G Coughlan...

Are you defining professionalism as increasing losses from £1 million pa to £4 million pa and mortgaging all Rovers assets to Nationwide Finance. Ltd ?

The training ground is costing £500 000 pa to run and the South Stand is costing around £200 000 pa in interest charges alone. As things stand today these developments are not assets they are liabilities. Both projects went ahead without any forethought and Rovers are now paying the price for that as cash continues to drain out of the business.

The Al-Saeeds are fighting to keep the club afloat and it doesn’t help them to pretend that Wael’s ownership was anything other than a financial disaster.

I stated what sort of professionalism the ALQs brought in immeadiately. That obviously comes at a cost that any owner would have to foot if we can't earn that money. However we are certainly drawing more money commercially than we ever have done.

By professionalism do you mean the nutritionists and extra medical staff introduced in 2016 which B***** described as useless when he came in and demanded a great reset. If this professionalism was working why did he do that and why did the club allow him to ?

There is no point is generating more commercial income if your expenditure increases at a faster rate and I’m afraid that is exactly what happened. Tom was very keen to tell everyone about increased income but kept the increased expenditure hidden which he wouldn’t have got away with in a professional organization. 



Football clubs are liabilities, one huge one. The red side write off 10x the amount we do per year to be approximately 20 places higher in the football pyramid. We could go back to running at £1M losses, but we wouldn't be a L1 club trying to get to the champ, we would be an Exeter bouncing between the divisions every few years once you have sold all your playing assets.


If you listened to Hussain Al- Saeeds first interview he said the aim should be to build the club and improve the infrastructure step by step so that we can be sustainable in the Championship. This is what I’ve been proposing for a long time because there is no point in losing £4 million a year just for the sake of it which is what Rovers have been doing. Much better to cut costs to a competitive level and use the surplus to invest in infrastructure so when we get to the Championship we can be competitive.


I agree that Wael has lost a million or 2 that he probably didn't need to do with better advice surrounding him.


The figure is closer to £30 million.


I agree the stand is a funny proposition. I've always maintained the position that redeveloping the Mem to any degree is a dead duck as it's impossible to create anything that draws additional revenue on that particular space. But if we can't move/have no intention of moving then we have to do something which comes at a huge cost.


Do you agree that no forethought was put into the South Stand development ?  If the old South Stand was being condemned by the SAG and needed to be replaced then there were two sensible options to take.

One was to replace it with a more modern temporary structure with a similar or slightly increased capacity. This would have had the advantage of being in place for the start of this season so there would have been no drop in ticket revenue. And it would have come at a fraction of the cost of the Arena Solutions structure so there would have been no need for the Nationwide Finance loan.

The other was to make it the first stage of a regenerated Mem which would have given Gasheads something serious to cheer after the FM fell through. We could have persuaded the SAG to allow the old stand to be used for one more  season so ticket revenue would be maintained. And we should then have had 16 months to gain planning permission and build a modern and aesthetically pleasing stand which could be ready for the 24/25 season.


But what we have done is spend a large amount of money and taken out a big mortgage to increase capacity to a level which we don’t actually need. Our average attendance has only exceeded 9000 once in the past 45 years so capacity is not the problem. It makes no commercial sense to gamble on spending £3 million and incurring interests costs of £200 000 pa for the two or three times per season when we might need it. Rovers problem is sustainability and the way to create this is to minimize costs and maximize revenue which is why for the last fifteen years we’ve talked about the importance of finding ways to use our stadium seven days per week and generate new revenue streams. The new South Stand does nothing to address that issue and unless Rovers can increase attendances by at least 1000 for every game it will be an extra cost burden. I think the Al- Saeeds acknowledged this when they said the new stand will improve safety and comfort for our own and visiting spectators which is what it will do. They made no claim about it being a revenue producer because it won’t be and I think if they had come on the scene earlier a different decision would have been made.


You say the AS are fighting to keep the club afloat, are you saying that these guys don't have the money to keep us at the current level of loss? Or is that supposition on your part?


Judging by the interviews which Hussain Al- Saeed has given his objective is to make the club sustainable. I don’t know what degree of loss making he considers sustainable but doubt it is £4 million pa. The question I have is over the Nationwide Finance loan which I should have thought would have been paid off or refinanced at a lower rate with a mainstream lender. But if they are working on a plan to make the club sustainable I think we should support that with patience even if it means the stadium and training ground development takes longer than we should  like and the manager has to be given time to create a successful football operation.

I think we were so far from modern professionalism in terms of off the field footballing operation that everyone underestimates what we need and how much it costs. We went from having a manager, an assistant manager a kit man and a physio. We had no scouting network and rented a pitch on a sportfield we could only use for a few hours a day. I had long chat with DC at the start of the season and he doesnt remember being manager at the start of his reign with as much fondness as you may think in terms of what we had to offer facilities wise. It was a huge struggle.




Agree.


I think that what we have with the South Stand is as best as you will get in that area without moving the pitch towards the east stand which will need taking out first.  That increases the costs significantly.  


It was a reply to your original post that we have only exceeded 9000 average attendance a couple of times.  If the stadium can only house 9500 anyway, with poor offerings on facilities then youll never stand a chance of attracting new or returning attendees anyway.

For example, families and disabled supporters with their careers.  My 5 year old wouldnt want to stand up for 3+ hours but im lucky enough to have seats in a box.  But the fans that cant access seating, it gives them an opportunity.  We can also then maximise the bigger games for away teams that have larger followings.  For example, Portsmouth would have easily bought another 1000 fans on Boxing Day.  It also gives us more of an opportunity to offer some marketing initiatives to try and increase the fan base as you say through reduced family ticketing.  It's as much about broadening opportunity as it is collecting more money, which is what will move us to being more sustainable.   

Not exactly.  I have been critical of some of the things that ALQs did and openly wrote them on forums and said them directly to them.  I agree with you that Wael probably spent more than he needed, didnt surround himself with the best people but he his intentions were always good and proper.  I'll reference a conversation I had with DC again at the beginning of the season where he said he believed that "if Hani and Hamer werent involved from the beginning then Wael would have delivered the UWE and probably had done many things very differently."  He also admitted his frustration at the lack of progress on facilities spilled over into the press and he said Wael was the best owner to date that he has worked for.  

He left us with the all previous debts fully capitalised, the first training facility we have owned since we sold off Hambrook with scope for development to make that beneficial to the club whilst giving us a superb base from which to work from and the first stand built at the stadium in 70 odd years (if you dont count temporary stands at Twerton and the Mem). 

What I dont like is the lack of appreciation of what he did keeping us afloat through the pandemic, being overly critical to the point of spreading false information as facts, as well as the support that some gave the SC and PC and the dirty tricks they tried to employ to embezzle an innocent man.  People take that defence I took of him and assume I think the sun shines out of his arse.  I dont at all.  I would have taken the same defence if it was you in his shoes.  I can see that there are lots of things that should have been done differently.  



My wife offered to help the club on 3 different occasions with their PR and Media for free (Her business specialises in Marketing and PR and she has some very good high profile clients) for free over the years.  To give them guidance on setting up a media department, helping with PR communication from owners to management and players, how it should be done and what to say, how to say it and when.  Cover all the basics.  The offer was knocked back each time.  Yesterdays interview was a classic example of why the club needs someone with this specialisation to assist and help them.  The club has needed this help since 2007 when media started to be very important as a way of not just communication but growing your brand.  Another trick we missed and are playing catch up on.

Stop being a WUM Kevin. Why do you feel the need to come at me?  What have I done to you?  As far as I know, we have never met or conversed except when you followed me on twitter once. I was told recently by someone that you laid a trap some time ago by telling Wael something false and seeing if I repeated it. Perhaps I did, perhaps I didnt, I dont know what the piece of information was as they couldnt tell me, but its highly unlikely I was told anything that confidential, simply because I've never asked for confidential information, and I dont speak to any of the owners or directors regularly enough to be that person they would tell. So it begs the question why you needed to lie about something to see if I was a threat to whatever it was you were trying to sidle in on?  I certainly have no idea as I have never been a big fish in the Bristol Rovers pond.  In fact I've never been in the pond at all.  I have no agenda and certainly dont need anything from anyone, especially from Wael Al Qadi.

Now that might automatically elevate his status to you and earn him some kudos to chuck his weight around a bit, but that doesnt work for me.  If you want to try and WUM me thats fine, but i'll call you out and if I do, dont expect it to be overly courteous...

Stop being a WUM Kevin. Why do you feel the need to come at me?  What have I done to you?  As far as I know, we have never met or conversed except when you followed me on twitter once.

I was told recently by someone that you laid a trap some time ago by telling Wael something false and seeing if I repeated it. Perhaps I did, perhaps I didnt, I dont know what the piece of information was as they couldnt tell me, but its highly unlikely I was told anything that confidential, simply because I've never asked for confidential information, and I dont speak to any of the owners or directors regularly enough to be that person they would tell.

So it begs the question why you needed to lie about something to see if I was a threat to whatever it was you were trying to sidle in on?  I certainly have no idea as I have never been a big fish in the Bristol Rovers pond.  In fact I've never been in the pond at all.   

I have no agenda and certainly dont need anything from anyone, especially from Wael Al Qadi. 

Oh bless you, you've been caught out being a Sh!thouse behind someones back by talking about them and you want to get all forum police as a response because you've been called out! I'm not the one who started being personal as I've never met you but you seem to have the need to gossip about me behind my back.  You're nothing to do with Rovers and haven't been for many years so why is little old me of such an interest to you then and now?  

Whatever the reasons for your little act of skullduggery it really would have been better for you to come and me or contact me personally and having a chat.  But as I often find with sh!thouses, they dont have the guts and would prefer to use other mediums.  It seemed to be the old Bristol Rovers way as Chappell, Masters and Harding used to do the same.  The bravado they administer privately soon falls out of your arse when confronted.

As for what "uncle Ed may have told me" it wasn't him who did regale that tale, it was very rare he ever told me anything about the inner sanctum and he's certainly never said anything about you and why would he?