IT IS getting on for a year since Marc Green took control of Bradford Bulls in the wake of the club’s latest off-field meltdown.

A second administration in 18 months had led to the departure of key players and a six-point deduction, prompting three former directors to abandon their attempts to buy the club.

Still, it allowed Green, a Leeds-based businessman who had been involved behind the scenes at Odsal after lending the club around £150,000 in the autumn of 2013, to seize ownership of the club himself.

“We will be working extremely hard over the coming months, with our number one objective and main priority being to ensure Super League survival for this historic club,” Green said upon completing the deal.

He was unable to deliver on that front and for much of the season it felt as though the Bulls, with a desperately thin squad, were sleepwalking towards relegation.

The club’s painful and widely-anticipated demise was confirmed on an emotion-filled afternoon in Huddersfield last July.

Yet nobody could argue with Green’s efforts since then.

He has assembled a 30-strong squad, given head coach Jimmy Lowes all the support he could wish for, and, perhaps above all, run the club prudently and with notable business acumen.

There is stability at last and a feel-good factor has returned, fuelling hopes that Bradford, once the standard-bearers of Super League on and off the field, are ready to get back where many feel they belong.

Green, a keen Tottenham Hotspur fan who moved from his native London to Leeds in 1990, said: “Winning promotion is not a dream, it’s a goal.

“Most dreams are not achievable but our goal is to be back in Super League next season because that’s where this club should be.

“If everything goes according to plan, then we will achieve our goals.

“We’ll only do that by continuing what we’ve been doing off the field since I took over and on the field since Jimmy was appointed.

“That’s going about our business in a proper way, letting our actions speak louder than words and, if the Gods shine right on us, then we will go up.

“If they don’t, we won’t and we’ll have a go next year and the year after that if necessary.

“Everyone assumed I was only in this for the parachute money and as soon as I got that I was going to get on a white horse and ride off into the sunset.

“I’ve proven all those doubters wrong. I’ve assembled a first-class team, arguably the best in the Championship and good enough to hold its own in Super League.

“I‘ve assembled a phenomenal backroom staff, which underlines our commitment to this club – and I keep using the word ‘our’.

“As long as the players perform to the best of their ability and the coaching staff get the best out of them, and the supporters give us our best backing, then we’ll have a chance. ”

Nobody can say how the season will pan out following a radical overhaul of the game, signalling the biggest revolution since the advent of Super League and the switch to summer rugby in 1995.

There is a £1million salary cap in the Championship this season and the Bulls will receive over £750,000 in central distribution.

In contrast, top-flight clubs will receive £1.6million in central distribution and can spend up to £1.825 million on the salary cap.

But Green said: “I won’t accept the fact that Super League sides can spend more than us as an excuse. So what?

“Buster Douglas went into the ring against Mike Tyson as a complete unknown and the most feared boxer on the planet got sparked out in Toyko.

“Yes, Super League sides can spend more but Bradford City had assembled a team to face Chelsea who cost £7,500.

“They played a team who cost £220m to assemble and they came out on top, so sport can be a great leveller.

“If you were a gambling man, you would probably put a lot of money on us finishing first or second in the Championship. But other teams will raise their game and, without being disrespectful, their games against Bradford Bulls will be the biggest they have played possibly ever and certainly for a long, long time.

“We’re going to bring big crowds with us, giving them a big gate, and will be the team they will want to knock over.

“But I think we should feel really confident and comfortable about our ability to finish in the top four. And once we’re in the play-offs, anything can happen.

“We could pick up injuries and anything could happen to affect our ability to win enough games to secure promotion.

“But do I think we have a good chance? Of course I do, we wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.

“Nothing in sport is guaranteed and if it was, we wouldn’t turn up to watch it.

“But I will be here for as long as it takes to achieve what I want to achieve.

“If that takes five years then I’ll be here for five years. If it takes 15 years, then so be it.”

Green remains in talks with the RFL to bring ownership of Odsal back into the hands of the club and, while the historic site could be developed under his watch, it seems certain to remain home for the foreseeable future.

After Provident stayed loyal to the Bulls after last season’s relegation, more and more businesses have come on board as commercial partners to the club.

Green, who had never set foot inside Odsal prior to becoming involved in the club in 2013, says he has “fallen in love” with the Bulls.

But he insisted: “There will not be a single emotional decision made on anything we do here.

“Everything we do has to have a return on investment and every spend has to be justified.

“If someone asked me if I wanted any player from Leeds or Warrington if it would guarantee us promotion, then I still wouldn’t take it if we couldn’t afford it.

“If that means we don’t win promotion, then so be it.

“I’ve got to give these supporters something that they can hang their hat on and that the club will be here next year and the year after that.

“If that means we make sensible decisions that don’t take us to as a club where we want to be but do take us a business where we want to be, then those are the decisions that we will take.

“We are now running the club how we believe is the right way to continue developing this club back to what ultimately is our goal.

“And that’s to make Bradford Bulls a superpower of rugby league again.”