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.
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 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
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.
