Unfortunately, the cut-off date for the financial criteria chosen by the RFL strangely means Bradford are ok and we aren’t!
Unfortunately, the cut-off date for the financial criteria chosen by the RFL strangely means Bradford are ok and we aren’t!
Would "Unsurprisingly" be a far more apt opening word to your post?
Spelly.
What I am at a lost with, is the qualification process or lack off. SL was introduced with the demands that clubs have new stadiums, academies, community programmes, sustainable businesses models etc. Has SL convention forgot about these qualities?
The stadium criteria was relaxed a while back.Can't think why.
Can understand both arguments. Ultimately, it would be a waste of time and energy in applying, even if it did gain feedback or show we were ambitious. The best way to show ambition is with results on the pitch. It’s going to be Bradford. Nigel Wood’s mitts all over it.
I'd rather get feedback from a used car salesman.If Bradford get in then that's me done with the game.
Ask any Bradford fan who currently owns the club, they couldn’t bloody tell you. One year in SL, followed by relegation, they will be dead again.
I was on a trip to Rome around two years ago and got talking to a family from Bradford. I asked them what apart from mismanagement at boardroom level went wrong, I was told in a nutshell that that people in the area aren't interested in rugby league anymore. There is probably some truth in that as reason why they decided on a temporary move was because they couldn't afford to play there as the crowds are so low, and I cant see that improving any time soon super league or not. There are so many things wrong with Rugby League a the minute and the administrators seem to be the main problem. It comes to something when most RL fans seem to think that in the name of expansion Toulouse should be given the spot but they want Bradford in, and the only logical reason for that is because of Odsal.
i think many people are under the illusion that that the city of Bradford has 15000 fans just sat, waiting for a successful Bulls in SL as in the days of Bullmania 98/ 2004.I would'nt go as far as to say there is no interest anymore but nowhere near that huge amount. It was a bandwagon that many jumped on and jumped off again.You could see their support tapering off when we were first in SL.One year the away stand was packed out with their fans, the next season half as many.
i think many people are under the illusion that that the city of Bradford has 15000 fans just sat, waiting for a successful Bulls in SL as in the days of Bullmania 98/ 2004.I would’nt go as far as to say there is no interest anymore but nowhere near that huge amount. It was a bandwagon that many jumped on and jumped off again.You could see their support tapering off when we were first in SL.One year the away stand was packed out with their fans, the next season half as many.
Bradford attracting anything less than 10,000 would be indicative of how poor the club has been in capitalising on their huge population. I have said this before but my hypothesis to why expansion doesn’t work is the example Bradford. Large Black/Asian population yet Bradfords supporter base in 95% white.
Jason Robinson made the same point, how can you expect RL to be successful in London when you can’t even convince BAME people to take up the game in the heartlands.
Also post 2008, the bulls attracted around 7,500/8000 fans, there bass isn’t as strong you think.
You can say the same about Luton, Leicester, Wolves, Aston Villa and Birmingham in football.Large Asian populations but support base 95% white.All the London clubs too.You can't force people to be interested in something.We have ice hockey here in Widnes (somewhere) and I am not one iota interested in going along to see a game.
You can say the same about Luton, Leicester, Wolves, Aston Villa and Birmingham in football.Large Asian populations but support base 95% white.All the London clubs too.You can’t force people to be interested in something.We have ice hockey here in Widnes (somewhere) and I am not one iota intetested in going along to see a game.
That is a great point, however, I disagree slightly having been many arsenal games, I can assure you that there’s a good proportion of black supporters. Ultimately, maybe it’s due to the price of ticket as to why Asians or Blacks don’t flock to football games as much as white peoples but wether BAME go to the games or not, they are still interested in football.
Whereas, in RL at a community level in places like Bradford there just isn’t the interest levels in Rugby League. In essence, this is why expansion is flawed, how can you expand in Coventry when you can’t even expand in Bradford.
Bradford may not get back to its glory days with crowds of 15,000 plus, but they did attract a crowd of over 10,000 for the cup game against Leeds in 2019. This does perhaps show that if they could get a team capable of competing in SL, there is the potential to attract crowds at least on a par with Warrington, St Helens and Wigan and a lot more than most teams in SL.
Having said that, if they are given the 12th spot the cry of fix will be heard throughout the game and the reputation of the RFL will sink even lower. Even Rimmer would not risk that, would he?
Like Widnes, Bradford should be aiming to get into SL by winning games, not on the back of at best a questionable process.
If there is any intention to expand the game, the only real choice is to give the spot to Toulouse or London.
'Bradford may not get back to its glory days with crowds of 15,000 plus, but they did attract a crowd of over 10,000 for the cup game against Leeds in 2019. This does perhaps show that if they could get a team capable of competing in SL, there is the potential to attract crowds at least on a par with Warrington, St Helens and Wigan and a lot more than most teams in SL.'
How many of them were actually Bradford fans? Leeds are arguably the best support team in SL, and are Bradfords nearest neighbours so I would bet that atleast 6,000 in that crowd were actually Leeds fans.
Probably the reason they got a 10,000 crowd was that it was a Derby match against their local SL rivals, who they hadn’t played for a while, and weren’t playing that well at the time, so they thought, rightly, that they could beat them, and Leeds would have took a lot of fans with them, with it only being about 10-15 miles away.
You'd like to think that even the RFL would be too embarrassed to pick Bradford and want to avoid a backlash but I'm not so sure.After all this is the organisation which deemed an amateur set up in south wales not 4 years old to be fit for Super League and a superior applicant to that of their rivals who had better stadia and infrastructure.Who then went t1ts up just 3 years later and withdrew from SL.
I will stick by my original prediction of London or Toulouse getting the place.I would'nt bet 50 pence on it though.