Pumpetypump wrote:
Your statement holds true for Castleford and Wakefield for example as the sport is the only game in town and intergral to the fabric of that Town and City. The conditions do not exist in Bradford for that sort of bounce back.
Bradford has a small Amateur set-up compared with neighbouring districts such as Calderdale and Kirklees areas. Never in a million years could you call it a Rugby city. I do not believe that we could have any certainty of returning to the top table in more than a decade, if at all.
With respect, had Huddersfield rebuilt from the foundations as you advocate and done so without the invaluable support of one man, you'd be the same. I believe you would be a fair to good 1st division team clammering for the introduction of 8x8x8.
Ken Davy came on board when we were in the 2nd division in 1996 with us only day dreaming about being a super league club. We had been in the doldrums for decades and our crowds had declined remarkably. Our academy wasn't the best and the players on the pitch weren't much better compared to the team and set up we have now. Also Huddersfield's not a rugby town.
He reformed the way the club as a whole was run right from the juniors upto the chief executive. Young players didn't want to come to our club and so a make over of all the club was required and he did that. He has used his own money in achieving what we have got now but as a club and organisation we are built on solid foundations done the right way over nearly 20 years.
Since coming into super league the best thing that happened to us was relegation, this enabled us to go down for a season and get that winning mentality back into the club, that was something we'd lost by losing virtually every week. We came back a better and stronger club for it and has helped us in some ways to get to where we are now.
You on the other hand have been successful in recent years and you can rebuild and come back better for it with the supporter base still interested (we lost all of ours due to years in the wilderness and it's hard to get them back due to location of other RL teams). Local business's who back you now or in the past would probably be willing to back you again if you set solid foundations and help the club grow again. You are in a bad situation at the moment but short term pain could bring long term gain in the future as you have got something to build on to move the club forward.
