kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 15:13:53 GMT
yes, but he set out to find a buyer and found an 'international consortium' one It's disappointing that nationality comes into it. You get good owners, you get bad owners. It’s just that the foreign buyers have more financial clout, I don’t think anyone is making out it’s about nationality chewy. It’s ALL about the $$$$$$$.
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Jan 24, 2018 15:16:04 GMT
yes, but he set out to find a buyer and found an 'international consortium' one It's disappointing that nationality comes into it. You get good owners, you get bad owners. Bias against individuals based on implications that being an overseas owner should lead to doubts over their character is total nonsense I agree. However, I think it is at least partially relevant that ownership is based and rooted overseas. It means that you can largely rule out the idea of someone owning a club through any kind of 'trusteeship' motivation (there are still a very few UK owners who that applies to) - they are only investing for some kind of personal gain as it is highly likely that they have no prior emotional attachment or broader set of cultural expectations about what owning the club means. Now that personal gain could be all sorts of things - it doesn't imply they are all a bunch of greedy so and so's - they might just want an interesting life (that seems to have been exactly what has happened at Forest for example). But it does imply that the relationship between the fans and the owners is always going to be more transactional and less likely to be aligned I think. It also makes it easier to disinvest in a relatively consequence free way and be less likely to feel obligated to the wider community simply due to the nature of the relationship and the investment that has been made. That can of course happen with British owners too so it doesn't imply a simplistic British owner=good foreign owner=bad mentality or that British ownership is immune to incompetence/malice (that is quite clearly bollocks) but I think it's reasonable to suggest that overseas ownership carries greater levels of potential risk (although it may also carry greater potential rewards too of course).
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 15:29:18 GMT
Now I'm with the OP on this, but there are 34 clubs below us in the top tier and I will always hold onto results being the prime measure of a club, which then attracts the supporters. It would be naive to ignore the extra revenue, and punters, a glitzy stadium bring in, but club management also affects the issue. If all clubs had a mega stadium with all the trimmings, only 20 get to sit round the table laden with TV goodies, (though more TV cash would eventually come to the lower leagues if they all started having squads like Prem sides.) I think also that you have to recognise there is a fair number of supporters happy to sit/stand within the Mem as it with their pre- and post-game rituals, they tend to be the older ones who are in the majority. I don’t think happy is the word most would accept nor feel is relevant but resigned is more what I feel is the feeling I get. Without us older supporters the crowd would be significantly lower. I’ve lost count of the number of entire families who quit going to games here in Kingswood. We desperately need to do something to attract younger supporters and I very much hope Mr Gorringe has quickly seen the average age of our matchday attendances. I would love to see how our home games are attended by age group, as a percentage. That could potentially be something that wakes the right people out of a state of torpor
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Post by fanatical on Jan 24, 2018 16:13:52 GMT
An interesting read with some equally interesting comments - a small correction but it should be noted that the North stand at Eastville was built by the Club in 1960 at a cost of £76000 (with £10000 donated by the supporters Club) and the same season floodlights were installed and paid for by the supporters club for which their Chairman Eric Godfrey was elected to the Football Club Board.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 16:15:57 GMT
What a cracking thread and well done for starting it Chewy. I remember Leicester coming to us in a friendly with a new board who mentioned that they got lucky owning a new ground which the builders didn’t get paid for due to the previous owners going bust.
Great read Irish.
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 16:22:33 GMT
They will have owned the Club for 2 years next month. I don't see anything happening at the Memorial Stadium. I have asked repeatedly (here and directly to the Board) with regard to naming the contractors / employees actively looking at the options available for redeveloping the Memorial Stadium. Big project. Anywhere between £25mil-£45mil. But, no-one knows. Either the best kept secret around - or one would conclude they aren't even thinking about it. This is a project that allegedly kicked off immediately after the UWE Stadium collapse in early August. If you think a full stadium redevelopment is going to happen in the foreseeable future under the current owners - IMHO, you are totally deluded. The list of tangible assets acquired/improved by the owners, amounts to acquiring a field near Almondsbury. Absolutely all systems go there with an opening date for the Training Facility of July 1st 2019. However we have no indication of the budget (apart from it is considerably less than first indicated), and no details on the what the facility will look like, or include. For some people accepting Wael's mantra of "these things take time" is good enough. Well if the majority accept that - they will get what they deserve. Currently that looks like f*** all. We had spent not three, not thirteen, but nearly thirty years since leaving Eastville before the Al Qadi family came to the club. That’s three decades of under investment and under performance, particularly off the pitch. And yet you seem prepared to brush that under the carpet. Absolute rank hypocrisy. I appreciate they are the owners now but I can’t help having some sympathy that they were sold a total pup by Higgs, Boycie and co. With them being bankers & having some very highly educated members within the family, then surely they would have done their due diligence before buying the club or do you believe the the previous chairman & financial director were clever enough to have hidden certain things so well that could not have been seen by any prospective buyers ? I do remember SH’s comment about things coming to light and just before the financial director got the elbow. I’d be shocked if the owners did get sold a pup but I agree that it’s not out of the question. If true then where does that leave us ?
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 16:32:51 GMT
We had spent not three, not thirteen, but nearly thirty years since leaving Eastville before the Al Qadi family came to the club. That’s three decades of under investment and under performance, particularly off the pitch. And yet you seem prepared to brush that under the carpet. Absolute rank hypocrisy. I appreciate they are the owners now but I can’t help having some sympathy that they were sold a total pup by Higgs, Boycie and co. That is a false dichotomy though and I don't think it is brushing anything under the carpet. I don't have to pick between supporting the current owners or defending the previous ones - I think both have significant questions to answer and both have some positives in their favour as well. To the extent that, as a mere fan of a club in near 100% private ownership, I have any influence over this at all (which I know I really don't of course) it is to ask reasonable questions and put some pressure on through having expectations of owners to behave a certain way towards the club (move it forward, put it on firm financial footing, run it well, treat fans decently etc). I certainly don't think I owe the owners of BRFC anything whatsover - once Higgs, Dunford et al. made it clear that the club was going to be run as a private asset for the individuals who invest in it (and they were within their rights to do so of course given the investment they were putting in) and that fan input would be kept at a minimum and arms length then my relationship with the owners of the club became purely transactional. To the extent that 'Twerton Spirit', the concept of BRFC being to some extent an actual club where we were 'all in it together' ever really existed (and that's very debateable) our previous owners decided to permanently move away from that many years ago. Now the point is that they may have had justifiable reasons for doing this but the moment that became the model for our club was the moment that, as a fan, I no longer owed the owners of BRFC anything at and the relationship became based on 'what have you achieved?' and 'what have you done for me lately?' Therefore, Geoff Dunford for all the many criticisms of some of his actions always had my respect for keeping us going through some very difficult years and being the key mover behind our move back to our own stadium in Bristol. In the history of the football club and the context of where we were these were major achievements which won him much deserved credit and make any negative influences from his time in charge pail into relative insignificance really. Nick Higgs- far less so; his balance sheet looks almost entirely negative from my point of view and his engagement with, and arrogant attitude towards, fans came across as very poor and extremely cliquey. The defence is normally that 'at least he kept pumping in the money to keep the club going' - the response to that is that he had to do this because he did so little to move the club forward and put it on a firmer financial footing in any other respect. The best that tends to be said of his time in charge normally amounts to a whole series of increasingly desperate external excuses for well-meaning failure. I was always more cynical than most about this current lot because I think you have to question why a bunch of Jordanian bankers should be looking to invest in a League 2 (at the time) football club. It's obviously not going to be for the love of that club - it will be for other reasons. Now it could be that the interests of these owners and the fans will be aligned but there's also quite a good chance that there will be times when those interests are not aligned which seems like it may be the case currently. So, yes, thanks for stepping in and bailing us out of the mess the previous lot got us into but I'm assuming this was not done out of the goodness of their heart and I was never leaping up and down thinking these people were our saviours. Now the UWE project has collapsed, the training complex has been downscaled and there seem to be other issues around investment in the squad, long term planning and possibly commitment levels. None of this is decisive but it is concerning and dissapointing. They are definitely not meeting the 'what have you done for me lately?' criteria currently and much of the original optimism and ambition seems to have been deflated. Given who these owners are I think it is reasonable that questions about their commitment levels are being raised and worry about how they will be looking to get a return on their investment. That's not hypocrisy - it's justifiable concern and frustration. To be fair, I also question the whole 'evolution not revolution' thing. In the current context of the football league and given how far behind we are of many clubs and the increasingly growing gap between League 1 and the Championship (with revenue likely to increasingly soar at Championship level while remaining fairly static in League 1) then I don't honestly think evolution is going to cut it really - we actually need a revolution. Fantastic post. If Carlsberg did football forums. I doff my cap to you sir. I am not worthy
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vaughan
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Post by vaughan on Jan 24, 2018 16:51:33 GMT
How many times can we have the same thread?
We are all trying to second-guess the level of financial commitment for ground improvements.
It's all guesswork. Surely someone should have pinned Wael on the Blackpool dance floor and asked him metaphorically to cough up his plan.
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eppinggas
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Post by eppinggas on Jan 24, 2018 17:05:45 GMT
the observation was made in response to kp's assertion that there is kudos for foreign owners in owning a British club - and so supporting his assertion. I hadn't got as far as thinking whether it's good or bad Fair enough. Personally I'm against individuals bank rolling clubs, it's a single point of failure and can go wrong either way. In Blackpool's case the good guy wasn't the local businessman but a foreign investor. Depends on the individual and how much money they are happy to spend on their toy. My understanding is that chelsea fans are generally happy with Roman Abramovich.
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dinsdale
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Post by dinsdale on Jan 24, 2018 17:45:51 GMT
Well done chewbacca, great research. Problem is it just makes everything so much worse!! Blimey, even Rochdale and Exeter have got new stuff! 😂 UTG! The new board are s**t the old board were s**t the only difference is Wael is a good actor
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 17:55:12 GMT
How many times can we have the same thread? We are all trying to second-guess the level of financial commitment for ground improvements. It's all guesswork. Surely someone should have pinned Wael on the Blackpool dance floor and asked him metaphorically to cough up his plan. Isn’t that the entire reason for a forum vaughan ? We, due to lack of information and lack of communication, plus being given false information & being misled, are only able to guess. Maybe in the hope that someone at the club ( we know you’re reading this now whoever you are] is reading this and may even decide they could be more open and give us something to talk about. Many have been waiting many decades in the hope that we could at last have something fantastic happen. This thread is one of the best I’ve seen and I’ve learned a few things so I’m certainly happy to read the posts. What else can we do but speculate mate ? All because we do not get any decent information upon which we could post about instead
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
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Post by kingswood Polak on Jan 24, 2018 17:59:28 GMT
Fair enough. Personally I'm against individuals bank rolling clubs, it's a single point of failure and can go wrong either way. In Blackpool's case the good guy wasn't the local businessman but a foreign investor. Depends on the individual and how much money they are happy to spend on their toy. My understanding is that chelsea fans are generally happy with Roman Abramovich. As are the bornmuff supporters. I don’t know their owners name but it has been said that he is wealthier than Mr Roman Abramovich. Once you get to the prem there is not the pressure to fill seats, due to the huge TV money. It’s quite hard to digest that a club getting 11K gates are in the prem eh
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vaughan
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Post by vaughan on Jan 24, 2018 18:07:55 GMT
The analysis is always good - but never the answers we seek for clarity.
When he is on Radio Bristol next?
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Post by PessimistGas on Jan 24, 2018 20:42:24 GMT
We had spent not three, not thirteen, but nearly thirty years since leaving Eastville before the Al Qadi family came to the club. That’s three decades of under investment and under performance, particularly off the pitch. And yet you seem prepared to brush that under the carpet. Absolute rank hypocrisy. I appreciate they are the owners now but I can’t help having some sympathy that they were sold a total pup by Higgs, Boycie and co. More like 77 years of under-investment since BRFC lost the freehold to Eastville. Although I think the time when Geoff Dunford engineered the move back to Bristol and the consequent acquisition of the Mem freehold deserves very high praise indeed. Where was I 'sweeping (history) that under the carpet'? I am simply staying on topic. I am dealing with NOW - and not what may or may not have happened prior to February 19th, 2016. With all due respect - you probably need to look up the dictionary reference for the meaning of the word "hypocrisy". As for "sympathy". If the Al-Qadi family were rushed into making a significant investment decision without (pretty obvious by now) doing due diligence... then... tough sh*t. That's business. I love Higgs gets it in the neck for selling them a pup but not the AQ's for not doing their homework. Ignoring the worryimg timeline from February 2016 onwards and just saying they need more time smacks of self delusion. Appointing then dropping the guy oversaw Wembley etc. Promises of Cat 2 Academy (Which definitely isn't being scaled back it's being done in stages because that's how these things are done -eh?) The 18 months of silence until the UWE news was leaked. The lack of sufficient / conflicting information about why it collapsed. No plan B in place. The assertion that we will redevelop the Mem because we have a beautiful peice of land followed by no progress for 6 months. Hamer hadn't even spoken to them about it in December. These are only some main highlights, There is much, much more. 77 years of underinvestment and incompetence look like continuing.
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dinsdale
Andy Rammell
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Post by dinsdale on Jan 24, 2018 21:25:35 GMT
The owners should spend some money or f off simples. This long walk to oblivion is already boring just leave and give us a chance to sort something
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:10:06 GMT
I dont agree that were further behind,we have a decent development set up and we have the colony land. Regarding the cat 2 academy i think the reality of the cost of running that has hit home. There the only owners we have and nobody has produced a shred of evidence that they intend to harm the club or not improve the club. Nobody. But there is evidence of statements made, telling us one thing but then nothing happens or plans have drastically changed. Meanwhile the grass grows longer at the proposed academy which will not now be the academy promised but a training ground, landing lights etc. It’s vital we maintain our league one status righ now and I believe this transfer window will show us, exactly, if we are being run to progress or not. The clock is ticking @blueiris as we cannot truly believe DC will stay if not given some backing. I believe that we could potentially be looking into the abyss within 3 more seasons if we carry on in the manner we are now. Lets revisit this after the window closes. As always, I hope I am proved wrong but nothing suggests to me that we are evolving. We are just about treading water and that is down to DC’s ability to get players to overachieve. I think were good enough to stay up regardless of january signings,i dont want us to make desperate signings. I agree there are lots of things that havnt happened that steve hamer suggested there was a good chance of happening. I just think after the setbacks theres nothing to gain by demonising the owners and we would be better off giving them a chance to improve the football club.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:21:18 GMT
The history of investment and management is poor. However its too soon imo to judge the new owners. I for one will be giving them a chance to take the club forward after the UWE setback. They took over a club already years behind most clubs. They immediately said we would have to wait some more as gave us the evolution not revolution line so basically not to expect anything in terms of large sums of money exchanging hands. We have the team we have ONLY due to DC and he and they have done a magnificent job, against the background of no forward thinking in backing him. We have a team made up of players from the national league, Hayes & Yeading, the armed forces, Eastleigh & Salisbury, let that sink in for a bit. DC is the one, single driving force. How I wish he was given the funding to bring in at least 2-3 of his first choice players. The owners also financed the signing of proven league 1 forward tom nichols for £200-300k as well as proven league 1 midfield player liam sercombe not to mention proven league 1 goalkeeper adam smith. I know for a fact that dc wanted a much bigger budget than he was given which is a shame. Dc has stated that the salary cap is restricting his ability to bring players to the club. We need a better ground/infrastructure/commercial operation etc to progress. I just believe the owners need to be given time to achieve these things.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:36:41 GMT
Fair enough. Personally I'm against individuals bank rolling clubs, it's a single point of failure and can go wrong either way. In Blackpool's case the good guy wasn't the local businessman but a foreign investor. Depends on the individual and how much money they are happy to spend on their toy. My understanding is that chelsea fans are generally happy with Roman Abramovich. Yes and city fans are happy with lansdown while wolves fans are chuffed with their owners who have simply gave their clubs millions of pounds that they may never get back. Thats the bottom line really everyone thought we were getting a steve lansdown despite wael explaining right from the outset he wasnt one.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:40:34 GMT
Well done chewbacca, great research. Problem is it just makes everything so much worse!! Blimey, even Rochdale and Exeter have got new stuff! 😂 UTG! The new board are s*** the old board were s*** the only difference is Wael is a good actor Thats the sort of slur that people love making along with "fake sheiks" etc despite having zero facts to back up their catchy sun newspaper like comment.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 23:43:48 GMT
More like 77 years of under-investment since BRFC lost the freehold to Eastville. Although I think the time when Geoff Dunford engineered the move back to Bristol and the consequent acquisition of the Mem freehold deserves very high praise indeed. Where was I 'sweeping (history) that under the carpet'? I am simply staying on topic. I am dealing with NOW - and not what may or may not have happened prior to February 19th, 2016. With all due respect - you probably need to look up the dictionary reference for the meaning of the word "hypocrisy". As for "sympathy". If the Al-Qadi family were rushed into making a significant investment decision without (pretty obvious by now) doing due diligence... then... tough sh*t. That's business. I love Higgs gets it in the neck for selling them a pup but not the AQ's for not doing their homework. Ignoring the worryimg timeline from February 2016 onwards and just saying they need more time smacks of self delusion. Appointing then dropping the guy oversaw Wembley etc. Promises of Cat 2 Academy (Which definitely isn't being scaled back it's being done in stages because that's how these things are done -eh?) The 18 months of silence until the UWE news was leaked. The lack of sufficient / conflicting information about why it collapsed. No plan B in place. The assertion that we will redevelop the Mem because we have a beautiful peice of land followed by no progress for 6 months. Hamer hadn't even spoken to them about it in December. These are only some main highlights, There is much, much more. 77 years of underinvestment and incompetence look like continuing. What do you suggest the supporters do then? Are they like the oystons at blackpool?
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