I think it is important to classify that fan ownership has many different forms - if this current form of fan ownership is unsustainable it may be that another form> @Malone said:
@micra, son, son son.
The guy using infer instead of imply, really isn't the big issue on discussion here!
Broken window theory.
You let an "infer" go and the whole place goes to shit and there's text speak and emojis and everything.
@ChasHarps said:
Reading very loosely between the lines of Marlowchairs earlier post. "That,the bid or bidder haven't been involved with WWFC in recent years"
I wonder if that's the Harman brothers ? Owners of Annodata ?
They were rumoured to have been interested a few years ago ?
I can assure you that they no longer own Annodata and the current position is that they are not interested in urinating away a load of money for begger all return or very little control.
@EwanHoosaami
Ive just read that Andy Harman had sold Annodata in April, for a company that was having a turnover of 80 million, he must have received an awful lot of wedge for the sale ?
Your remark "and the current position is that they are not interested in urinating away a load of money for begger all return or very little control."
It was rumoured this was the situation a few years ago, and the difficulty they may have had working with certain individuals.
Hi Marlowchair - so obviously you know the group in question. In your opinion are they suitable? You also mentioned they have experience with another EFL club, did that relationship go well?
How long have our club representatives known about this approach?
I appreciate you would not want to name these people right now and I also appreciate your concerns, as you obviously have the clubs interest at heart. From your posts on this topic I can see you are a person with first hand experience and knowledge of what is going on inside the club, so a truthful response to my questions would be particularly helpful.
@mooneyman said:
After the fiasco of Sharky's reign, I can't see that any proposal to sell the club, however attractive on paper, will succeed in getting the necessary majority of votes. If I recall correctly this is 75%.
If we are going to sustain our league status long term it's vital that we get some investment from somewhere, otherwise it's only a matter of time before we face another Torquay experience.
Going to be an interesting meeting for sure.
My thoughts are that we need the club to be run under the current model with better leadership , visit control and experience before we can possibly know if we can survive under this model in the leagues.
It’s as simple as that. Our club is running currently with no member of the executive team with any league 1 experience or higher. The chairman has no sports executive experience nor does the financial director or any other football director other than Mr beeks who is an appointed honorary president. The sporting director has no experience at this level but had racing car team experience in a pro am competition designed for rich men to self fund a drive for themselves.
None of this is to be personally critical , rather to demonstrate the genuine lack of experience and demonstrable skill set and results we have been operating under .
We haven’t given supporter ownership a good go yet until we have qualified and experienced management in place to run it should sustainably.
I just don't see a fan owned model being able to generate anywhere near the amount of money that we would need to be competitive at this level. Especially when you take into consideration that, unlike Exeter, we don't have an academy to generate a flow of revenue into the club.
Club's like Salford City are two levels beneath us and their wage bill must be at least three times the size of ours, there's probably in fact half a dozen non league clubs that have a bigger playing budget than WWFC currently.
We might be getting away with it currently but it only takes GA to go to QPR and a new manager to sign a handful of Richard Logan's and we are really up the creek.
However, no one wants to see the club slip into the wrong hands and every possible step must be taken to ensure that anyone gaining an interest in WWFC has been vetted to the hilt.
@Morris_Ital I think you can rest assured that those trying to convince you that what is on offer is a good deal will be pushing your point b) as being the only, inevitable, disastrous outcome of not approving their proposal.
Enough people believed Ivor Beeks when he pushed that scenario a few years back that they voted firstly for a change to the 500 shares model and subsequently when, buoyed by his first success, he went on to push it more strongly, to sell the club to Steve Hayes overall control.
How many will believe it this time around? Having been through the Hayes experience, my thoughts are that people will be rather more cautious and less willing to accept the arguments for change.
@Uncle_T , you'd think people would be more cautious, but as I put on a previous post, and you can read through this thread, there's already a number of posters entertaining the idea of a takeover/investor.
This is about 5-6 years after such an example almost lead to bankruptcy and disaster!
At least in history you normally go a century or so and a few generations before the people make the same mistake (not that all investors may be such a thing)
I don't think there is a cat in hells chance that the club will get the requisite number of votes, regardless of the merits or otherwise of any offer put on the table. The previous debacle is still to fresh in the mind of most supporters.
`Has this been cunningly timed to be raised at a time when we're "struggling" on the pitch to some extent, rather than when we were bossing it in the league below?
lets just hope that any consortium that that the board have been talking to, are nothing
like the last group of 'dodge pots' that Mr Stroud and co originally recommended. And the due diligance, is far more thorough than on that gang, which failed to show up on two occasions before trust members.
@DevC said:
Anyone know how many legacy members exist?
I believe the figure is in the 600s, but I could be wrong. It is basically trust members who have held a season ticket for at least the last four years, as I understand.
@NorsQuarters said:
Come to think of it, It would be a potentially lucrative investment to sponsor a youth team for a percentage of sell on fees. A gamble for all concerned but the closest to a win-win situation I have come up with. Throw into the mix our(?) training ground and there could be interest shown without putting the very foundation of fan-ownership at risk. Thoughts?
Not allowed under third party rules unfortunately.FA put a big red line through that kind of horse trading.right or wrong is another topic for good discussion.
@Malone said: @micra, son, son son.
The guy using infer instead of imply, really isn't the big issue on discussion here!
Well spotted @Malone. @peterparrotface hits the nail on the head when he uses the broken window analogy. I also agree with his first paragraph although it frustratingly “petered” out before he completed his assertion.
I’ve said all I have to say on the issue at stake (and all I feel competent to say in the absence of information about potential benefactors and their motivation) - namely that I recognise the kind of factors which suggest that current funding arrangements are unlikely to meet the cost of running a League 1 club on a sustainable basis.
Beyond that and pending the revelation of detailed information at the General Meeting on 12 September I can only endorse the wise words of, eg, @StrongestTeam, @aloysius and @DevC.
I doubt whether the latter will be able to make it to the meeting but I hope the other two will be present to probe and to articulate their thoughts.
If there is a live stream, can those of you physically attending be so kind as to wear green top hats with your gasroom usernames emblazoned on the front in gold? It would be great to put more names to faces.
@micra said: @marlowchair: the people you sardonically describe as “....great men propping up our cash flow...” are not, to the best of my knowledge, exclusively male. At the end of that paragraph (the third) you say that what you claim we will be told, if not spelt out in terms, will be inferred. I assume you meant implied. They imply; we infer. Sadly, however, the use of infer to mean imply is becoming increasingly common.
SemantIcs around my gramatic misuse of a word here and there are not worth deflecting the discussion towards Micra. You have good knowledge of the identities and gender of our major donors so I’ll leave it to you to back up your words with the information here along with their relationship to sitting directors .
For the record I see naff all wrong with it nor any relevance to their gender, why you’d attempt to IMPLY otherwise is anyone’s guess
Well, I'm heartened by the level of discussion this time around and by some really excellent posts and suggestions. Last time was a disaster - never forget that. However, i'd keep an open mind, but want to scrutinise any proposals carefully and thoroughly.
DevC said upthread, "Sadly rogues don't necessarily wear a label on their forehead shouting "rogue" however." Which is true - but some people can spot them more easily and more quickly than previous Directors/Chairmen of the club. (thats what happened with SteveH's obvious mismanagement of the club, when the people who introduced him were saying that everything in the garden was perfectly rosy! So beware if any of those people are involved this time!)
So, I would want to follow the money - ie who benefits from any transaction? Who gets loans repaid and interest paid? Who gets land bought back and at what price? Should those people be involved in influencing the debate?
And then evaluate the proposals.
Final thought - perhaps, as previous poster said, league 2 and occasional league 1 is what we can afford? People who believe that we can even entertain any ideas of championship are misguided at best, manipulative at worst and will take us on a path to extinction. IMHO.
@marlowchair said:
The sporting director has no experience at this level but had racing car team experience in a pro am competition designed for rich men to self fund a drive for themselves.
I would need to take some exception to this statement. At lower levels of the sport I could possibly agree with you.
But seeing as Mr Howard’s racing team has/does field multiple Aston Martins with multiple Paid drivers (for each car) at events such as the Le Mans series which will require a full team of developers, mechanics etc etc for each car, it’s slightly more involved than a rich man funding himself to go racing. The cars alone would be thundreda (if not millions) of pounds to buy, before you even start on the rest of the team budget.
I actually think running a succeasful racing team is probably as close as you can get to running a football team (without actually running a football team) and gives unique ”out of the box” thinking a lower league club needs to drive interest towards it.
The only better positon for a man of his expirence would be a sporting director role - which is exactly what he moved to.
the thing that I find most puzzling about all of this is @marlowchair’s obfuscation in relation to the previous debates.
Assuming (I know) that the nub of this debate is correct and that he (potentially she) was aware of this week’s ago, why not make it clear then, rather than the nod/winks type of comments?
There is nothing on here that seems particularly implausible or that unreasonable or anything that it wouldn’t be acceptable to discuss without bringing in the names of the potential investors.
@marlowchair has finally made clear his/her concerns (I don’t think it was just me who couldn’t read between the lines) which as now presented (a ‘better’ board would have managed the clubs finances better and we wouldn’t be quite as desperate to listen to offers) appears a valid matter of discussion.
But why couldn’t this have been said in the first place?
Comments
Sorry @Malone that previous message was in reply to you the quote function didn’t work
I think it is important to classify that fan ownership has many different forms - if this current form of fan ownership is unsustainable it may be that another form> @Malone said:
Broken window theory.
You let an "infer" go and the whole place goes to shit and there's text speak and emojis and everything.
I can assure you that they no longer own Annodata and the current position is that they are not interested in urinating away a load of money for begger all return or very little control.
Is there anyone with experience of running a fan owned club in the premier league or championship? Does such a person exist?
Mike Ashley? Sports Direct Park.....happy just to stay in League One and keep getting the broadcast money from Quest...
@EwanHoosaami
Ive just read that Andy Harman had sold Annodata in April, for a company that was having a turnover of 80 million, he must have received an awful lot of wedge for the sale ?
Your remark "and the current position is that they are not interested in urinating away a load of money for begger all return or very little control."
It was rumoured this was the situation a few years ago, and the difficulty they may have had working with certain individuals.
Hi Marlowchair - so obviously you know the group in question. In your opinion are they suitable? You also mentioned they have experience with another EFL club, did that relationship go well?
How long have our club representatives known about this approach?
I appreciate you would not want to name these people right now and I also appreciate your concerns, as you obviously have the clubs interest at heart. From your posts on this topic I can see you are a person with first hand experience and knowledge of what is going on inside the club, so a truthful response to my questions would be particularly helpful.
For me to go for it a) the buyer is mother Theresa with bottomless pockets and b) if we don’t go for it we’re finished as a league club
I just don't see a fan owned model being able to generate anywhere near the amount of money that we would need to be competitive at this level. Especially when you take into consideration that, unlike Exeter, we don't have an academy to generate a flow of revenue into the club.
Club's like Salford City are two levels beneath us and their wage bill must be at least three times the size of ours, there's probably in fact half a dozen non league clubs that have a bigger playing budget than WWFC currently.
We might be getting away with it currently but it only takes GA to go to QPR and a new manager to sign a handful of Richard Logan's and we are really up the creek.
However, no one wants to see the club slip into the wrong hands and every possible step must be taken to ensure that anyone gaining an interest in WWFC has been vetted to the hilt.
@Morris_Ital I think you can rest assured that those trying to convince you that what is on offer is a good deal will be pushing your point b) as being the only, inevitable, disastrous outcome of not approving their proposal.
Enough people believed Ivor Beeks when he pushed that scenario a few years back that they voted firstly for a change to the 500 shares model and subsequently when, buoyed by his first success, he went on to push it more strongly, to sell the club to Steve Hayes overall control.
How many will believe it this time around? Having been through the Hayes experience, my thoughts are that people will be rather more cautious and less willing to accept the arguments for change.
@Uncle_T , you'd think people would be more cautious, but as I put on a previous post, and you can read through this thread, there's already a number of posters entertaining the idea of a takeover/investor.
This is about 5-6 years after such an example almost lead to bankruptcy and disaster!
At least in history you normally go a century or so and a few generations before the people make the same mistake (not that all investors may be such a thing)
I don't think there is a cat in hells chance that the club will get the requisite number of votes, regardless of the merits or otherwise of any offer put on the table. The previous debacle is still to fresh in the mind of most supporters.
`Has this been cunningly timed to be raised at a time when we're "struggling" on the pitch to some extent, rather than when we were bossing it in the league below?
Or is that too cynical even for this board?`
Anyone know how many legacy members exist?
lets just hope that any consortium that that the board have been talking to, are nothing
like the last group of 'dodge pots' that Mr Stroud and co originally recommended. And the due diligance, is far more thorough than on that gang, which failed to show up on two occasions before trust members.
I believe the figure is in the 600s, but I could be wrong. It is basically trust members who have held a season ticket for at least the last four years, as I understand.
I’ve no issue with the potential buyers at all. They could be excellent owners of the club.
Not allowed under third party rules unfortunately.FA put a big red line through that kind of horse trading.right or wrong is another topic for good discussion.
@marlowchair Are you the potential investor?
Well spotted @Malone. @peterparrotface hits the nail on the head when he uses the broken window analogy. I also agree with his first paragraph although it frustratingly “petered” out before he completed his assertion.
I’ve said all I have to say on the issue at stake (and all I feel competent to say in the absence of information about potential benefactors and their motivation) - namely that I recognise the kind of factors which suggest that current funding arrangements are unlikely to meet the cost of running a League 1 club on a sustainable basis.
Beyond that and pending the revelation of detailed information at the General Meeting on 12 September I can only endorse the wise words of, eg, @StrongestTeam, @aloysius and @DevC.
I doubt whether the latter will be able to make it to the meeting but I hope the other two will be present to probe and to articulate their thoughts.
If there is a live stream, can those of you physically attending be so kind as to wear green top hats with your gasroom usernames emblazoned on the front in gold? It would be great to put more names to faces.
No.if I was I would be surely pushing here for a sale at all costs.i’m not.
SemantIcs around my gramatic misuse of a word here and there are not worth deflecting the discussion towards Micra. You have good knowledge of the identities and gender of our major donors so I’ll leave it to you to back up your words with the information here along with their relationship to sitting directors .
For the record I see naff all wrong with it nor any relevance to their gender, why you’d attempt to IMPLY otherwise is anyone’s guess
so marlowchair are you able to answer the questions I posed in my earlier post please?
@marlowchair seems singularly disinclined to answer questions. Understandably.
Furthermore, I feel disinclined to warm towards @marlowchair.
Well, I'm heartened by the level of discussion this time around and by some really excellent posts and suggestions. Last time was a disaster - never forget that. However, i'd keep an open mind, but want to scrutinise any proposals carefully and thoroughly.
DevC said upthread, "Sadly rogues don't necessarily wear a label on their forehead shouting "rogue" however." Which is true - but some people can spot them more easily and more quickly than previous Directors/Chairmen of the club. (thats what happened with SteveH's obvious mismanagement of the club, when the people who introduced him were saying that everything in the garden was perfectly rosy! So beware if any of those people are involved this time!)
So, I would want to follow the money - ie who benefits from any transaction? Who gets loans repaid and interest paid? Who gets land bought back and at what price? Should those people be involved in influencing the debate?
And then evaluate the proposals.
Final thought - perhaps, as previous poster said, league 2 and occasional league 1 is what we can afford? People who believe that we can even entertain any ideas of championship are misguided at best, manipulative at worst and will take us on a path to extinction. IMHO.
wj
Excellent post @wandering_jock.
@marlowchair said:
The sporting director has no experience at this level but had racing car team experience in a pro am competition designed for rich men to self fund a drive for themselves.
I would need to take some exception to this statement. At lower levels of the sport I could possibly agree with you.
But seeing as Mr Howard’s racing team has/does field multiple Aston Martins with multiple Paid drivers (for each car) at events such as the Le Mans series which will require a full team of developers, mechanics etc etc for each car, it’s slightly more involved than a rich man funding himself to go racing. The cars alone would be thundreda (if not millions) of pounds to buy, before you even start on the rest of the team budget.
I actually think running a succeasful racing team is probably as close as you can get to running a football team (without actually running a football team) and gives unique ”out of the box” thinking a lower league club needs to drive interest towards it.
The only better positon for a man of his expirence would be a sporting director role - which is exactly what he moved to.
the thing that I find most puzzling about all of this is @marlowchair’s obfuscation in relation to the previous debates.
Assuming (I know) that the nub of this debate is correct and that he (potentially she) was aware of this week’s ago, why not make it clear then, rather than the nod/winks type of comments?
There is nothing on here that seems particularly implausible or that unreasonable or anything that it wouldn’t be acceptable to discuss without bringing in the names of the potential investors.
@marlowchair has finally made clear his/her concerns (I don’t think it was just me who couldn’t read between the lines) which as now presented (a ‘better’ board would have managed the clubs finances better and we wouldn’t be quite as desperate to listen to offers) appears a valid matter of discussion.
But why couldn’t this have been said in the first place?