MARC Green's stewardship of the Bulls these past two-and-a-half years has been fraught with strife.

Since Green came onto the scene, the Bulls have twice gone into administration, been relegated from Super League and become also-rans in the Championship.

It has been quite some decline for a club who dominated Super League only a decade ago.

A sad, sorry saga which has spelt the demise of a once great sporting institution.

Bradford became famous throughout the world because of the unparalleled success they enjoyed following the explosion of Bullmania.

So how on earth has it come to this, a third spell in administration in just five years?

Matt Diskin hit the nail on the head when, shortly after the club went into administration last Monday, he tweeted: "Is anyone genuinely surprised?"

There are some observers who trace Bradford's downfall back to the signing of Iestyn Harris.

There are others who blame Peter Hood or Omar Khan.

When Green seized ownership of the club in March 2014, a new company was formed in Bradford Bulls Northern Ltd.

It was a clean slate.

The Bulls had finished a highly respectable ninth in Super League the previous season in Francis Cummins' first year in charge.

The core of a decent squad remained.

Green first got involved when he loaned the club £150,000 to pay wages in the autumn of 2013, under a debenture which made him a secured creditor.

As an ownership battle raged involving the Rugby Football League, Khan, Mark Moore, Ian Watt and Andrew Calvert, Green bid for the club himself.

Green, as the secured creditor, ended up buying the club back from the same administrator (David Wilson of Leeds-based DFW Associates) he had appointed a couple of months earlier.

To stay up and overcome the six-point penalty for entering administration required significant investment in the playing squad.

Green said at the time: "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."

Steve Ferres was appointed as his right-hand man, with Green saying: "I am delighted to have Steve on board.

"He is highly regarded across rugby league and his expertise is going to bear fruit in the times ahead and he will help get this club back to where it belongs."

However, there was no real investment to bolster a squad in dire need of reinforcements and Bradford were duly relegated in July 2014 with six games of the season still remaining.

As Cummins, who successfully sued Green for wrongful dismissal, later reflected: "The cavalry never came."

I have often said that failure to stay in Super League in such a pivotal season would reverberate for years to come.

Unlike the 2014 campaign, Green at least financed a large squad which encouraged hopes of an immediate return to the top flight in 2015.

He deserves credit for that and in many ways he brought much-needed stability to the club, initially at least.

Closer links with main sponsors Provident were forged and improvements made to the club's retail and corporate hospitality operations.

Six weeks into the 2015 season, Green celebrated his one-year anniversary as Bulls owner.

I interviewed him at length around his time and he elaborated on his plans to buy Odsal and develop it, something he had made no secret of from day one.

On March 22 of 2015, Green claimed he would return ownership of the historic site into the club's hands by the end of that season.

"The RFL want comfort in the business having stability before they are willing to allow the title to transfer over," he said.

"I understand that because the last thing they want is to be selling the lease back to the club, only to find the club is in trouble and they have got to rescue it again and be left embarrassed.

"I'm confident that we will have it done before the end of the season."

Not only that, Green vowed to return the club to its former glories.

In the same interview, he declared: "My dream is to lead the Bulls out at Wembley in a Challenge Cup final and it's something I'm determined to do.

"I certainly won't be going anywhere until I've at least achieved that."

Just 18 months on and Green's hopes of acquiring Odsal have long since ended.

As for major finals, the Bulls are a million miles off competing for the game's top honours again.

Bradford did come agonisingly close to winning promotion in 2015, losing to Wakefield in the inaugural Million Pound Game.

Green was distraught afterwards and you sensed then that his dream was beginning to slip through his fingers.

Jimmy Lowes, who struggled to contain his emotions after the Wakefield defeat, might now wish he had quit there and then.

Key players left and were not adequately replaced, while Lowes' relationship with Ferres, in particular, grew increasingly strained.

Two months into the 2016 season, Lowes resigned.

The campaign became a real struggle and, after a dismal defeat at Featherstone which ended hopes of a top-four finish, the writing was on the wall.

Then came the realisation that there would be no money-spinning battles with the likes of Leeds in the Qualifiers.

Looking further ahead, central funding would also be significantly reduced.

Soon after, Ferres quit and chief executive Robbie Hunter-Paul followed him out of Odsal a few weeks later, joining a long list of key staff to leave the club in the past two years.

Green was not at Featherstone, he was holidaying in Ibiza, and wages were paid a week late at the end of July.

There have been serious concerns over the Bulls' financial state since then and, following an ongoing dispute with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the club entered administration on Monday last week.

In many ways, Green deserves credit for keeping the club going as long as he did when the monthly wage bill was well in excess of £100,000 – a staggering figure for a club in a largely part-time league.

There is no doubt that a lot of money was wasted on poor recruitment but ultimately Green was the owner and the buck stopped with him.

A gregarious character, Green can be a fine raconteur when the mood takes him and at first he seemed to revel in the limelight of owning the Bulls.

But the stresses and strains of running the club appear to have gradually taken their toll as the cash ran out.

There is no denying that going into administration again has done great damage to the Bulls' reputation, further eradicated the trust of supporters and will surely lead to player departures.

Bradford currently do not have RFL membership and former head coach Cummins, speaking in a radio interview last week, outlined the club's issues in no uncertain terms.

Cummins, who went through the Bulls' two previous administrations in 2012 and 2014, said: "It does appear almost that the brand of the Bradford Bulls has become toxic.

"You don't want to see the brand or the club disappear but it's going to have to look at a longer-term future whereby they are cutting their cloth accordingly. It's so sad."

As the administrators weigh up various bids, it has to be hoped a suitable new owner with deep pockets can be found soon.

A part-time existence cannot be discounted and a 12-point penalty is the likely punishment, while it remains to be seen whether Green will play any further part in the club going forward.

After the trauma of the past two-and-a-half years, he may wish he had never got involved in the first place.