Dave Craven: Hats off to Glover as Trinity look to ditch Arkwright image

All those months of hard work put in by him and his coaching staff over the long, hard winter must have seemed wasted before yesterday’s relieving events.

Having to helplessly stand back and watch the squad he had assembled, using every bit of his persuasive power and eye for bargain value, mercilessly decimated has to be hard to bear.

Trinity’s long-suffering chief dreaded picking up the phone all week in fear of another one of his apologetic players telling him he was leaving while his hands were tied.

The season was going to be difficult enough given the obvious financial problems at Belle Vue, those on-going issues with their prospective move to Newmarket and the imminent points deduction they face for entering administration.

However, being stripped off some of his finest players – those he had hoped would form the backbone of his team for the fight ahead – was a sucker punch.

But Kear is eternally the sort of first person to look on the positive side and he will know, for all the short-term damage suffered this week, the club is now in a far, far healthier condition.

Principally, that is because Ted Richardson has gone.

For all their erstwhile chairman ‘loves’ the club and has its best interests at heart, the reason it has tumbled into such a perilous state of disrepair is mainly down to his actions, whether well-intended or not.

The number of people wanting to invest in Trinity but dissuaded because of Richardson’s presence was forever growing and he should have done the decent thing and walked long before now.

Or at least made it easier for someone else to take command.

When so many different people refer to the club being run “like a corner shop” there comes a point where instead of sharp suits and business lunches you do actually envisage Arkwright in his brown overall coat, Granville bungling around the back and Nurse Gladys pitching up for some comedic effect.

It is not how such a great club as Trinity should ever be perceived.

Lurching from crisis to crisis has been the order of the day of late and it is a crying shame that a club that enjoyed its highest Super League finish of fifth less than 18 months ago was allowed to descend into such chaos.

Part of the problem emanating over Andrew Glover’s protracted takeover this week – and the delays which have allowed the likes of Dale Ferguson, Sam Obst and Daryl Millard to be moved on – has been trying to discover who actually owns Belle Vue and where the money has gone from its sale a few years ago.

Richardson is likely to be the only one with the real answer and maybe one day he will enlighten us all.

In the meantime, the industrious James Elston has done a marvellous job fire-fighting since his arrival as chief executive last year, battling manfully in such difficult circumstances.

He rightly remains as part of Glover’s exciting new regime.

On the field, there were positive signs that the players at Kear’s disposal will give their utmost in 2011, something which could not always be said of the high-earners last year, and that will leave them in equally good stead for the weeks and months ahead in Super League.

Obviously, three of the squad that faced Castleford have since departed but Wakefield’s Super League rivals are largely willing to help out.

Huddersfield, the club which snared the highly-rated Ferguson, have handed over a couple of their bright young talents while Leeds and Warrington have loaned Wildcats some quality they have required for a while.

The most important thing though is that Wakefield now has a genuine chance at being a reputable business.

With a fresh, dynamic duo of Glover and Elston at the helm hopefully it will be open all hours for a long time to come – great news for the club and the game.