How much more can we take? The last four years of drift...

I would say little / no hope now as things have moved on as time frames will not wait for ever and I’ve lost faith.
I’m not going to name who ‘blocked’ and the reality is I don’t know as I don’t know what discussions happened at the club and it’s not right for me to go into detail of who I held discussions with and the specific circumstances involved.
I’m not going to go public as the scheme will simply go public on its own merits in due course ( if successful ) and there are other parties to consider. I’m certainly not going to jeopardise the overall project for the sake of an un engaged party who have had every opportunity to discuss it further.

Hi John,
My name is David Townsend and I have nothing to do with anything you mention above.
Regards

You have missed the nail this time John.

I also know of this and knew of it at the time and have a lot of respect for those involved.

Edit: I see Dave has named himself.

OK - understood, thanks.
This is important. "If" the Board have not engaged and not tried their level best to pursue the option of a new stadium scheme, then that's their credibility very badly damaged. 
The last we had was 18 months ago before the Blackpool game when "we (someone?) identified the Fruit Market as the No.1 target".  
I think we've cut Wael a lot of slack over the last year. Right now, on balance, I'm still behind him. He's keeping the Club afloat during the pandemic and work on the Training Ground progresses. (Though of course internal debt is high and rising and that makes me very nervous. On the pitch - it's shambles). 
But another failed attempt to look at every opportunity and finally secure find a new stadium UWE / UWEv2 / Fruit Market / AN Other... that tips the balance the other way. For me. 

 

Well looking at this from afar, it looks as if Wael has surrounded himself with a board of job preservationists, none of which have ever run a business in their lives before, always employees. The club is now a proprietary business and one mans toy, a man who has no interest in anyone else playing with his toy, if Wael were a racehorse he would be called False Dawn. If I were to guess who blocked the alternative property proposal due to lack of creditability then it would be the elder brother who is probably very much still in the mix.
Somebody in the family must soon say that's it, this is a dead in the water hobby of our kid brother, we have given him 5 years playing with his toy at a cost of £24 million with nothing to show for it. When the drawbridge is lifted which surely can't be far off then that's when the danger signs and red flag will appear, the charge on the Mem is a worry for what ever is said about it been retained for future capitalisation reasons, the future looks very grim, massive overheads every week with no income coming the other way, somebody will order the life support machine to be switched off and recover some money from somewhere and then the fans will be left holding the baby.

You seem really confident that it will end soon, are you in the know?
I thought the rest of the family were no longer involved so its down to Wael when he pulls rather than family pressure but you seem to know different....

Things have moved on since 2019 but the principle behind that proposal still remains. 

So the question is, if a credible plan is put forward which could provide Rovers with the chance of a new stadium and future prosperity would Wael even consider it if it meant he had to relinquish control and make a huge financial sacrifice ?

If he isn't willing to consider any plans which may contain this proviso then Gasheads should be aware of it. 

Many will say "it's his business, he can do what he likes" and carry on encouraging his way of managing Rovers till we reach the end of the road.

Others may say "we need to attempt to persuade Wael that it's in Rovers best interests and his best interests for him to try a new approach and be willing to make sacrifices"    

Get garner back after all it is still his team. They have matured a little since he was sacked. Perhaps he could now offer a little bit of chutney on the side.

What if they don’t have to contain this proviso though? Wael could sell part of the club to investors but retain overall control to raise funds, he could strike a deal like UWE where the club leases land or shares ownership of the land with other parties, he could even fund it out of his or his families funds, I know they aren’t fabulously wealthy but its not a complete stretch of the imagination if Wael possessed total commitment to delivering a new stadium. I think the majority of supporters would understand if Wael didn’t want to lose control the club and make a considerable investment just to get a stadium, as long as he could reassure them that he had a plan to deliver the stadium to the football club by other means.

I don’t necessarily see it a bad thing if Wael wouldn’t want to give up control of the club even if did mean the club doesn’t get a stadium either, does the club in the long term want to be owned 76% by venture capitalists who have been sold a vision of the club being profitable at a stadium that hasn’t been built yet as per your suggestion? In my experience in business, you draw up firm plans for expansion then ask for investment to see it through not the other way round. It doesn’t matter how good of a business plan you’ve drawn up, it’s not going to attract significant amounts of investment unless the premise it’s built on, in your case the lease of the FM, is likely to become a reality as well.

Wael mustn’t get drawn into the trap of selling our soul for a new stadium, we’ve seen it happen with Coventry and it could easily happen to us if either our relationship was to sour with future lessor or if the 76% that invest run us into the ground. We need a new stadium by all means but not at all costs.

These experienced people who Wael associated with 5 years ago that you refer to, I’m assuming this is people like Michael Cunnah, Lee Atkins, Mike Turner. Is the assumption that they are all somehow more trustworthy and that Karim/Starnes/Gorringe/Widdrington are just yes men based on age and experience or something? There’s no tangible evidence out there that backs this up, neither me or you has ever been present at a board meeting before, Gorringe could dig his heels in at every suggestion Wael makes whilst Turner could have been agreeable to his suggestions for all we know.

In fact it’s quite natural after there’s a transfer in ownership, in this case from the family to Wael, that the new regime should change the composition of the board room to reflect this. If your logic is that the new guys are yes men for Wael because he knows them better, then who’s to say the old board members with their association to the Al Qadi family weren’t just yes men for them? In that case if they are so much better than the new board members, are you saying that you trusted the Al Qadi family’s direction for the the club back then more than you trust Wael’s now? From the noises coming out of the club it sounds like Wael is far more committed to building a new stadium than Hani ever was, though I could of course be wrong.

Finally I don’t like this implied notion that just because people heaped praise on Wael in the summer for funding the training ground and capitalising the loans (rightly so), they aren’t critical about any other aspect of his ownership and will just blindly follow him no matter what he does. I think most have woken up to the fact that Wael’s gamble on Garner and his vision was on reflection a poor move and have questioned Widdrington’s appointment to the board.