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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2017 7:25:40 GMT
When you see how a proper stadium functions it makes you weep.Approaching the stadium at Molineux there were lots of food outlets all doing a roaring trade.No doubt Wolves will get a percentage but everything was top notch.We can but dream. Funny how people see the same things in a different way,as I came down the hill to the ground on Tuesday I thought "what a stink" someone behind me said "what a horrible smell" this was the food outlets.
On the way home we discussed the ground and 'facilities', I stood up at the back but the seats had less leg room than at Southport or Dover. The only other 'facility' that I used was the toilet (once). For me Molineux is big and shiny but we were quite a way back from the pitch and I have been to other grounds with a better view and atmosphere. I know that the crowd was small and the Rovers support did sound loud but I couldn't help thinking back to a night game in the cup at Swansea in the mid 70s,Rovers supporters were on the side at the Vetch that night and the atmosphere was superb,give me a decent view and atmosphere over shiny paint and burger vans,Molineux a bit like some old boiler who has trowelled the make up on.
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Post by badbloodash on Sept 23, 2017 13:59:39 GMT
When you see how a proper stadium functions it makes you weep.Approaching the stadium at Molineux there were lots of food outlets all doing a roaring trade.No doubt Wolves will get a percentage but everything was top notch.We can but dream. Funny how people see the same things in a different way,as I came down the hill to the ground on Tuesday I thought "what a stink" someone behind me said "what a horrible smell" this was the food outlets.
On the way home we discussed the ground and 'facilities', I stood up at the back but the seats had less leg room than at Southport or Dover. The only other 'facility' that I used was the toilet (once). For me Molineux is big and shiny but we were quite a way back from the pitch and I have been to other grounds with a better view and atmosphere. I know that the crowd was small and the Rovers support did sound loud but I couldn't help thinking back to a night game in the cup at Swansea in the mid 70s,Rovers supporters were on the side at the Vetch that night and the atmosphere was superb,give me a decent view and atmosphere over shiny paint and burger vans,Molineux a bit like some old boiler who has trowelled the make up on.
Think it was 78 or 79 Friday night game won 1-0 Martin Thomas absolutely amazing walk back to the station was a nightmare few of us young uns earnt our spurs that night not only the jacks but all the locals out on the razz quite a few who were there no longer with us
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2017 14:49:40 GMT
Funny how people see the same things in a different way,as I came down the hill to the ground on Tuesday I thought "what a stink" someone behind me said "what a horrible smell" this was the food outlets.
On the way home we discussed the ground and 'facilities', I stood up at the back but the seats had less leg room than at Southport or Dover. The only other 'facility' that I used was the toilet (once). For me Molineux is big and shiny but we were quite a way back from the pitch and I have been to other grounds with a better view and atmosphere. I know that the crowd was small and the Rovers support did sound loud but I couldn't help thinking back to a night game in the cup at Swansea in the mid 70s,Rovers supporters were on the side at the Vetch that night and the atmosphere was superb,give me a decent view and atmosphere over shiny paint and burger vans,Molineux a bit like some old boiler who has trowelled the make up on.
Think it was 78 or 79 Friday night game won 1-0 Martin Thomas absolutely amazing walk back to the station was a nightmare few of us young uns earnt our spurs that night not only the jacks but all the locals out on the razz quite a few who were there no longer with us Yes Swansea on a Friday night was a rough old place,a bit like most town and city centres back then. Match was 8.1.79,I would have guessed 77 or 78 . Martin Thomas was amazing that night and Rovers young players did well,Tommy Smith was hard (and dirty I thought) Swansea were 4thh division but on the up big time and their crowd were right behind them,slightly upset at the result they pelted us with milk bottles (remember them?) and beer glasses outside. As you say mate a lot of those who were there are no longer with us,I hope that you are well,we all got to meet up soon.
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Post by a more piratey game on Nov 8, 2017 18:45:07 GMT
Two things we know for sure are : 1) The UWE wanted the stadium on their campus but did not want debt attached to it 2) The Al Qadi family have made their entire investment in Rovers in the form of debt It seems very likely to me that the UWE were insisting on an equity commitment to the stadium project which our owners were not prepared to give. thought it might be timely to remember this..
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Post by a more piratey game on Nov 8, 2017 18:45:54 GMT
Thats the problem, UWE stadium hinged on getting over market value for The Mem land. Whether it was the Al Qadis, NH, or someone else entirely, without Sainsburys the deal needs outside/additional investment which would/will always need to be paid back. The same for any Mem redevelopment unless their is a Lansdown type ready to sinl in tens of millions without thought or return It hinges on what is meant by "paid back" In Dwane Sports case it looks like the pay back is 6% interest on capital, a football business for Wael and potential repayment of capital if the club can substantially increase it's value and be sold. In Steve Lansdown's case it looks like the pay back is a football business for Steve and his son and potential repayment of capital if the club can substantially increase it's value and be sold. In both cases the ongoing price paid for enjoying the football business is substantial trading losses which have to be covered. So far it seems Dwane Sports will cover those losses with more debt which increases the annual loss through higher interest payments whereas Steve Lansdown will cover the losses through a mixture of equity and non interest bearing debt. What is needed is substantial equity investment where the investors pay back is not through interest on capital or simply enjoyment of the football business but through the provision of something tangible which they perceive as being worth the investment. Currently the best source for this kind of investment is the Far East and one would hope the Al Qadi family are already proactive in seeking it. Plenty of Far East investors want a presence in European sport to further their strategic aims and it is possible that, once top clubs are discounted, there will be a filter down effect and lower league clubs could become attractive. Last year the Chinese Ledman group bought an Australian football team, Newcastle Jets, for $5 million and also paid Euros 25 million for a stake in Infront Sports & Media based in Zug Switzerland (my wife's home town). But in addition, to increase their European profile, they have sponsored Portugal's second division "Segunda Liga" which shows they are not afraid to back, with cash, football outside the top flight. It's no use waiting. and this
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Post by a more piratey game on Nov 11, 2017 21:59:25 GMT
It hinges on what is meant by "paid back" In Dwane Sports case it looks like the pay back is 6% interest on capital, a football business for Wael and potential repayment of capital if the club can substantially increase it's value and be sold. In Steve Lansdown's case it looks like the pay back is a football business for Steve and his son and potential repayment of capital if the club can substantially increase it's value and be sold. In both cases the ongoing price paid for enjoying the football business is substantial trading losses which have to be covered. So far it seems Dwane Sports will cover those losses with more debt which increases the annual loss through higher interest payments whereas Steve Lansdown will cover the losses through a mixture of equity and non interest bearing debt. What is needed is substantial equity investment where the investors pay back is not through interest on capital or simply enjoyment of the football business but through the provision of something tangible which they perceive as being worth the investment. Currently the best source for this kind of investment is the Far East and one would hope the Al Qadi family are already proactive in seeking it. Plenty of Far East investors want a presence in European sport to further their strategic aims and it is possible that, once top clubs are discounted, there will be a filter down effect and lower league clubs could become attractive. Last year the Chinese Ledman group bought an Australian football team, Newcastle Jets, for $5 million and also paid Euros 25 million for a stake in Infront Sports & Media based in Zug Switzerland (my wife's home town). But in addition, to increase their European profile, they have sponsored Portugal's second division "Segunda Liga" which shows they are not afraid to back, with cash, football outside the top flight. It's no use waiting. and this more from swissgas very recently on the other site. It's very clearly explained, I think... Dwane Sports acquired Bristol Rovers 1883 Ltd (which owns the football club and the Mem) by refinancing that company's assets. They provided a loan facility of £10 million to Bristol Rovers 1883 Ltd and in the 2016 financial year Bristol Rovers 1883 Ltd used this to : 1) Pay off the MSP Capital loan of £2.7 million 2) Pay off most of the old directors outstanding loans and bonds of £3.5 million (which is why they gifted the shares to Dwane Sports) 3) Pay approximately £1 million to cover trading losses for 2016 This is why the Dwane Sports loan stood at £7.2 million at 30.06.16 In the 17 months since then the club has continued to trade at a loss, which can be estimated at £1.5 million per year, so the loan must be close to £10 million now So all of Dwane Sports "investment" in Bristol Rovers 1883 Ltd has been in the form of a loan and, because of the legal charge, if they want the loan repaid they are entitled to sell the Mem to get that repayment. If the trend from the 2016 accounts is continued, and Nick Higgs and Barry Bradshaw are still owed nearly £1 million between them as they were then, the position would be : Pre acquisition. Loans of about £7 million with annual interest of £420 000 Post acquisition. Loans of about £11 million with annual interest of about £ 650 000 I would suggest that things are considerably worse than before. Even if we are super optimistic and say that substantial new revenue streams will appear in 3 years time it is likely Rovers would be £15 million in debt and running up £1 million per year interest bills by then. The 2016 accounts state that Mr Hani Al Qadi has confirmed his intention to maintain support until at least March 31st 2018. When Nick Higgs found it impossible to carry on covering the losses and looked for someone to take over, and get him out of it, the best offer was apparently the £6.2 million Dwane Sports initially paid. But that was in February 2016 when £6.2 million would clear the whole (MSP) external debt and most of the debt owing to the directors/shareholders. In November 2017, to get the owners out, that figure has risen to £11 million. Who is going to pay £11 million for something which was only worth £6.2 million 17 months ago apart from a property developer who is purely interested in the land and has no interest at all in a loss making, homeless, football club ? I suspect this is the issue which Edward Ware, Gasincider, Severncider, Wael, and many other people with Rovers best interests at heart, are wrestling with at the moment.
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Post by PessimistGas on Nov 12, 2017 8:44:35 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it.
It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'.
I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head.
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Captain Jayho
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Post by Captain Jayho on Nov 12, 2017 9:54:46 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Exactly, and yet by all accounts our spending continues to increase with no indication of how this can be offset. Scary to think where this could end.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 10:31:27 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Exactly, and yet by all accounts our spending continues to increase with no indication of how this can be offset. Scary to think where this could end. Don't worry, Wael has contacts at FIFA and something about the Football Association in Jordan, so he won't let anything bad happen.
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Peter Parker
Global Moderator
Richard Walker
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Post by Peter Parker on Nov 12, 2017 11:10:29 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aything
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 11:22:22 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aything There's not much to understand. If he's right they are paying themselves a very healthy return on their 'investment' in our club and have it secured against the stadium, which they appear to have first dibs secured on just to make 100% sure that their money is safe no matter what. I think they've made a mistake letting UWE slip through their fingers, had they built the thing and developed the training ground, given the manager the money he needs to keep the team at the top of L1 then into the 2nd tier when both facilities were complete then they would have had something that they could have sold on for big bucks.
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Post by PessimistGas on Nov 12, 2017 11:39:32 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aything Yes, you make a fair point and this is something I have wrestled with myself. What can I, as an individual, do about the situation? I guess that the answer is not a great deal so what's the point in worrying about it? But I do worry about it. Only when the number of supporters questioning this reaches a critical mass can pressure be put on the AQ's, hopefully by continuing to talk about these issues and ask searching questions, it will gradually chip away at the rest of the fan base and people will start to wake up. I go on about this to anyone who will listen online and off the forums. 95% just aren't interested and happy to dismiss me a moaner or conspiracy theorist. The prevailing view is that AQ's are still the best thing since sliced bread and any evidence to the contrary is dismissed because they are business geniuses and they know what they are doing. It will change as this situation cannot drag on forever. Either they will sell the club or people will gradually wake up until the critical mass is reached. I hope I am doing my bit in my own small way to try to bring this about as quickly as possible.
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eppinggas
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Post by eppinggas on Nov 12, 2017 12:44:22 GMT
I don't think that "The prevailing view is that AQ's are still the best thing since sliced bread". I thought that for a while, now I do not. Swiss gas started to make some comments back in July and his opinions were unpopular at the time. They have proved prescient. If this forum is a barometer of opinion then I would say 75% now have serious concerns about the Al-Qadi/Dwane Sports ownership. The £10mil revolving credit facility must run out at some stage in the next couple of years (maybe a lot sooner). At that point will the owners actually start to invest their own money in BRFC? I can't see Hani and Al Qadi senior being too benevolent. If a new buyer is not found we could enter a nightmare scenario where they sell the Mem to re-coup their investment and we end up back at Twerton Park. Unlikely, but certainly a possibility. Wael doesn't get to see Rovers any more in this scenario. He lives in Jordan. So I would conclude (as others) that they are actively looking for a new buyer or out-side investment (the latter is unlikely, but you never know). There isn't anything "we" can do. We just get to say "I told you so". And have a cider in the Golden Fleece on the lower Bristol Road.
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Post by Henbury Gas on Nov 12, 2017 17:15:17 GMT
Swiss has laid bare an extremely worrying picture, sadly people just don't want to hear it. It's only discussed at all amongst a handful of 'internet warriors'. I bet they'll care in March 2018 when I have a feeling that the situation is likely to come to a head. Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aythingOr care come to that
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Post by PessimistGas on Nov 12, 2017 18:21:54 GMT
If this forum is a barometer of opinion It really isn't.
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Post by swissgas on Nov 12, 2017 18:29:40 GMT
Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aythingOr care come to that I think it's a shame if fans don't care about the business side of the club. Surely it's obvious that the business side has a direct bearing on the playing side when we see and hear Darrell Clarke being so miserable and not disguising his feelings that things run a lot deeper than just performances on the pitch. I can't help that I'm far removed from Bristol and live matches so my interest tends to centre more on the business side but it's always been that way for me and I can even remember in the early 1980's travelling to London with another Rovers fan to get microfiche copies of the Bristol Stadium Company accounts. It's a discussion subject which bores many fans and upsets others so I do try to be careful what I post but, let loose, I could write pages and pages on this subject ! Thanks to AMPG for putting up my posts from the other forum yesterday. In reply to PP I think you have a fair point but if we can get fans to accept there is a problem then that is the first step towards a solution. On this forum and it's predecessor many of us were highly critical of Nick Higgs' regime although I think we generally accepted they wanted what was best for Rovers but were going about it in completely the wrong way. They failed and so did we because we never managed to persuade them to change course. But that doesn't mean it's wrong to keep trying and we may even find the Al-Qadi family are more receptive to reasoned argument than Nick Higgs. Here is something I just posted on the other forum We are on the same side “knowall” and, with respect, you and others are making the assumption that anyone questioning the owners must be part of that infamous “hidden agenda”. I’ve substantiated how I arrived at loan amounts and interest rates many times and don’t intend going over it again because it’s all in the 2016 accounts. And, as I said in the post above, if the trend from 2016 continues Rovers will owe Dwane Sports £15 million in three years time and be paying them £1 million per annum interest. In the last year the owners have responded quickly to rumours of them wanting to sell the club and of the impending collapse of the UWE Stadium deal but they have remained ominously silent on the question of loan interest. Until the 2017 accounts are finalised they have an opportunity to change their policy of charging interest on their loan and if they did that it would go a long way towards restoring fans’ confidence. Ed Ware, Nick Higgs, Toni Watola and Brian Seymour-Smith are all Rovers supporters who tried to bring success to the club. The fact they failed is no cause for gloating and, as one of their fiercest critics, I would say that if they are now suggesting alternative avenues to explore then it is at least worth listening. Acceptance of the problem is the first step towards a solution. I posted the link to the Hearts FC statement to show that excellent communication isn’t difficult to achieve but when you see it you realize what we have been missing at Rovers for so long. And if you delve further into the way Hearts financed their new grandstand you can see what is possible when there is transparency and when everyone pulls together. www.heartsfc.co.uk/news/6106
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 19:44:36 GMT
Sorry, have I missed something, are Ware, Higgs, Watola and Seymour-Smith proposing something?
Not sure what Ed ever did during his time at Rovers?
BSS, pretty ineffective and doesn't exactly seem to have won the ear of the new owners.
The other 2 don't have a great track record at all. Based on previous performance I'm not sure why anyone would have any interest in what they think would be best to do?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2017 19:47:09 GMT
Swiss has laid bare to a handful of people on the internet. What is expected for us all to go chatting on the terrace about accountng stuff most people dont understand? All any of us are doing is arguing on the web and no one is really doing aythingOr care come to that you comment so you care
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harrybuckle
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Post by harrybuckle on Nov 12, 2017 20:37:38 GMT
Sorry, have I missed something, are Ware, Higgs, Watola and Seymour-Smith proposing something? Not sure what Ed ever did during his time at Rovers? BSS, pretty ineffective and doesn't exactly seem to have won the ear of the new owners. The other 2 don't have a great track record at all. Based on previous performance I'm not sure why anyone would have any interest in what they think would be best to do? Ed Ware was heavily involved in shaping the Youth academy and getting it brought up to a decent standard with coaches, scouting and recruitment. The U16s and 18s were of poor quality and plans were made to try and stop City, Southampton, West Brom etc from poaching the best youngsters within the Bristol Area.
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Post by Henbury Gas on Nov 13, 2017 9:56:05 GMT
I care very much Bulbous, but the majority of them (95% - DC Comment) have no interest in how the club is run.
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