To be honest its all very disheartening to see rumours coming to fruition that our front line players are leaving and not returning! Which makes me even more nervy seeing rumours of clough and ferguson considering we are stockpiling props and back rowers. To me this will be the last season we will see the club full time before eventually falling into championship no mans land. As it stands we havent a cat in hells chance of getting to the MPG let alone win the thing. It seems a lot is till to happen before the season kicks off and im genuinely concerned it wont all be good news and thats why if he has signed they may keep Sammut under wraps until all the bad news is out of the way to say here we have been trying

What are the Clough rumours? Must have missed those

The Clough rumours are just one here. Hopefully they’ll not amount to anything given that he and Sidlow are our best props with significant daylight between them and the likes of Crossley and Lauaki.



He’s of SL quality though so is likely to attract attention, same goes for Ferguson (if he can stay fit).



The loss of either would see us significantly weakened.

Clough is currently suffering from a virus that will see him miss the start of the season. I'd just like to wish him all the best on a swift recovery.



I spoke with Steve Ferres about the financial situation and any difficulties are all tied to season ticket sales. Steve and the club genuinely expect to sell between 4,000 and 5,000 at the premium price. If the club doesn't hit that figure, this will generate a shortfall in funding and will mean Rob Parker and Robbie Paul have the job of securing sponsorship to covering the funding gap.

Yeah, I agree Bullseye.



It is the season of 'not a lot going on', of course and isn't there some old truism about, "the devil finding jobs for idle minds" or something along those lines? There are sooo many rumours, both incoming and outgoing, so I guess it's qué sera sera..

Actually, whilst fully accepting that funding through memberships is better all round for the club, not least as the directors will know from the start just where they stand, what is just as important though, is simply bums on seats and feet on terraces, sales in the shop and the whole panoply of 'supporter involvement'. In short, we need at least the number we had last season and preferably a few more. Having them all signed up as members isn't the be all and end all, after all there are many who just can't commit that sort of money up front.

Then massive good luck to Robbie and Rob, as I cannot see how we will sell 4,000 season tickets at those prices.

I have mine, but you are only going to get the ultra loyal crowd buying them now, as funds are still tight for most people and some folk just can't justify paying that amount out for second tier rugby. Loyalty unfortunately can only get you so far. The more fickle fans will certainly not pay it, as they'll compare to other clubs prices and refuse.



You have this catch-22 situation unfortunately. They can't fund a better team without more fans, but more fans won't turn up unless the team is better.

I was going to say, if you can get that number of season tickets, you will romp away with the league. There is a thread on the virtual terrace for average home attendances last season. Yours was 5222 I think. Leigh had 37??. Appreciate away support from some teams is low. But season tickets at that level would be impressive. Hope you get there, but think it's optimistic.

It's not so much Bradford being a better team, it's more playing other teams that are better and thus creating an actual contest that people are willing to pay to see. I know several people who've stopped going because they don't want to splash out all that cash to see a one sided contest most weeks.

Marc Green said on Sunday that we sold around 3.5 k last year [first time I'd heard the 'official' figure to be honest and that currently we're slightly ahead of where we were this time last season. For a guess I think equalling last season's total [members and walk-upswould be more or less what I'd expect. Even if our proselytising makes some impact.

I'd regard same as last year as a massive success.

That's very true Roofy.



for sure, it's miles better seeing your side on top in these one sided games but the experience doesn't improve with repetition and you can only trade on that for a limited time. I'm sure that some will have already have had enough. I can't see it going on beyond this season as support will fall away much more quickly if we don't go up this time.

Fair point and you're not alone in the respect of people doing a double take to pay £25 to watch Bradford v Swinton/Oldham/Workington or not.

If the Bulls don't reach their season ticket target then the bloke responsible for recruitment needs to raise his hand. The Bulls had a good dig last year and I'm sure that not many will use the result as a reason not to return next year. All that was required was to keep the majority of the squad together, cut the slack from the oversized squad and use that cap space to add 2 or 3 Super League quality replacements, who would genuinely improve the squad and excite the fans. Instead they replace the slack with more slack of arguably no better quality in positions that don't necessarily need improving. I'm absolutely baffled by their recruitment of late and I'm sure that it will have an impact on ticket sales. How many props do we need? Have they set a ceiling for how much they are willing to pay a player? Why do they seem so keen on having a massive squad, half of which won't play a game? Wouldn't it make sense to use the wages of 3 un-needed players to sign 1 classy scrum half? I think I'm missing something?

Perhaps we should offer a cut price season ticket? Obvs less than £90 that Peter charged when we were in SL. We're in the championship now so half the price would seem logical.



£45 season ticket.



I can't see any drawbacks to this plan. Peter, can you mention this to Marc? Assuming you're able to get into Odsal without needing a disguise nowadays.

Surely, Peter is a member of the Northern ex-chairmen's association and has a free ticket?

If you're missing it, I think the rest of us are too. I get the need for a mongrel or two, but other than that, the recruitment so far has seemed odd considering the apparent positions we were weak in last year, and who has left the club.



But I suppose the proof will be in the pudding. If they get promoted, there was obviously a good reason behind it. If they don't, I think a lot of fingers will be pointed at that very thing.



You do half expect though to see a headline saying Lee Gaskell has left the club, but don't worry, we've signed Matt James to replace him!

There simply isn't the core support for such a pledge system to work in the current climate.



I believe that a reboot/rebrand of the club would be a far more sensible idea.

Ok, sensible question here.



As you (rightly) state, there is not the core support etc. Therefore, how can you foresee a reboot/rebrand of the club making any difference to this?

Perhaps some really clever play on words to jump on the back of a popular film franchise you mean?



It could link to the name of the coach or a player.



That’d get ‘em flocking in.



BTW did you get permission from the Harry Potter studio to use their typeface?

Perhaps Mission Impossible is more appropriate?

Jeez, I just had an awful flashback....



Maybe we could make up the shortfall by passing around collection buckets at games?

Well, the chairman suggested 4000 members each averaging about £900 spend over the course of the season - in all areas - tickets, food/drink, merchadising, social....



That would enable us to spend the full £1.85m cap

Well, after my recent posts bemoaning the general level of discussion on boards during the off-season, note that [according to 'who's on line' we have 13 members and a rousing 211 guests currently fascinated by this discussion! Wow, 211 guests, if only we had some way of monetising this...come to think of it, wasn't PHs business involved in the interweb thingy? I'm sure he could come up with some way of making this a winner.

4000 fans spending £900 means an income of £3.6m.



So that’s £1,775,000 required on non-players salaries.



Interesting.



I think we’ll be lucky to get anywhere near 4000 members let alone 4000 contributing £900 a year. That kind of outlay is ludicrous. There’s unlikely to be anyone able or willing to spend almost a grand on the Bulls in a year.



I’d expect even the most committed fan to struggle to pay more than £500 a year. Most won’t get near that.