It feels good to be a Bull

 

In this weeks edition we bring you,
Weekly recap,
Spotlight section,
Your own BULLieve  phone case.
2015 Bradford Bulls squad,
Thank you and Big one Lottery.


Even though the playing season has ended the announcements just keep coming and it really has never felt better to be a Bull. The Bulls have teamed up with Shipley based Manor paints in another fantastic sponsorship deal. Manor paints will also take up the main central position on the players shirts next year. The feel good factor seems to be all around Odsal at the moment and all the news coming out is very positive indeed.

Now the question is this are these 2 guys really this big or is the lady just very small. Whichever way you want to look at it, I'm pretty sure that they will certainly be  great attributes for the 2015 season.

Another announcement I am sure we are all aware by now is that Karl Harrison has returned to the Bulls as assistant to James Lowes, Karl has had plenty of success in his coaching roles with Batley and Halifax, I'm sure with Jimmy and Karl at the helm of the Bulls surely we can go from strength to strength and make an immediate return to Super League.


Spotlight section.

As we have mainly featured around how the club has nearly met is doom over the years, it feels fitting that in this edition, and due to all the good news coming out of Odsal that we take you back to 1947/48 Challenge Cup. Despite the result it was more about the good times were back at Odsal.

The original programme from the Final itself.

The playing squad for the Challenge cup final.
The players in the picture are as Follows: (not in order) Ernest ward, Trevor Foster, Barry Tyler, Frank Whitcombe, Eric Batten, Willie Davies, Jack Kitching, Bill Leake, Donald Ward, George Carmicheal, Herbert Smith, Vic Darlison, Alan Edwards, Gwylfa Jones, Desmond Case, Ken Trail, Emlyn Walters, Ron Greaves.






Bradford Northern had struggled during most of the 1947/48 in there league campaign and a repeat of the previous seasons success against arch rivals Leeds seemed a distant memory. (Northern had beaten Leeds 8-4).  Ironically it was Leeds who had dumped out Northern of the Yorkshire Cup in the 1st round of the competition 11-9 at Odsal.  The Yorkshire cup final of this year was replayed  at Odsal where Leeds were to be beaten by Wakefield Trinity 8-7. The first final was played at Fartown where the final score ended 7-7.
Come the start of February of 1948 Northern's 1st chance to defend the trophy came and cup rugby became a possibility once again but not after a setback at Huddersfield where in the 1st leg Northern had lost 6-2, ironically the previous season a similar setback had taken place at Salford losing 5-2 but on both occasions overturned the deficit in the 2nd leg. Northern went on to win the 2nd leg at Odsal against Huddersfield by winning 15-3.
Northern were certainly doing it the hard way as in the next round they travelled to Wakefield and were held to a 3-3 draw and were also fortunate to come away with the draw. Northern managed to defeat them in the replay 9-2. Next came up Oldham who were more or less mid table and were dispensed in fashion by a beating of 30-0.
This victory had put Northern into the semi finals which set up a meeting at Headingly against Hunslet. Northern were in confident mood and the scoreline suggests a hard fought battle but they never really looked as though they were to lose running out 14-7 victors.
Northern were back at Wembley for successive seasons and this time there opponents were to be Wigan. Once again Northern go onto break records as a new world record crowd turn up watch the final, 92,500 spectators watch a match dubbed by the media at the time "Battle of the giants" It was only the week previous the 2 sides had met in the championship play offs at central park of which Northern had run out 15-3 victors. Despite the previous victory Wigan were still favourites to win the final by the bookmakers and the media.
On the run up to the final itself it had rained almost constantly and the playing surface was very soft and slippy, making the handling of the ball hazardous for both sides and one of the main features of the game was the amount of dropped ball.
Northern were also going into the final of playing 6 games in 14 days previous and left a large amount of the squad rather tired and lacklustre at times. To be fair to Northern Wigan were not really impressive and Bradford had plenty of chances to win it but it just was not to be on this day.
Bradford left the field at half time trailing 5-3 the only score coming from Edwards and Ward missing the conversion.
The 2nd half was a fairly evenly fought contest and seemed to be heading for a narrow victory to Wigan, Northern themselves having a fair few chances but scorned, most especially with Ward missing 2 penalty goal attempts in succession, and Foster just being halted just before the line as he juggled his catch giving the Wigan outfit chance to tackle him. With time running out and Wigan's defence standing firm some poor defensive decisions let Wigan in for the decisive try to confirm there victory and sealed the game 8-3.
The only consolation was Frank Whitcombe won the Lance Todd Trophy for man of the match, this was the 1st time a player to win the award was on the losing side. It was also another 1st in Rugby League history as the first ever Challenge Cup to be televised.

The Wigan team in no particular order Martin Ryan, Ratcliffe, Ashcroft, Hilton, Lawrenson, Bradshaw, Gee, Egan, Barton and W.Blan, Brian Nordgren and Cecil Mountford, "Ted" Ward and Bill Hudson.

The following year Northern went onto make amends and visited the famous twin towers again to return the trophy to Odsal, bearing in mind the squad at this point was ageing and could have been classed as the old guard cup rugby really fired them up. Once again records were broken and as 95,050 people packed out Wembley to see Northern beat Halifax. The final score being 12-0 in Northerns favour.


Here is our squad for 2015.
Exciting times lay ahead of us now as we enter unchartered territory so here is the 2015 Bradford Bulls line up.

BULLieve phone case.

 We are now looking into having our very own phone cases made and we hope soon to have these available for you to purchase. Any profit made from the sale of the cases will be donated to the clubs official supporters trust Bullbuilder. 

If you would also like your very own unique phone case for pretty much any type of phone and tablet please take a look at CASECREATE on Facebook. They can use pretty much any image you have to create a unique one off case, so its for that someone special why not create them something to really treasure. If you are not on Facebook then take a look at there website www.casecreate.co.uk

 We hope you like the design I'm sure we will be changing things around a bit every so often. Don't forget about the Big one Lottery where its never too late to sign up and become a member, don't forget any monies from this goes into the development of the youth at the Bradford Bulls and not only that its not just a cash prize every week, there are "money cant buy oppurtunities to be won also, so please contact Karl Pratt at the Bulls for any further information or one of the Admin team in sure they can help on 0844 871 1490.

Thank you to Ryan Sparks of the Bulls also who has kindly let us use the images from the official Bulls page.

We hope you enjoyed this edition of BULLieve and without all your support and YOU that read this there would be no point in any of this so I hope you all enjoy. If you have any suggestions please contact us on twitter @BullsBULLieve and on Facebook Bradford Bulls Bullieve. Leave us your comments and mentions and suggestions etc. Until Next time don't stop BULLIeving. Tom.
 Jay is away this week and left me with the reigns. Look forward to having you back though.

 

Goodbye For Now

In this week's edition we bring you,

Weekly Recap
Spotlight Section
Just For Fun
Mentions


Weekly Recap

What a great week it's been at the Bulls.
 The biggest news has to be  the announcement of season tickets for 2015 which had a very mixed and varied response from the fans. here are the prices,

Although we have been relegated Marc Green has splashed the cash and has brought in some fantastic players. He hasn't got an endless pot and isn't a massively wealthy person but a businessman. The club to run next season will have to spend  £ 2.7M and will need to recoup some money from somewhere. Not all people can afford the new memberships but some can. It is not a competition on who has one and who hasn't but if you can afford one then please buy. But there is the option of the interest free monthly instalments.

Here are the game day prices for 2015.

On the same night Marc announced 5 new players who are all huge! One of the 5 we already know in the shape of Jay Pitts but, here is a photo of all 5 recruits

                       Jay Pitts, Jean Philippe-Baile, Samir Tahraoui, Lucas Walshaw and Paul Clough


In addition to all this the new 2015 Bulls home shirt was revealed and it has gone down a storm! From all the interaction we see and do we have not heard or seen 1 negative comment and most have agreed that this shirt is the best shirt in years.

                                     You can pre order your shirt by CLICKING HERE

On the back of all this we have had some great sponsorship deals. As you can see on the shirt, we have been sponsored by Smarta enviroment.
And another sponsorship which is highly visible to see is Provident Personal Credit. The bulls renegotiated an extension to the already in place deal and are pleased to announce that Provident will now be sponsoring the Bulls until the end of 2017.

To top things off this week it was an emotional day on Sunday. We played our last First Utillity Super League game against London Bronco's who like us are relegated too.
The Bulls supporters turned out in force again and used this game to have a " Relegation party" and they didn't disappoint. From beach wear to a guy wearing a mankini, fun was had by all and what a game they watched which was thrilling throughout and at one point it looked like we would bow out on a loss but the boys saw to that and produced a fine win.
You can watch highlights of the game HERE

Thursday saw the end of season ball in which the outright winner was Lee Gaskill. The awards have been very much deserved by all the winners but, let's not take away the efforts from all the squad this year. Although we have had such a tough season the players have dug deep. Yes we have had some very nasty drubbings but, also some great wins against Wigan and Leeds to name just two.
Despite this we have made a lot of progress off the field too with a new restructure of the staff at the helm and re introduced the lottery. The marketing is now better and so too the media coverage. You can read more about the end of season ball HERE

We would like to say THANK YOU to everyone at the Bulls from the first team, down through the academy and to all the hard working staff who have and still continue, to turn our club around and re build.
It's been a very turbulent year and there have been some great memories made and now we are looking to the future. The championship will be a great competition playing against some great teams and at some fantastic grounds and we are looking forward to the challenges 2015 will bring our way and, hopefully a win at the first attempt to be back in super league.

Spotlight Section

Now we have the certainty of playing in the Championship next season it has certainly never been dull being a Northern/Bulls supporter. But this particular season nearly saw the demise of rugby in Bradford forever.
It all really began at the start of 1961/62 season when northern slipped to four successive league defeats conceding 112pts in the process and only 41 in reply, then bad went to worse in the Yorkshire Cup 1st Round when travelling to Wakefield and at this time were a difficult team to beat at any time, with Northern not being expected win the tie the outcome of the match sent shock waves through Northern supporters as they were well beaten 73-5 recording Northerns 2nd highest defeat in all time in a Rugby league match, Trinity failing to beat the Leeds score set on September 14th 1931 75-18. The Telegraph and Argus summed the match basically as "Feeble Pathetic Northern just gave up. It couldn't have hurt much more for the supporters as they were in the knowledge that there best and strongest side had been fielded and there were no suspensions or injuries to any of the squad, what confidence the supporters and public had in the Rugby team was severely dented by the outcome by the result.
As the season progressed crowds began to fall dramatically 8 gates of under 1,000 recorded from 18 home games, the lowest crowd was against Hull on April 21st 1962 where 483 people turned up to record a new lowest ever crowd at a home match at Odsal in there long history.
It is then in 1963 when Northern broke new ground and set yet another record, a hardy few supporters around 400 gathered and huddled in one corner on the Rooley Avenue embankment near to the old dressing rooms and then on November 23rd a new low again when Barrow were the visitors 324 turning up to watch the match and see northern lose 29-0. It was hard to believe that only 9 years previous the 1954 Challenge Cup replay had attracted 102,569, this was now certainly a distant memory, with no atmosphere and debts mounting off the field it proved to be a constant losing battle. the bank would not loan any more money, Bradford council were doing all they could to help, and directors were either unable or unwilling to dip into there own pockets. The decision was then taken, in December of 1963 to go into liquidation and call it a day,the club had hit rock bottom in all senses now. Finishing bottom of the newly formed 2nd division 62/63. Anchored to the foot of the competition and no money signalled the end.
How they fared on the field 1961/62 to 1963/64.
Pld          Won      Lost     Drew     For       Agst      
 90              9            79          2         690      2,108  
Northerns last game was on December 7th 1963 was against Leigh with a 33-5 defeat.
This was THE END OF THE ROAD FOR NORTHERN.

It was not only the people of Bradford who were shocked it was the whole of the Rugby League world to hear of the plight. The league were then informed that Northern would not be fulfilling there fixtures for the remainder of the season. It was then in days of the shock announcement a group of businessmen and followers of Rugby league led by Ex player Trevor Foster made there intentions clear and were prepared to take over if the present directors put the club into immediate liquidation, it was a dramatic race against time to save the club from extinction after being members of the league since its formation in 1895 and as a sporting body since 1863. It looked as though the centenary would mark the end of the club forever. December 1963 and January 1964 were very testing times  as each day seemed to pass with no agreement being reached and the chances of the club being saved grew slimmer.

 On the 10th January the RL announced Northern's membership terminated and all players free agents as they had not played a game, this was contested as the club had at no time asked the league to terminate there membership. The argument went on for weeks but was settled in March as there was no likelihood of sufficient finance and the club became effectively extinct on March 18th 1964.
During all this Trevor Foster had been joined by Joe Philips and there was a plan to launch a new Bradford Northern if the membership had been terminated, this turned into a very clever idea and forward thinking, the next few weeks were critical to keep rugby alive in Bradford. On march 19th the Bradford council informed the consortium that they could have the use of Odsal if they could form a new club. It was then on March 23rd an official application was submitted to form a new Bradford Northern.

A public meeting was then held at st Georges hall to test public reaction a crowd of 1,500 turned up to hear the proposals and hear pledges of support from Ernest ward, Donald ward, Eric Batten and Vic Darlison. Dai Rees joined in with a telegram 'its a long way from Birch lane to Wembley, it can be done again' Plans were outlined of how £5,000 was needed to form the new club and meet requirements of the RL authorities. There was full public support from the public and on the night a collection itself raised almost a £1,000 things were looking brighter again and the future of Rugby league in Bradford. The £1 shares that were announced at the meeting were selling very fast and allowed the consortium to officially form there company on April 20th 1964 under the name of Bradford Northern (1964) ltd.

 It was then in the middle of May that the £5,000 was reached and all that stood in the way was the request for membership, this was then formally passed at a meeting on May 22nd. Finally putting an end to the worst 5 half months in the history of the club, had it not been for Trevor Foster and his actions the club would have folded and with all the other dedicated people and support kept the club alive.

From the squad of players who had been on the books prior to the collapse in 1963 only 6 were retained. these were Abed, Carr, Gomersal, Schofield, Sutcliffe and Thornton each had been used as A team players and only being drafted into the first team when injuries arose. Directors were fully aware if the club was to survive then better players were needed.

The rebuilding mission commenced first being Jack Wilkinson from Wakefield as a player coach, as an act of good faith Wakefield waived there asking fee and allowed Northern to take him on a free transfer. Many other clubs offered the same assistance if Northern wished there services.

Players such as Levula, Ashton, Rae, Fisher, Brookes were quickly added to the squad and on the 20th July 64 the club announced they were back in business, every jigsaw piece was back in place and were ready for the new season, with a team put together for around £15,000.

 After all the hard work and dedication to keep Rugby league alive at Odsal and maintain Bradford Northern the moment of triumph came on 22nd August 1964 when the side made the long walk down the slope from the dressing rooms to the adulation of 13,542 people cheering them all the way. This being the first 5 figure crowd for 7 years. There had been a huge re building process and the first victory didn't come straight away and to wait until September when they beat Salford by 20-12. in the first full league season back Northern finished 17th out of 30 clubs, with a tally of 31 pts from 34 games played. the away form being the let down with only 4 wins and a draw. But at least Rugby League was safe in Bradford. We have brushed close again with extinction in recent times lets hope this never repeats itself ever again.

Just For Fun

In our Facebook group we asked you to post pics of your dogs in a Bulls shirt just for fun.

Here we have Dennis Foley and his dog Houchy posing for the camera.

Thank you Dennis for your brilliant photo and for interacting with BULLieve.

Here is Jay with his 2 dogs in Jays Bulls shirts. As you can imagine it isn't an easy task but we can assure you no animals were harmed  and we have done this for fun.

Mentions

Bradford Dudley Hill rugby club are currently looking for players to play for the under 7's next season.
If you or someone you know is interested then please contact Ronnie on 07866269605 or via email bradforddudleyhillrlfc@outlook.com or even give them a follow on Twitter @hill_rlfc



Would you like to work for the Big One lottery?

Karl Pratt is looking for self driven individuals who would to work as a lottery agent.
The job role will involve canvassing and you can find out more details by either following us on Twitter and sending us a DM or by ringing the club and asking for Karl Pratt direct.
You can follow us @BullsBULLieve

We would like to thank the whole of Bradford Bulls from the top all the way down in the way they have handled our situation this year to turn the club around.
Marc Green has done such an amazing job in every department and he continues to carry this forward each and everyday.

Last but not least we thank YOU our readers and all our facebook members and our followers. We have surpassed the 1,000 mark and are continuing to gain followers everyday.
Without you all we wouldn't be where we are today gaining more contacts within the rugby league community and continuing to bring you YOUR BULLieve.
We shall continue through the off season and you can be part of the blog with Tweets and mentions etc.

Until next time, Don't stop BULLieving