I have been reading with interest the posts on this and other links and thought it was about time I did as the name suggests and grab the bull by the horns and put my two penneth in.
There appears to be two main camps, one which feels that Peter Hood did the best he could with the cards he was dealt and one which feels he was to blame for making a bad situation worse. I believe the reality is somewhere between the two, I know splinters from sitting on the fence.
Peter Hood is the austerity accountant to the free spending Chris Caisley type figure trying to create growth through spending. Neither worked, maybe, with hindsight a steady year on year slow growth brought about by small on and off the field improvements would have built up a loyal fan base who understand even the mighty Bradford Bulls cannot win everything every year, instead of the young kids who went on to other interests once their parents stopped paying for them to go and of course the glory hunters that “buying success” brought. Again, when you have a fan base who are used to success, however that success was achieved, maybe to stop this cold turkey so as to speak, is not the best way to go.
The on field performance of the team again left a lot to be desired and made even some of the loyal core supporters question attending 100% of the home games leave alone the away games. Personally I can only put this down to the coach; he may have been unlucky with some of his signings, but some signings beggar belief and the way the team played week in week out at times looked like a group of playing their first friendly of the season before they got to know each other’s plays.
One question I don’t believe has been asked is, why at Easter when the pledge was called was Peter Hood able to find another circa £400K from local sponsors to make up the funds required to see out the season when for four or five years during his tenure these avenues were not explored or if they were not to the extent of securing the commitment to give.
The future, well if the last few home games are anything to go by, if a buyer with sufficient funds to finance the club has been found, then the future look very bright indeed, whichever league we end up in. The atmosphere at the last few home games has been electric.
