Bradford Bulls and York celebrate history at crunch game

Virtually everyone, everywhere, will be scanning the latest score update service as many of the clubs face vital must-win games.

Let’s start here at Odsal and our fantastic clash with York City Knights tomorrow afternoon, which is sure to be an edge of the seat experience for everyone entering our home fortress.

This fixture has been pencilled into the calendar since the round one thriller in front of a vibrant and lively crowd at the atmospheric Bootham Crescent.

We pinched the prize that day with a penalty after the final hooter and York, like us, have only lost one game since.

The resurgence of York under the energetic and youthful chairman Jon Flatman, is a credit to all concerned with the club.

Many people reckon York is a club with a big future, a fine and relatively well-heeled city, a tourist destination and one without a strong football presence, and a new stadium in construction to boot.

Our two clubs have grown fairly close over the past few months as both Jon and myself were elected to the Championship and League One Advisory Group to represent our member clubs.

As an acknowledgement to both our clubs' proud histories, we have invited David Barends to be our special guest tomorrow. Older supporters will remember David joining a Peter Fox-inspired Bradford Northern in the mid-1970s.

David was a great success and earned a place on the 1979 Lions Tour, the first South African born player to represent the Lions.

We were hoping that David would be joined by Colin Forsyth, our other great signing from York at around the same time. Colin too went on to representative honours while at our club, and also set a try scoring record for a prop forward.

Unfortunately, Colin passed away recently and our deepest sympathies are extended to all his family and friends.

Elsewhere, what a wonderful set of fixtures to tantalise the taste buds across the Championship and Super League.

Six into four won’t go in the Championship and the battle for the top four spots goes down to the wire.

With Toronto and Toulouse nailed on in first and second place, the other two qualifiers must come from either London, Featherstone, Halifax or Leigh.

Similarly in Super League, at the time of writing at least, there are seven clubs still in danger of slipping into the qualifying eights.

Salford and Widnes have their boarding passes to the Qualifiers and the rest enter the desperation stakes to avoid the two remaining seats.

Sky Sports have rightly recognised the drama and are picking the pivotal games. Quite how sensible people would want to unpick this excitement is beyond me.

If we had first past the post and one up one down where exactly would the cameras be going right now?

Football, the most successful sport in this country, has competition to win the league, to qualify for Europe and the battle to avoid relegation and they have plenty of talking points all the time to keep the sport in the media.

And so, inevitably into the murky world of rugby league politics, and however much we seem to get under the skin of some chairmen, neither I nor any of my team are responsible for the sins of our predecessors.

All I have espoused to my colleagues is that we rebuild trust by keeping our promises and steadily and solidly trying to improve, as a team, as a club and as a business.

I know regular readers will be hanging on every word for the details of Robert Elstone’s master plan, promised in June, but unfortunately there is nothing further to report.

What there has been is the somewhat predictable disagreement between two Super League chairmen about whether or not the Super League clubs will allow Toronto to take a place in the Super League.

Wigan’s Ian Lenagan is very supportive of the Toronto club. He believes they are well-organised and a very well-run club, with owner and successful business guru David Argyle at the helm.

Neil Hudgell, of Hull KR, according to his recent media interview, is far from convinced, and implicitly criticises the RFL for a lack of due diligence and is clearly sceptical.

I believe the real explanation is that expansion in rugby league is a thorny subject. While everyone says they want it and want it to be a huge roaring success, it can only succeed at the expense of an existing member.

Wigan are far enough up the food chain not to fear any expansion, in fact they have much to gain.

Some people believe that a wider geographical spread of teams equates to greater TV and commercial revenue and Wigan would love their brand to have exposure in Canada, France, Australia, Timbuktu wherever.

For a yo yo club like Hull KR, there is far more to be lost than gained with the elevation of powerful, well-resourced expansion clubs from a city of millions.

I am not blaming Hudgell from holding his view. He and his investors will have invested thousands of pounds in Hull KR, he is on their board and he has a duty to them to look after their commercial interests. Fair enough.

Club chairmen at many levels crave power so they can control the environment for their own interests. That is what is wrong with the current direction of travel for Super League. But what Lenagan thinks, or Hudgell believes, doesn’t actually matter.

The Super League clubs don’t have veto over who gets into the competition and who doesn’t. That is absolutely an RFL responsibility. And it of course has to be that way; otherwise it becomes a self-serving licensing structure.

That is why the RFL Board’s role and independence is vital to the sport in this country, independent people making decisions in the interests of the widest possible stakeholder group, free from any conflicts of interest.

Interestingly, the expansion discussion went on to discuss the Catalan Dragons, where there was a much more upbeat analysis.

I’ve been in this country now for 18 months and that is truly the first time I have ever seen any positive love directed towards the Dragons.

Before, it has been a long list of “what do they actually contribute?” “why are they in the competition and what do they offer?” and “the problem is they don’t bring any supporters and it cost our fans a fortune to go there”.

I do recall the admission of a French club to Super League being promoted at the International Board when I was on it, with reference made to the Auckland Warriors', now the New Zealand Warriors, inclusion in the NRL.

The rational for the Warriors was to consolidate TV revenues into the NRL from New Zealand to strengthen the Kiwis.

It has been an outstanding success, with TV revenues now far outstripping the annual grant to the Warriors while the Kiwis remain the second-ranked international team.

I am not sure the same can be said of the Catalans. France are nowhere internationally, suffering the ignominy of elimination at the group stages of the 2017 World Cup, after being despatched by 'heavyweight' Lebanon.

Back to our York battle, we are hoping to report a season best attendance for League One, and let me plead with all Bulls fans to shout for our team louder than ever.

It is a very big game for us as a club. In fact, the biggest game we have had since I landed on these shores last January.

So get down to Odsal Stadium tomorrow, bring a friend to sing and cheer, on a fabulous summer afternoon, and support your Bulls. Kick-off is at 3pm.