows and our future becomes more certain. Look at the Mancs over the hill. They built a brand which has taken it to the top of the soccer world. They even have Manc U mortgages for goodness sake. And you know what? People trust the brand so implicitly people have taken it regardless of whether it was the best deal. The brand is trusted and they would not get involved in anything shonky!
And so back to Odsal. As a fan base we are down, we are frustrated we want the good times back and so we are cynical about anything the club does to bring people back. But that is our goal too. We want the big crowds in, the carnival atmosphere and everything that goes with it. So let‘s get off the back of the marketing guys who are showing signs that they are going into gear to do this!
Instead of trying to get our money back, let‘s put a different spin on it. Well done guys, will you be doing the same for the home shirt? Will there be another mates rates? Even suggest ideas!
And to the club. We‘ve have had many, what I consider, gaffs in the recent past. Without raking too many areas of pain over, Friday night footy and charging your customers to use their credit card to buy an early bird season ticket just THREE weeks before Christmas when cash is a scarce commodity were really designed to pee your base off. Hopefully these are a thing of the past!
My suggestion as a starter is that the Bulls encourage people to sign up to SMS news. Register here and we‘ll send you the team news before anyone else gets it. Ever register for SMS alerts on-line and get £5 off your next purchase. For us reading that are already saying that‘s not great, maybe, but it‘s a step. By registering for services provided by the club they can see what work, what ticks the boxes for the fan base and so can tailor the future to our needs.
We are always wanting more from the club so why not give a little in return? It‘s all about bringing the fans closer to the club and if the club communicate with the fan base and give them the inside track and offers they actually want then we have a greater chance of keeping people at Odsal and turning them into advocates who‘ll sell the experience rather risk them walking away...here‘s my starter for 10 to get people visiting the official site. Use mobile numbers collated from the Man of the Match vote and send a teaser.
Bulls: Deacon back to fitness. For further info log onto www.bradfordbulls.co.uk to unsubscribe text STOP to *****
Now, we have a very knowledgeable and reasoned membership base on here and it‘s a great place to get our voices heard. So, onto the forums, over to you. What can the Marketing department do to build the relationship with the Bradford public? And remember it needs to be viable and not bankrupt the club! Let‘s work together to ride out the storm!
]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:48:00 +0100 <![CDATA[What gives you the right????]]> Another week, another attrocious performance registered and more misery all round.
No, I am not talking about the team I am talking about the people who claim to support this club of ours. Every week on the TA site you get the doom mongers rubbing their hands with glee waiting for the next round of sack Mac, we‘re going to get thrown out of SL, they RFL are going to force us into all sorts.
Yes I know I have vented my spleen on the message boards. I am frustrated and my passion for the team and the club will have me going off on one every so often. For example, to me the reasoning for the failure is clear, Macca is too nice and we need a decent assistant coach. Look around at the other teams and you‘ll see what I mean. Tony Smith always seemed a nice sort of bloke but the team performed, who was his no 2? Brian Mac. Now if he said go run headlong at the posts, you‘d probably do it. Who is our assistant?
Then again that‘s my opinion and I have the right to it. Why? Because year in and year out I pay my money and I take my seat, hail, rain, sleet or snow. This is where I fear the decline of the club is coming from.
Personally, I know people who have stopped going to Odsal because, despite all protestations, they are glory supporters. This will upset many people reading this as they too will have lapsed but it‘s true. Aren‘t we all getting fed up of the bile and vitriol spouted by people who don‘t actually support the club. And by support I mean this literally. Pay to get in, your money goes towards the running of the club.
‘I don‘t go any more, no big name signings‘, ‘waste of my money‘ yadda yadda yadda. To those in this category I suggest you are not a supporter of the club. Yes you may want to see Bradford win but you certainly aren‘t supporting the club in any way, shape or form. There seems a very clear difference.
To me now we need to admit we are no longer one of the ‘Big 4‘ and there are two sets of people that need to understand this.
Firstly the ‘I‘m not paying to watch that rubbish‘ battalion.
It‘s simple really. Scientists will tell you there is an equation that explains everything in the universe. You name it there is an equation. I reckon success in RL can be simplified to the following:
Money = Success. No doubt about it. Where do we get money from? People attending.
Therefore
low attendances = dwindling coffers = no star signings = worse team performances = more fairweather boys staying at home = less to spend on the cap = Barrow Border Raiders and co each week...
Simply put, if we claim to be fans of the Bulls then we should get our backsides to every home game possible and ensure we keep the tills and the players ears ringing.
The second group is the clubs board. Like the upper eschelons of society they haven‘t seemed to realise that the empire has gone. They need to wake up fast and realise the complacency built on the back of Peter Deakins reign can no longer pull us through. Stiff upper lip stuff will not get us out of this.
I‘ll help....WE ARE NO LONGER IN THE BIG 4
Once we admit this to ourselves it becomes clear we need to re-define our role within the SL. We don‘t have the big money backing like Wire or Pies. We don‘t have the cash flows at the minute and crowds are dropping.
This needs to be turned around. Even if we can‘t turn the team around the club needs to look at restoring the feel good factor or having a new ‘something‘ to bring people back through the gates, get them to feel they belong. At the minute I am reverting to the feelings in my first blog. It‘s looking poor, battles with Wakey and Cas are ahead as the Scum United Song boys and St‘s blast us away every game. Think I am lying? If we lose to Stains we are out of the six. Can you see us getting back in any time soon?
Even so, we are Bradford, we are loyal and we suport our team in every sense. Well some of us do and we can have a crow and know we have the right!
The rest of us need to look at ourselves and ask why only 8k turned out on a lovely summers day to watch the club they claim to love and support through thick and thin.
]]> Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:38:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Millenium Farce]]>

I‘ve just been over to the shops on my usual dinnertime jaunt and for a change decided to have a sneak peak at the RL press without having to relieve my wallet of the funds. I am from Yorkshire after all...
Anyway the main crux seemed to be magic. Magic this, Magic that, magic the other...yawn. Straight into my gripe this week. Why the hell are we still trying to sell this concept? It‘s embarrassing to see that great swathe of empty seats in the stadium and let‘s be fair the cameras are always set up to point in the vacant directions.
We are told it‘s a success, it‘s now a traditional part of the season (oh really? I‘d say twice is not traditional, otherwise we‘d say it‘s traditional to play RL in the summer. It isn‘t) and everyone enjoys the day out. For me I can‘t see this.
What is traditional to me is the Challenge Cup final weekend trip. Full stadium, fans of Rugby League in general, carnival atmosphere and a good weekend away to boot. What makes this special is you invariably add an adopted team to your colours for the day meaning for that one day you have a vastly different fan base around you. Last year I daresay we all went Gallic for the day, in 2005 we all pronounced the number 9 as ‘Narn‘ for the day and stunk of fish. To a degree you even get this at the Grand Final (witness my support of Leeds last year as I cannot abide Sintellins) but never, ever, is it as good as the Challenge Cup final. Does this happen in Wales? No.
So I need to ask, what is this Cardiff cock-up all about? We can‘t bond as RL fans because we are there to be partisan and support our teams, we don‘t watch the other games as frankly the seats are not meant for all day occupation and it can get a tad boring and anyway we all sit together like we would if the game would have been at home.
Proponents will tell me it‘s to promote the game in Wales. I say let the Celtic Crusaders do that. What impact will a couple of coach loads of Northerners do? Really. Think about it, every year it seems the NFL ship girls rugby over to England in the vain hope that more people other than weirdoes and Yankophiles will get into the sport and join in. Every time it fails, we have League and Union and even Union is more physically challenging than running for 2 mins in a suit of armour before having an hours rest.
However, we have one thing over the NFL‘s attempts in that our game is physically and mentally one of the toughest in the world. It sells itself so why not let it do just that. I can‘t help thinking that we just don‘t get masses of Welshmen and women through the turnstile on Millennium weekend. You can‘t blame them. Would I watch 14 Union teams if they trolled up to Bradford for an ‘Odsal Odyssey‘? Would I heck. This is where we are going wrong in my eyes.
To get me interested in Union we‘d need a Bradford Bulls RU team that was dishing out a decent hammering to the Rah-Rah‘s on a regular basis and actually breaking through the image of the sport as a southerners game.
If the Millennium shenanigan is all about growing the game in Wales then I think we need to change tack. For some reason the working class Welsh sided with the Union public school boys in the great split and did not follow their working class colleagues into the brave new world of the Northern Union. They have remained steadfastly loyal ever since.
To grow the game we need to support the Celtic Crusaders in their endeavours and help then nurture their growing fan base. Nothing is more attractive than a winning team and encouraging the brave Welshmen who crossed the divide to come north and are trying to take the game to the Welsh public is the way to go.
Rugby League is all about belonging; to your club, to your county, to your country and ultimately to the game. What belonging can the Welsh Public feel at the Millenium ‘Magic‘ weekend? Pushing a round of Super League into Cardiff each year is not doing anyone any good especially in these times where the doom mongers in the press are desperately trying to get us all to vote Tory by yelling recession ad infinitum.
I say stop the Millennium Farce NOW! Give me back a game I can attend and develop the game properly.
I await your abuse!
]]> Mon, 12 May 2008 10:35:00 +0100 <![CDATA[That‘s Entertainment]]>

Seems a very apt title this week after a fantastic victory over Wiggin where the team royally entertained us with some fantastic attack some dogged defence and a knowing smile to Wiggin when they lost the plot and started with the coconut shy antics. Fight? With Leeds next week...tell you what here‘s another try. How do you like that eh? Back on the bus boys the Pies are about done.
But no, the reason for the title is to look at something I‘ve wanted to examine more closely all year. The match day entertainment. I was going to do a piece after every home game looking for peoples‘ rating of the entertainment but after pestering the marketing department at Odsal for pictures to jog peoples memory every week I think it was getting a bit trying (for them rather than me!).
Thinking about it, booking the entertainment must be THE worst job at the Grattan Stadium. You will never please everyone and we‘ll only end up criticising regardless of the quality of the product. Take me for example. I simply hate the St Patrick day thing we do every year. There are two veerrrry simple reasons for this
  • I am not Irish
  • I don‘t live in Ireland
ergo...what relevance does this have to me? I know the old ladies love the little girls in their quirky outfits and dubious syrups doing a passable impression of someone who is, after suffering the ultimate park related embarrassment, furiously trying to kick an obstinate dog turd from the soles of their shoes, but seriously everyone, you put a Morris Dancing team in there and we‘d all laugh. Wouldn‘t we? Be honest you really would!

Is this really less ridiculous then Morris Dancing???

With this in mind then why no St George‘s day this weekend? Think of the possibilities, Morris Dancing, Dragon slaying re-enactments, parade of classic English Cars and bikes, veterans parade, two for one on Tetley‘s the list could go on. What did we have instead? Elvis.
Elvis? Now I‘ll be the first to admit that I uttered more than a couple of profanities when I saw the ‘Las Vegas‘ theme advertised. I fact I went so far as to question the motives of the club, cutting corners again, just putting things on for the sake, no thought etc etc. We have at least one Elvis impersonator every year! I was fuming!
Then, as the misguided, jumpsuit, clad madman in the middle got into his stride I realised to my open mouthed amazement that half of the crowd were sat silently mouthing the words to the songs. The other half were split into two camps.
1) The ‘This is old hat, we want something new‘ brigade and
2) The steadfast ‘We didn‘t need this frivolity in the Northern days and we were happy then drinking our tea from a rolled up newspaper whilst the temperature plummeted to -90 and all we had against the cold was a shirt and a flat cap and we didn‘t complain - you jessies don‘t know your born!‘ battalion.
Leaving aside the 50‘s Northern boys it then became obvious why we go back to the tried and tested. At the beginning of the season we had Dance X

One for the ‘Younger Generation‘
Now, in Dance X we had something current, high profile and still fresh in most peoples minds as we are, as a nation, suckers for reality TV. We‘re we happy? To quote General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett ..... ‘Oh Good Lord no!‘.
Even the community on this site were merciless in their pillorying and mirth ridden jibes aimed squarely at the poor folk on the pitch in front of us. Look at the picture above, this nicely turned out, not unattractive contemporary performer drew howls of derision and unbridled laughter.
Now contrast with the picture below and tell me why on God‘s green earth this rag tag, scruffy bunch produced knowing nods of appreciation and applause from the crowd?
You are all mad!!!!!!!
Die di die die diddly die!!!
So, and here is the point of my blog this week, if you have read this weeks blog and it‘s struck a chord (sic) I‘d like to invite you to put your thoughts in the Entertainment thread in ‘General‘ on the forum.
What would be truly interesting to find out is what people actually thing about the matchday package, the acts we bring in, what you don‘t want to see, what you‘d truly love to see (and keep it clean remember we have remembered we are a family club) and if you could take charge of the package for one day, what would you do?
Over to you!

]]> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:23:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Team Of the Year]]>

We are lead to believe, with no reason to think otherwise, that Bradford are now back in the black with the finances looking healthy again. This of course is excellent news and we all look forward to bolstering the team and making some major signings in the next few years to put us back up at the top where we belong. It‘s as simple as that! Or is it...

The fact that we have technically infringed the salary cap in the last few years tells you something quite significant. Whilst we have struggled on with a weakened squad we have filled the salary cap. Quite a stunning fact when you think about it.
Firstly and most importantly I believe the salary cap is an excellent tool in allowing clubs to compete on an even playing field. Every year you‘ll hear the Waldorf and Stadler of Sky Sports bleating on about ‘The closest year yet‘ or ‘The competition just gets stronger, we say it every year and it‘s true‘. Yes guys we get the picture (and yes you love the ‘Entertainers of Super League‘ too you needn‘t repeat that ad infinitum every season. It‘s dull, get over it.)
Secondly it stops the cash rich Wiggin‘s of the world signing up all the top players and then falsely ruling the game for generations.
It does for me, however, shift the focus of fans eyes to other teams involved in RL. ‘What are you carping on about? Keighley? Barrow?‘ I hear you ask. No. I am talking about back office accounting and contract negotiations teams.
At the minute in the league Leeds, it pains me to say, rule the roost and appear at times to be unstoppable. To pay them a compliment for once, their success appears to be based on their academy bringing on a squad that has played and matured together for several seasons so that the understanding between them is almost automatic. It also has the major benefit of being cheap. Most of the starlets were signed on junior contracts early and so have being playing well above their value for a season or two now.
Their situation mirrors, almost exactly, where our beloved Bulls were at the beginning of this century. Pryce, Peacock, Fielden, Reardon and to some extent Deacon had come through the ranks, were cheap and playing very well. Then came the contract ends and we simply could not afford to pay them their worth and keep the team together.
Many people will cite Noble or Caisley as a factor in driving players away but the simple reasons appear to be that Reardon was offered more than double to play at Warrington, Peacock was offered more, Fielden went for 90k erm sorry for the challenge and Pryce went for cash.
Numerous Sts fans will tell me over and over ‘It wasn‘t the money for Pryce he wanted to play 6‘. Really? We‘ll my more reliable sources say he was offered more and Bradford deliberated on the damage to the Salary Cap that would ensue and by the time they‘d matched the offer, he‘d signed and the deed was done. I stand to be corrected if anyone out there knows the exact truth but it does lead you to look closely at this salary cap idea.
Leeds‘ dominance and strong squad we have looked at and the encouraging thing to note is that if they are to stay within the cap some players are going to have to go. They can‘t continue with the same squad and add players like Buderas without the loss of Ellis and I suspect others. Look at 1-17 with Leeds and you can see the longer they stay together the higher the wage bill becomes and having two excellent hookers like Buderas and Diskin is going to be costly. Peacock has signed for another term. Lauititi will not be coming cheap nor will Donald, Toopi, Webb, Senior and Sinfield. With Ellis and Senior already heading to the door and the quick fix Aussie raid you can see a season or two‘s uncertainty ahead.
Every other team in the league appears much of a muchness with quality in most of the starting berths and some solid players on the interchange bench. In this respect the salary cap is spot on (we even resorted to playing McAvoy in the starting 13 for goodness sake!) and we have to say the Sky mantra is correct and games and comps are getting closer.
There is one interesting exception to this. A team that gets a minor slap on the wrist for a minor infringement of the cap but yet boasts no less that 17 internationals in their ranks. All this on an average crowd no more than ours. A team that is rightly called the entertainers I suppose and is a star studded unit that, although you‘d hate to admit it, have that much skill packed in it‘s almost a pleasure to watch them. Step forward St Helen‘s.
I have a friend who is a St‘s fan, and in true glory hunter tradition comes from.....Wakefield! She will happily tell me that players will take a pay cut to go play for St‘s because it‘s a privilege and they are guaranteed to win something. What is truly scary is she actually believes this!!! She believes that grown men, in a short career which carries the very real danger of being cut shorter (Karl Pratt for example) will take less than they are worth just to play for Saints. Seems like Wakefield is a large village...
You can see why she makes these protestations; Wellens, Gardner, Gidley, Meli, Tallau, Pryce, Long before we get to Cayless, Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Gilmour etc. I‘d be twitchy about the cap with that lot in harness!
So looking at our squad in comparison to St Helen‘s, we are weaker but we are spending the same amount of money on it? Similar sized crowds and I‘d suspect similar turn over in the merchandise department? On second thoughts, maybe she is right, maybe people will take a cut to play for Sts. Or maybe, just maybe, their management have got something right.
Putting aside accusations of teams making overseas payments or signing players to play Union when they will never even train with the 15 man squad (we have to accept St Helen‘s are abiding by the rules otherwise the RFL would have come down on them) my eyes are firmly open now.
When we sit now, with our finances in order, to look at our next signings we make, I urge the Bradford Board to sign the greatest team in Super League, one that achieves the unthinkable and has taken more international scalps than any other team...
The St Helen‘s finance and contract negotiation team.
]]> Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:19:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Bring on Russ Abbott!!!]]> Following on from my last blog I have to admit that I sensed a lifting in the atmosphere around Odsal last Sunday even before hapless Cas were put to the sword.

Spring was definitely around and there seemed to be a lifting of the spirits or at least the green shoots of recovery as the club did put on a bit of a show both on and off the pitch. I was even astounded to see Mr Harry Gration erstwhile rhinophile of the Yorkshire Television parish urging the great Bradford public to get down and support their local successful team.

Once again the good people of Bradford responded magnificently in the only way they know how. Total apathy! As mentioned previously we appear to be in a downward spiral where the club appear to be unwilling to break the shackles and cut loose on the entertainment front and you can see all too clearly why. Ten thousand out of a population of 492k on a comfortable spring afternoon. Appalling.

Is this then the sole fault of the club? Is it the fans? Or is it something, to turn all Monty Python for a moment, completely different.

Last weekend was the anniversary of the very first Super League game to be played. The self same weekend just 12 years later and we are already a third of the way through the regular season. Can you see where I am going with this? Summer Rugby...where has it gone?

As we appear, as a club, to have remembered our aim was to be a family club we now find ourselves with another layer of complexity. Families don‘t bring toddlers/younger children out in conditions which have been, to be fair, approaching arctic!

Whether this also affects season ticket sales when we see the first round creeping earlier week by week each year I can only speculate on but you can be certain when the temperature drops that fairweather supporters rather keep their brass monkey‘s inside rather than risk the alarming complaint they are prone to! Carry on as we are and we‘ll all be having Christmas Dinner in the Touchdown, watching the Queen‘s speech before turning our attention to the pitch rather than James Bond.

I know people will be pointing to the Leeds crowds and asking if they can do it why can‘t we? Answer, they have a whole different demographic. Leeds‘ mostly male following are used to standing in the cold as United have never played Association Football in the summer . I know it‘s controversial but you have to say that the coincidental rise of the Rhino‘s during the demise of United has swelled the crowd and these new fans are used to winter games.

Cue howls of derision from the Rhino fans but true loiners will acknowledge that their crowd was as low as 3.5k during the Dean Lance days and will also question why they play a football anthem each time their team takes to the field. Working in Leeds it always amuses me that there are ten thousand fans who‘ll tell you they were loyal during the reign of Lance despite the stats clearly showing the opposite...

That‘s enough bashing the Rhino‘s for the minute but the point is valid. There is a large amount of floating fans at all clubs. These fans need all the ingredients to be there to attend games although they will claim to be loyal supporters. One missing component and they may still attend, get two or more and they don‘t go. Leeds are winning so the crowds remain despite the cold, Bradford are mis-firing, in addition to the cold, this is enough to keep people away.

So here we are, the fans who attend the games in all weathers and temperatures, we have that warm feeling inside knowing we support our club don‘t we? Well actually we could do more.

It‘s us that make the atmosphere in the ground (hence Russ Abbott?!!?!?!) and I am sure we all remember the early SL years when the singing was constant, the chants were funny but clean and we all wanted to be at the ground to be part of it. Going back to the floating supporters atmosphere could also bring them back. Unfortunately, we just don‘t seem to be able to get any going anymore. It seems to be an unwritten rule that you should not repeat the ‘Come on You Bulls‘ chant more than three times. Lord help you if you do! Everyone else stops, you are on your own and you get laughed at. You learn you lesson and next time you don‘t join in!

Those of us with tickets in the stand are hamstrung at this point but those with ground tickets I call upon you to join together for the Toulouse game (after a few nerve settlers of course) under Steve Macs box. Introduce yourself to the BradfordsBulls.co.uk massive and sing. ‘We love you Bradford‘, ‘Come on you Bulls‘, ‘Are you Keighley in disguise?‘, ‘Who‘s your father referee? anything clean but sing!

Let‘s get the atmosphere back and with it the floating supporters and let the team know we are about and getting behind them.

]]> Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:30:00 +0100 <![CDATA[Up late again]]> So i‘m still up and its 5.27am. I‘ve been working on puting a blog on the site for the last 3 days and i think i have found one i like.

I hope you all enjoy it and leave some feedback.
I doubt that i have found 100% of the bugs, so please leave me a message if you come accross any,

signing off
Phil

]]> Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:27:00 +0100 <![CDATA[At the crossroads?]]> Back in the nineties the people running our great game got into bed with Sky and, to dust off a useful old phrase, the rest is history.

One team quickly emerged from this new dawn and established itself at the forefront of the new movement with some innovative marketing and some effective forward thinking. And so the staid old Northern became the vibrant new Bulls and it seemed all wanted to join the party. Keighley fans will no doubt be shouting that they came up with Cougar‘s first in the nickname stakes and Huddersfield before that were the Barracudas but without doubt the energy and enthusiasm the embryonic Bulls threw into the venture picked up most of the city and all wanted to ride the roller coaster.

Possibly one of the greatest innovations at the time was the buzz the club generated in the schools. I was working in Bradford Education at the time and Monday‘s during the summer were a joy as all the kids came to school talking about Rugby League and their heroes at the Bulls. Coaches went into schools, teachers were put through coaching courses to bring the game to a wider audience and the stars themselves applied the icing on the cake with visits to the school sending the kids delirious.

Crowds rose sharply as a result of two things, a winning team and the fact that the entertainment before and during the game was outstanding. It was honestly possible to take children to the game two hours before kick off and have them entertained right until the final hooter. Who can forget the little lads in their kit, faces screwed up in an attempt to look intimidating like their favourite players, the little girls with red, amber and black ribbons in their hair and ‘Robbie‘ on their shirt? If you have these memories I can bet your memories involve warmth and sunshine!

Even the new stadium seemed possible and with Tesco‘s at the helm it seemed Bradford would hold sway over the league for a generation.

Contrast this to the last couple of seasons. Gone are most of the bouncy castles and games, no longer have we the myriad of choice for the food outlets, no more have we semi-household names like Carol Decker or the great, if slightly over the top, Bullman‘s parade.

Odsal is beginning to feel old and cold again and the buzz is a long distant but still warm memory. So what‘s gone wrong?

Back in ‘97 after being awarded the Super League trophy during the party after the Paris home game Matthew Elliott spoke of a dynasty being built over the next 5 years. In hindsight you can say he was just about right. In 2003 the Bulls took all three titles in the same season. The first time this feat had been achieved and it seemed to many that the Bulls could do no wrong.

Just below the hysteria, however, cracks were beginning to show. Stars such as James Lowes were retiring, others moving on and the club remained tight lipped on replacements along with other aspects of the clubs general running. Over the next few years the openness the club had displayed in those first ‘salad days‘ seemed to evaporate and slowly but surely the entertainment package was dismantled along with the team.

Bradford have often been accused of having no plan B and this appeared to have infected the club management too. As the buzz died down they seemed incapable of communicating with the fans and at no time was this more spectacularly evident than during the Friday night Rugby debacle. We were told the fans wanted it. The only fly in this ointment seemed to be the fans talking with each other could not find the one of us who wanted this. Friday removed the entertainment, made it difficult for families to attend and really challenged the logistical skills of those of us who do not live/work in Bradford.

‘It‘s worked for Leeds and Saints‘ was the reply and in that statement there was the glaringly obvious mindset change... Watch any game with Leeds or St‘s at home on a Friday evening and at least three times during the game Sky will have to turn the crowd mikes off because a section of the crowd is chanting foul and abusive language. The family club had abandoned their image in an attempt to make a cheap and quick buck.

We took control of the stadium in a disastrous piece of business which was only topped by the very expensive Iestyn Harris mistake. It‘s hard now to shake the notion that this was only done to poke the Rhino‘s in the eye. Another costly error. As was trusting the City Council.

Most cities have a stereotype for their inhabitants, kick a scouser and they all jump, all Leeds inhabitants believe their city is paved with gold regardless of Harehills and the many other deprived areas and Bradfordians tend toward self destructive cynicism and negativity. So when subsequent plans for a new home were released it was no surprise when the city exclaimed ‘it will never happen‘. No-one supported the effort, most people actually mocked the plans so you can understand the total apathy displayed by all concerned.

So, where are we now? The club stands at a biggest cross roads since the sixties and needs to make big decisions. In one direction lies mediocrity and fighting for league positions with the likes of Wakefield and Castleford, in the other a gargantuan challenge. Getting this club back where it belongs and at the top again.

One thing is certain in all this, the supporters need to rally around the club and support it. The Sporting Village looks to have died and the short-sighted council seem intent that the Bulls share Valley Parade. Whilst some welcome this, the majority of the supporters do not. The club cannot afford to lose more of it‘s fanbase. What is clear is investment is needed as is clear and forward thinking. And it‘s needed right now.

With the return to Sunday the crowds have never really recovered helped by the fact that the entertainment at times can be rather lacklustre and the team is currently less than inspiring. The stadium is at the end of it‘s life and like it or not we‘ll soon have to say goodbye to our beloved home once and for all.

Other clubs are currently planning for this and we too need to find partners who can help us achieve the holy grail of a new stadium away from Odsal. There is so much land on the M606 corridor why waste it and the transport links? It‘s time to put the grand schemes to bed once and for all. We need a simple, effective 20,000 seater stadium and a winning team to fill it. Just how we get the backing is the greatest challenge the club and it‘s fans face. Without it, it‘s hard to see a bright future for our Bulls.

]]> Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:35:00 +0100