Match 20: Bradford Bulls (Away)fevnut's musings
So glad to be Fev
As a London born kid who went on to spend his
last five years at school on the Surrey/Hampshire border rugby league was a
strange game they played up north. I didn’t even get to see Challenge Cup
finals when I was little because we didn’t have a television!
It all began to change when I went to uni. That
was still well outside the rugby league area but I got to know a lad who was a
passionate Bradford Northern supporter. It was his influence that led me to
watching the 1967 final on television. I definitely wanted Featherstone to win
but little did I know then how much Fev were going to become so central to my
life!
And I am so very glad that circumstances
brought me to the Featherstone area in 1977 and not to Bradford because, after
that early introduction, I might otherwise have become a supporter of the Odsal
team.
Sometimes we all feel that it can be a bit
traumatic supporting Fev, particularly when we go off to Blackpool for Summer
Bash, but we really ought to count our blessings and feel compassionate to the
Bulls supporters.
The glory days for them of the early years of
Super League tend to make us all forget what a troubled club Bradford have
been. And I’m not just referring to their most recent problems.
The troubles started as far back as 1907 when
the Bradford rugby league club switched to playing soccer and the supporters
had to form the new club of Bradford Northern in order to continue watching
rugby league!
That club lasted until the 1963/64 season when
they collapsed in mid-season, playing their last game on December 10th and
their results were expunged from the table. Then, in April the supporters got
together again and a new Bradford Northern joined the league for the beginning
of the 1964/65 season.
A little over 30 years later they were the
instigator of Super League razzmatazz and looked set for a long period at the
pinnacle of the sport with the Super League in 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2005 and
becoming World Club Champions in 2002, 2004 and 2006.
But as we know it all started to go wrong again
and from 2012 to 2016 they went into administration three times and finally
into liquidation. That was compounded by relegation from Super League in 2014.
Many people thought, with justification, that this
year’s re-formed club should have been required to start again from the bottom
in League One but I felt sorry for those many, many Bulls fans and was rather
glad that they were allowed to remain in the Championship, especially as it
would mean a big home gate for Fev.
Now with their twelve point deduction it really
is beginning to look like relegation. That is hardly surprising with the apparent
chaos that still lingers over them.
When doing the ‘T’Other Side page’ (http://fevblog452.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/tother-side-bradford-bulls.html)
it was really difficult to know what to right about the position of head coach
and I simply couldn’t and out who the current captain is.
They must have the youngest squad in the
Championship and are very heavily reliant on dual-registration players from
Widnes and loan players from Leeds. Considerably more than half of the players
are 21 or under and the total playing experience of the squad is minimal
compared to the rest of the Championship teams.
As I say, it is pretty chaotic and one gets the
distinct feeling that it would have been much better for them to have been in
League One this year.
I was really upset about Fev’s performance at
Summer Bash but then, when you think about what the Bulls supporters have had
to suffer over the last few years, any troubles for us seem like a bit of a
cold compared to a life threatening illness for them.
************************************************
As I began to write
this I received Gareth Walker’s piece for this week. He is a much more
experienced and knowledgeable journalist than me and he too had chosen to write
about the problems at the Bulls. You can find what Gareth has to say with this
link: http://fevblog452.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/gareth-walkers-column-bradfords-hill.html
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