@eric_plant said:
The whole "Yeovil's mistake was to get promoted before they were ready" thing was a bit odd I thought. What were they supposed to have done? Stopped trying to win games as they got closer to the top of the table?
That of course is very interesting and a whole new debate. At the time, we were probably lucky we failed against Southend in that Playoff Final.
@eric_plant said:
The whole "Yeovil's mistake was to get promoted before they were ready" thing was a bit odd I thought. What were they supposed to have done? Stopped trying to win games as they got closer to the top of the table?
To be fair...had we gone up the Wembley year I think that was the gist of Andrew Howard's view on being relieved about not getting promoted was it not?
@glasshalffull said:
What does surprise me is people can’t get their heads around the fact that we’re broke and desperately need investment.
...and, in an earlier post, "We’ve been perilously close to administration more than once." I presume that @glasshalffull has, through his contacts with those who are running the club, had this communicated to him and/or seen evidence of this. I am not in a position to dispute or confirm the verity of that statement. What I will say, however, is that if the statement about how close the club has come to administration is true and it is also true that "people" (who I will define as supporters and Trust members, both legacy and ordinary) "can't get their heads around the fact" then that must in large part be down to a failure in communication of the true situation by the board to the Trust membership.
I understand that there may be a multitude of reasons why the board may not wish to be totally open if the club is indeed in a precarious financial position, so that public communication will to an extent be limited, but if they want the owners of the club (Trust members) and those holding a right to vote on the future of the club (Trust legacy members) to fully understand they need to be fully open.
I have no doubt that the board are taking what they believe to be the most appropriate course of action in difficult circumstances. So far, they have been able to keep the club in business, which is great, but because what they are doing and why they are doing it is not entirely and in real-time known to the public then the public don't necessarily understand the detail.
To give an example, when the loan from Luby and Collis was taken and secured against the stadium that may have been an absolutely necessary course of action. The board clearly thought it was, but, they didn't say so at the time. They did not come out publicly to Trust members and state in advance or as the loan was being taken that insolvency was 'x' days away and this loan was the only one available.
After the fact, once the charge against Adams Park had been noticed on the register at Companies House and questions were asked, the board then did state publicly that insolvency would have been likely if the loan had not been taken and that it was the only option available at the time. By that point, however, what supporters and Trust members could see was a still solvent business, not an insolvent one or one that was imminently going to become insolvent, so the seriousness of the situation was not felt by those supporters and Trust members. Rather, the perception of many was that the club, since it was still solvent, must have been able to remain so and could have done so without securing a loan against the stadium.
If the situation really was that bad prior to the Luby and Collis loan being taken then, had the degree of seriousness and the consequences and options been communicated promptly, the majority of people would have understood fully and, I speculate, would have been supportive of the actions taken by the board. That is the level of openness and communication that will be required over the forthcoming period if there is to be any chance of the 75% legacy members voting threshold being achieved when a ballot is called on the question of selling a majority stake to Mr. Couhig.
Wake up you usual dozen posters. Interesting the usual Gasrooms would think the whole membership will vote no, yet the not so stale realists of Facebook would vote yes! So don’t believe all you read in the Gas
@glasshalffull said:
I know you like to disagree with everything I post, but it’s all good debate as long as it doesn’t become personal.
Incidentally, I did not say that if you don’t vote in favour you don’t realise the club is in a perilous position and I do agree with your first paragraph.
I agree that Uncle T makes some very valid points in his well constructed post. However, it was commonly accepted before the memorable day at Torquay that relegation to the Conference would have seen the club in a very serious financial plight and since then Mr Stroud has stated more than once that the club is unsustainable as a supporters’ owned entity.
@eric_plant said:
The whole "Yeovil's mistake was to get promoted before they were ready" thing was a bit odd I thought. What were they supposed to have done? Stopped trying to win games as they got closer to the top of the table?
Right. If we're top six in March i don't want people who think we're getting promoted too soon.
As much as I would love us to stay as a purely fan owned club I'm afraid its time we all face the cold hard facts that this really isn't possible.
The playing budget has been cut to the bone, the club's other staff cut to the bone, maintenance of the facilities cut to the bone.
I just don't see where left to cut, and certianly not to the amount it needs to be.
I'm aware of a leeast two occasions in the last 20 years where I was aware from very very good sources we were hours away from admistration. These pre-date the most recent one.
Yes, we are all worried about ending up with an owner like the recent ones at Bury but thankfully these are still in the minority.
I understand why the 75% bar was set so high but I have always believed that at that level nothing would be voted through.
Lets hope the guys do a really good job over the next few months and enough people see that the benefits outweigh the issues.
I admire those who really believe we can stay as a fan owned club, I don't however see how this is possible.
The next 12 months is going to see casulaties amongst lower league clubs. We are reaching a tipping point. I just don't want our club to be a statistic come this time next year.
I agree that Uncle T makes some very valid points in his well constructed post. However, it was commonly accepted before the memorable day at Torquay that relegation to the Conference would have seen the club in a very serious financial plight and since then Mr Stroud has stated more than once that the club is unsustainable as a supporters’ owned entity.
Didn't he also tell us at one point that the financials had never been better and the future was bright?
A very sensible summing up by Guppy’s left leg. In an ideal world we’d all love to remain fan owned but I’m afraid it’s far from an ideal world.
Let’s suppose we have a hard core of around 3,000 dedicated fans (about the number who normally buy season tickets). To match the initial investment proposed by Mr Couhig, every single one of those fans-young or old, rich or poor-would need to shell out around £350.00 each on top of buying their season ticket and sundry expenses. It’s just not practical.
I agree that Uncle T makes some very valid points in his well constructed post. However, it was commonly accepted before the memorable day at Torquay that relegation to the Conference would have seen the club in a very serious financial plight and since then Mr Stroud has stated more than once that the club is unsustainable as a supporters’ owned entity.
Didn't he also tell us at one point that the financials had never been better and the future was bright?
You might be right on that and I have no idea why the situation changed, but it obviously has changed and we have to deal with the reality of the here and now.
@glasshalffull said:
You might be right on that and I have no idea why the situation changed, but it obviously has changed and we have to deal with the reality of the here and now.
It's funny, but it seemed to change just as we got rid of the most capable commercial manager we've ever had. From a rosy future under fan ownership with excellent commercials, to running around screaming that the house is on fire in one move. Incredible really.
It's a great deal for Mr. Couhig, he gets an asset from a distressed seller (without a proper valuation) if the deal goes through and make a fabulous return on his money if the bid is rejected.
It's a great deal for Ivor and the gang, they get their money back and stand to make even more on the training ground.
It's a great deal for our Chairmen, having lost his job at Beechdean, he keeps his position on the board and watches from his seat in the directors box and gets free hot food in the winter months.
It's a great deal for Mark Palmer, who lives in Aston Clinton, who gets a regular salary.
The Chairmens' preferred bidder was the fella in the directors' box against Fleetwood (see my previous post below May 10th) Rob Jansen, an agent who represented famous footballers like Kuyt, Cocu, Larssen and Bergkamp) the Trust board got moist with excitement but they (the agent and the famous footballers) wouldn't pay June pay-roll hence this deal has been rushed through without proper due diligence or any understanding as to what the implications are to the deal they have already agreed to.
New owners?
NiceCarrots
by NiceCarrots · May 10
The article is titled Wanderers Chairman Stroud confident etc. and the picture shows Stroud in the directors box with two other fellas who look uncannily like Fahri Ecvet and Rob Jansen of Wasserman.
I'll leave it up to others to judge whether a former snack bar salesman or a U.S. Litigation Attorney has got the better of the negotiations.
@NiceCarrots thanks as usual for the insight. So it's another potential owner not as good as the one who did not bid, and who benefits only the power group, Beeks, and the inept Trust board (where DO they keep finding them?)
So your solution is? Fan owned but a re-elected board? Outside owner but not one of the ones actually yet found ? Or is there a third way we have not yet been exposed to?
The trust directors have done extremely well to find such a positive viable investor in short time, especially given the indicated financial circumstance. But that was the easy part.
Does anyone know how many people 26% of legacy members would represent that will determine the future of the club?
No idea what you are trying to say @NiceCarrots but there's enough in there to mean loads of different things depending on what happens and you are 'proved' right.
@NiceCarrots - Assuming Couhig completes the majority shareholding, I am at a loss to understand how he is going to make a profit on his investment. Perhaps you can enlighten us on why you consider it is a "great deal" for him.
This is of course assuming he can't find any loophole in the contract to get hold of Adams Park.
Assuming Couhig completes the majority shareholding, I am at a loss to understand how he is going to make a profit on his investment.
This is presumably the fact that he's buying something that someone else is falling over themselves to sell. Hardly going to get the best price for it if we're constantly announcing how desperate we are to sell.
@eric_plant said:
He quite clearly means that if he doesn't get the result he wants, then even in that scenario he makes 17.5% on the loan he has made to the club
He won't be able to get blood out of a stone though. We have no assets to even cover the loans, let alone interest charges.
What is 75% of a football club worth when you don't buy the ground? Is it calculated based on future earnings, squad valuations or some other method?
I have no idea what the right value is apart from it's the best amount someone is willing to pay.
Maybe a trip to the Dragon's Den would be the best option?
It'll be worth the value of the loans he's put in + the 500K he'll be paying Dollar Bill and Hacksaw Jim, won't it?
So 300K already, plus another 300k in the next few weeks, plus that 500K.......that's 1.1M. I'd imagine there will be more loans between now and the new year.
It astounds me how we can need £600k in 8 weeks to keep ourselves going. How can we be losing this much money, with ST money coming in, and an anticipated windfall from the Hause sell-on. How is this amount of debt being allowed to build-up without any challenge or justification?
I am aware that we are losing significant amounts of money each year under our current arrangements but nothing close to this level. A cynic would probably say debt is being deliberately racked up to push members towards voting to sell the club, with the regularity and size of the loans being taken are happening.
Comments
That of course is very interesting and a whole new debate. At the time, we were probably lucky we failed against Southend in that Playoff Final.
To be fair...had we gone up the Wembley year I think that was the gist of Andrew Howard's view on being relieved about not getting promoted was it not?
...and, in an earlier post, "We’ve been perilously close to administration more than once." I presume that @glasshalffull has, through his contacts with those who are running the club, had this communicated to him and/or seen evidence of this. I am not in a position to dispute or confirm the verity of that statement. What I will say, however, is that if the statement about how close the club has come to administration is true and it is also true that "people" (who I will define as supporters and Trust members, both legacy and ordinary) "can't get their heads around the fact" then that must in large part be down to a failure in communication of the true situation by the board to the Trust membership.
I understand that there may be a multitude of reasons why the board may not wish to be totally open if the club is indeed in a precarious financial position, so that public communication will to an extent be limited, but if they want the owners of the club (Trust members) and those holding a right to vote on the future of the club (Trust legacy members) to fully understand they need to be fully open.
I have no doubt that the board are taking what they believe to be the most appropriate course of action in difficult circumstances. So far, they have been able to keep the club in business, which is great, but because what they are doing and why they are doing it is not entirely and in real-time known to the public then the public don't necessarily understand the detail.
To give an example, when the loan from Luby and Collis was taken and secured against the stadium that may have been an absolutely necessary course of action. The board clearly thought it was, but, they didn't say so at the time. They did not come out publicly to Trust members and state in advance or as the loan was being taken that insolvency was 'x' days away and this loan was the only one available.
After the fact, once the charge against Adams Park had been noticed on the register at Companies House and questions were asked, the board then did state publicly that insolvency would have been likely if the loan had not been taken and that it was the only option available at the time. By that point, however, what supporters and Trust members could see was a still solvent business, not an insolvent one or one that was imminently going to become insolvent, so the seriousness of the situation was not felt by those supporters and Trust members. Rather, the perception of many was that the club, since it was still solvent, must have been able to remain so and could have done so without securing a loan against the stadium.
If the situation really was that bad prior to the Luby and Collis loan being taken then, had the degree of seriousness and the consequences and options been communicated promptly, the majority of people would have understood fully and, I speculate, would have been supportive of the actions taken by the board. That is the level of openness and communication that will be required over the forthcoming period if there is to be any chance of the 75% legacy members voting threshold being achieved when a ballot is called on the question of selling a majority stake to Mr. Couhig.
(Edited for typo.)
what @Uncle_T said
Wake up you usual dozen posters. Interesting the usual Gasrooms would think the whole membership will vote no, yet the not so stale realists of Facebook would vote yes! So don’t believe all you read in the Gas
Personally I don't see how anyone can vote No, regardless of how well things go in the next 6-9 months.
Above post was intended for Eric, not Micra!
I agree that Uncle T makes some very valid points in his well constructed post. However, it was commonly accepted before the memorable day at Torquay that relegation to the Conference would have seen the club in a very serious financial plight and since then Mr Stroud has stated more than once that the club is unsustainable as a supporters’ owned entity.
Right. If we're top six in March i don't want people who think we're getting promoted too soon.
Thanks for the clarification @JohnnyAllAlone
As much as I would love us to stay as a purely fan owned club I'm afraid its time we all face the cold hard facts that this really isn't possible.
The playing budget has been cut to the bone, the club's other staff cut to the bone, maintenance of the facilities cut to the bone.
I just don't see where left to cut, and certianly not to the amount it needs to be.
I'm aware of a leeast two occasions in the last 20 years where I was aware from very very good sources we were hours away from admistration. These pre-date the most recent one.
Yes, we are all worried about ending up with an owner like the recent ones at Bury but thankfully these are still in the minority.
I understand why the 75% bar was set so high but I have always believed that at that level nothing would be voted through.
Lets hope the guys do a really good job over the next few months and enough people see that the benefits outweigh the issues.
I admire those who really believe we can stay as a fan owned club, I don't however see how this is possible.
The next 12 months is going to see casulaties amongst lower league clubs. We are reaching a tipping point. I just don't want our club to be a statistic come this time next year.
Didn't he also tell us at one point that the financials had never been better and the future was bright?
A very sensible summing up by Guppy’s left leg. In an ideal world we’d all love to remain fan owned but I’m afraid it’s far from an ideal world.
Let’s suppose we have a hard core of around 3,000 dedicated fans (about the number who normally buy season tickets). To match the initial investment proposed by Mr Couhig, every single one of those fans-young or old, rich or poor-would need to shell out around £350.00 each on top of buying their season ticket and sundry expenses. It’s just not practical.
You might be right on that and I have no idea why the situation changed, but it obviously has changed and we have to deal with the reality of the here and now.
It's funny, but it seemed to change just as we got rid of the most capable commercial manager we've ever had. From a rosy future under fan ownership with excellent commercials, to running around screaming that the house is on fire in one move. Incredible really.
Did anyone else think that Rob Couhig sounded like John McEnroe by the way?
Please god don't tell me there are too many who think like @floyd
Pretty clear I’m in the minority @James. Which is why we’re in this predicament.
It's a great deal for Mr. Couhig, he gets an asset from a distressed seller (without a proper valuation) if the deal goes through and make a fabulous return on his money if the bid is rejected.
It's a great deal for Ivor and the gang, they get their money back and stand to make even more on the training ground.
It's a great deal for our Chairmen, having lost his job at Beechdean, he keeps his position on the board and watches from his seat in the directors box and gets free hot food in the winter months.
It's a great deal for Mark Palmer, who lives in Aston Clinton, who gets a regular salary.
The Chairmens' preferred bidder was the fella in the directors' box against Fleetwood (see my previous post below May 10th) Rob Jansen, an agent who represented famous footballers like Kuyt, Cocu, Larssen and Bergkamp) the Trust board got moist with excitement but they (the agent and the famous footballers) wouldn't pay June pay-roll hence this deal has been rushed through without proper due diligence or any understanding as to what the implications are to the deal they have already agreed to.
New owners?
NiceCarrots
by NiceCarrots · May 10
The article is titled Wanderers Chairman Stroud confident etc. and the picture shows Stroud in the directors box with two other fellas who look uncannily like Fahri Ecvet and Rob Jansen of Wasserman.
I'll leave it up to others to judge whether a former snack bar salesman or a U.S. Litigation Attorney has got the better of the negotiations.
@NiceCarrots thanks as usual for the insight. So it's another potential owner not as good as the one who did not bid, and who benefits only the power group, Beeks, and the inept Trust board (where DO they keep finding them?)
So your solution is? Fan owned but a re-elected board? Outside owner but not one of the ones actually yet found ? Or is there a third way we have not yet been exposed to?
Yes, but I kept dismissing it because McEnroe is a New Yorker and Couhig a New Orleanian!
The trust directors have done extremely well to find such a positive viable investor in short time, especially given the indicated financial circumstance. But that was the easy part.
Does anyone know how many people 26% of legacy members would represent that will determine the future of the club?
"Legacy members please please don't blow it for the rest of us"
Jesus wept
No idea what you are trying to say @NiceCarrots but there's enough in there to mean loads of different things depending on what happens and you are 'proved' right.
I'm taking 'great deal' from it.
@NiceCarrots - Assuming Couhig completes the majority shareholding, I am at a loss to understand how he is going to make a profit on his investment. Perhaps you can enlighten us on why you consider it is a "great deal" for him.
This is of course assuming he can't find any loophole in the contract to get hold of Adams Park.
He quite clearly means that if he doesn't get the result he wants, then even in that scenario he makes 17.5% on the loan he has made to the club
This is presumably the fact that he's buying something that someone else is falling over themselves to sell. Hardly going to get the best price for it if we're constantly announcing how desperate we are to sell.
He won't be able to get blood out of a stone though. We have no assets to even cover the loans, let alone interest charges.
What is 75% of a football club worth when you don't buy the ground? Is it calculated based on future earnings, squad valuations or some other method?
I have no idea what the right value is apart from it's the best amount someone is willing to pay.
Maybe a trip to the Dragon's Den would be the best option?
It'll be worth the value of the loans he's put in + the 500K he'll be paying Dollar Bill and Hacksaw Jim, won't it?
So 300K already, plus another 300k in the next few weeks, plus that 500K.......that's 1.1M. I'd imagine there will be more loans between now and the new year.
It astounds me how we can need £600k in 8 weeks to keep ourselves going. How can we be losing this much money, with ST money coming in, and an anticipated windfall from the Hause sell-on. How is this amount of debt being allowed to build-up without any challenge or justification?
I am aware that we are losing significant amounts of money each year under our current arrangements but nothing close to this level. A cynic would probably say debt is being deliberately racked up to push members towards voting to sell the club, with the regularity and size of the loans being taken are happening.