As a lifelong supporter of my local club, I was pretty horrified at the sight of the Bradford Bulls Pledge 10'000 promotion bus parked in the car park of the Yorkshire Mill Village (less than one mile from Mount Pleasant) in Batley this morning. I understand the bus also visited not only the Birstall area, from where my club draws a good number of fans, but the cente of Dewsbury.

Batley has a professional Rugby League club, as does Dewsbury, and we struggle year after year to attract fans on a miniscule promotional budget. In reality, we have to rely on our on-field success to attract floating, and fickle local supporters.

As well as this cynical and selfish campaign in our towns being both morally and ethically wrong, Batley and Dewsbury are not even located in the same local authority as Bradford.

In 1996, the Batley and Dewsbury clubs lost hundreds of existing and potential fans to Bradford Bulls, following a similarly cynical promotion drive, which included a school visitation programme in the Heavy Woollen district, despite the existence of similar schemes run by our professional sporting organisations.

If any Bradford Bulls supporters wish to bicker with me over their right to advertise in other towns that already have long-standing Rugby League clubs, I would like to ask them how they would feel about, lets say, a Leeds Rhinos drive to attract fans from the Bradford area, which included a blue and amber promotional bus parked in the middle of Forster Square.

Its commendable of the Bulls to come up with this scheme to increase their crowds, but don't do it at the expense of lower league clubs that face a constant struggle to survive, and don't have the finances to compete with you to any extent. To bring your promotion to within less than a mile of both our respective grounds isn't just morally dubious, its also hugely disrespectful.

tbh, I feel for you I do. If we were in the same situation i'd be the same.

But Super League is the elite; these clubs should be drawing on potential from miles around. If that affects your smalltime club then...

Sale Sharks' fanbase in union is a mix of people from a 20 mile radius to watch tripe. If every SL club could achieve interest 20 miles around Rugby League would be in a better state.

I don't see what the problem is. Every third person in Warrington wore a Saints shirt until last year. It's no big deal.



Why don't Batley and the other pub teams do their own promotion in Bradford?

I agree with you this is really in poor taste.



They managed to get an exhibition stand at Bingley Music Live.



It was the only such stand, sporting or otherwise, at the whole event.



Keighley's ground is around 3 miles form Bingley where as Odsal is about 9 miles away. Both are in the Br*dford Met Council area but still, it's really not on and only reinforces the genuine hatred Keighley fans have for the B*lls.



It can't be good for the game when bigger clubs are in effect trying to wipe smaller ones out. Surely the more clubs we have, whether full-time, part-time, or amateur the healthier the game is.

Why didnt Keighley manage to get an exhibition stand at Bingley Music Live. If Keighley didnt advertise at the event it seems silly that Bradford shouldnt

There are reasons!

Seems pretty tight, especially as theres 200 000+ people in Bradford to appeal to.

What? You mean actually promote themselves? What madness are you speaking here?



No, much better to sit back and cry about someone else doing what they won't.



If a starving man is sat in front of a banquet shouldn't he feed himself instead of expecting to be waited on?

So clubs at our level DON'T promote themselves? What an idiotic statement. We do what we can on a very limited budget, and constantly try to attract new fans from our local area. Sadly, unlike Bradford Bulls we don't have the luxury of millions of pounds of money from SKY to fritter away, and as a small club we don't have the benefit of the revenue from crowds that are 7 or 8 times bigger than our own.

I never suggested that Bradford Bulls shouldn't promote themselves in our town simply because we don't either, I suggested that it is morally reprehensible, not to mention disrespectful, to park themselves less than a mile from our ground and try to peddle their season ticket scheme.

Still, if you wish, change the angle of my post to suit your own ends.

Fine. What does your club do to attract fans in the local area? And this pleading poverty thing. I don't buy that. Effective marketing isn't about spending a ton of cash. It's about getting your brand known in the market place.

Does your club advertise near amateur clubs? Potentially stealing away fans who might contribute a couple of quid to the whip round?



Your complaint is the worst I have seen on the board. It's as if some fans do not want the sport of rugby league to succeed.



If their ads get people watching RL who normally wouldn't, great. If they take people from your club to watch Bradford, then look at your club, not the Bulls.

There is more silverware in the Batley trophy cabinet than there is in the Bradford one at the moment.



You should go on an open top bus trip through Bradford showing off your trophy.