Gareth has put upwards of £2 Million into Bradford Park Avenue which has seen Avenue win two promotions in that time



Without that money and investment, BPA wouldn't be where they are today - just two divisions below Bradford City.



Now £2 Million might not sound a lot to some on here but that's a substantial amount of money that's he's invested that he will never see again.

I'm far from convinced Mick.



Avenue have been hovering about, a division or so below the conference, seemingly forever without any great, or even obvious, improvement. This, in a ground with few facilities, or real prospect of being allowed to make significant improvements. If they are to get to a higher level they clearly need a ground capable of housing more than the (I understand) around 500 fans they currently get.



All this time with a super-mega rich owner. It surely can't cost £6m quid to keep a club there, can it? That's the sort of money the Bulls were spending to win Super League and we all have a solid idea how much the players were on back than and it wasn't the league below the conference level sort of wages. We were still in SL when the story of their chairman looking to build a stadium first surfaced and it's now sunk without trace.

Well judging how he said they earned 2 promotions since Roberts took over when in actual fact they were in conference North when Roberts took over 4 years a go, and they're still in Conference North with zero promotions, I wouldn't be inclined to believe the £6 million figure he's mentioned.



Roberts has always seemed to interested in making BPA the heart of the community rather than a Salford City type club. I do believe he's invested in facilties to be used by the community, youth teams etc. These include classrooms etc Think I saw an article a few Months back of them buying the lease for Horsfall from the council. I don't pretend to be in the know, but from the outside looking in I don't think Roberts is going to be building stadiums anytime soon. They may be scope for the two clubs working together for a development at Odsal and the facilities at Horsfall being community facilities. Anyway, isn't the land at Horsfall restricted from being developed as its on green belt?

It's a massive amount of money with little to show for it, however, if he's a billionaire as reported then it's peanuts.



For comparison, and to illustrate the numbers you are talking about, to count to a million takes about 11 days. DAYS. To count to a billion takes 32 YEARS. Therefore, in his world he's playing at it. I don't fancy being in a Bradford Bulls environment where people are just playing at it. At least at the minute it looks like we are being serious...

reaching for the tinfoil again...



IF...big IF... That idea makes perfect sense if the council want Odsal stadium side to sell off and end up building a min 16k seater on the RD side.



Having BPA in the mix makes it more palatable for the minority City types who'd be ranting on the T&A site about 'Bulls have the begging bowl out again, the clowncil never do anything for us'...and RoI wise more sensible to have club offices and club shops in the same place.



If Roberts has his lease then his 3G pitch can be used for whatever community stuff he wants and the chances are that IF they ever get into the Football League there's a stadium waiting with the club they got into bed with, presumably just for that moment, at a very reasonable rate?



EDIT: ...and they'd not need to worry about having clashing colours in the stadium seating as they have just reverted back to their original Red, Amber and Black.... fancy that!

Gledhill posting false information ........ imagine that

It's fair to say that a lot of that money has been mismanaged by the past custodians who Gareth had running the club for him.



Since Damian has taken over the control of running the club for him the reliance on Gareth’s wallet has somewhat eased but he's still committed to funding the club at this level.



Bob Blackburn was the previous BPA owner who first mooted the new 20,000 all-seater stadium at Thornbury. He was just another Marc Green type I'm afraid.

Roberts wants the club to be self sustaining, a noble and probably correct strategy, but a frustrating one for fans given his supposed wealth. I am a city/bulls fan so not blinkered there, but I do know the following for sure.

There was a meeting with players last year when they were riding high and they were told by Irving that they could not afford to go up. Some players would have to become full time etc. A lot of players don't want to be full time, as it would mean giving up good jobs for maybe 1 year. They released players to go to rival clubs and then dropped away from the promotion chase. I work with one of the players..

A number of key players and the manager have left this summer because of this and the fall out. Irving is not at all popular with the (past?) players given his handling of all this around the turn of the year.

Anyone see the posts on twitter last night about a couple of CCJs against the club?

Hope it's nothing but we've been here before haven't we so I'm not going to be that naive.



If we go bust again then that's me done, forever.

The Ccjs totalled about £2.5k I believe. So hopefully is nothing

,but the way Chalmers spouts off you absolutely have to he squeeky clean as other fans and even some media absolutely revell in it.



Think Wednesday will show how serious it is. If the players are Paid, then hopefully it's nothing. If not, well, as you said if we go bust that's also me done forever.



But maybe Chalmers needs to layoff spouting in the T&A

I'd seen the twitter posts, as far as I can see the journo who tweeted it has yet to add anything other than his own idle speculation at this point. He cited the half million pound losses as though it was new information. It doesn't take an accountant to work out that our setup isn't funded by 3-4k crowds and Championship funding. So somebody has clearly made up the shortfall as I would assume no bank would be offering us much in the way of a loan! Now if that person or persons are no longer able to continue that support then perhaps we might be in bother but that is probably the same for almost every loss making club in RL.



I know our fans don't help themselves sometimes but it seems plenty in RL still want to put the boot in at any opportunity. Perhaps also in part to Chalmers being an outspoken that clearly ruffles a few feathers in SL.



I'm not losing any sleep over some twitter rumour without any real substance behind it. I expect Chalmers spends more in flights to NZ in a month than the alleged ccj amount. Nothing we can do about it, so little point getting worked up over it.

Not bothered by anything on twitter, to be honest.



Obviously, logic says there must be some sensible people on there but all you seem to hear of are idiotic barmpots parroting rubbish, from the lowest of the low, like Trump, upwards. I do believe that journos use the medium as a sounding board, just to see what they get back, but these are just low-rent hacks imo. Am I bovvered? Do I look bovvered? Meh..