Some clarity is needed around the future role of the 500 Club and what happens to the money that 500 Club members very kindly donate to the Club, after the Couhigs take over. Will the Couhigs have access/control of that money and decide how it should be spent?
Brilliant post above from EwanHoosaami. I think the point about ‘what if Mr.Couhig decided to sell on in the future’ is irrelevant to this debate. No club can look that far ahead. What if Abramovich leaves Chelsea? What if the Glazers leave Manchester United? You can only deal with the here and now and the only way WWFC can have absolute control of its long term future is to remain supporter owned, a model that we’ve been told is unsustainable.
@DefactoFan said:
Some clarity is needed around the future role of the 500 Club and what happens to the money that 500 Club members very kindly donate to the Club, after the Couhigs take over. Will the Couhigs have access/control of that money and decide how it should be spent?
My understanding is that the 500 club monies are ring fenced for Gareths' squad fund, can't see why that would change should Mr Couhig take over?
@glasshalffull said:
Brilliant post above from EwanHoosaami. I think the point about ‘what if Mr.Couhig decided to sell on in the future’ is irrelevant to this debate. No club can look that far ahead. What if Abramovich leaves Chelsea? What if the Glazers leave Manchester United? You can only deal with the here and now and the only way WWFC can have absolute control of its long term future is to remain supporter owned, a model that we’ve been told is unsustainable.
I'm not sure that's the message that Rob Couhig is sending out to be honest. He's saying it is sustainable, but only if you have the knowledge and expertise to make it work, and he claims to have both.
@glasshalffull said:
Brilliant post above from EwanHoosaami. I think the point about ‘what if Mr.Couhig decided to sell on in the future’ is irrelevant to this debate. No club can look that far ahead. What if Abramovich leaves Chelsea? What if the Glazers leave Manchester United? You can only deal with the here and now and the only way WWFC can have absolute control of its long term future is to remain supporter owned, a model that we’ve been told is unsustainable.
oh and ps. "what if Abramovic leaves Chelsea?" is a question more people should be asking really - I for one can't wait for that to happen
and pps. Utd would be miles better off without the Glazers, that's a terrible example
I suspect that RC will get rid of him when the Couhigs take over the club, or at least get him off the Club Board and send him back to The Trust. That would probably be a good thing as I have maintained for a long time that it is unacceptable to have the chairmanship of both The Trust and The Club Boards vested in the hands of a single person.
I don't think Mr Couhig will be able to select who the Trust's representatives on the football club board would be. As residual 25% owners of the club the directors of the Trust would appoint two directors (presumably) of their own choosing.
I too pay tribute to @EwanHoosaami 's excellent post above.
Many commented last time around on the parallels between the process while the Luby and Harman bids were considered and Brexit. I have a feeling we will see the same parallels again this time around. Some human beings base their opinions on fact and reality but can lack emotion, others base their feelings on emotion but can be prone to ignore facts that don't correspond with what they would like reality to be. Neither side can remotely understand why the other side cannot see what is so obvious to them. These days sadly we seem as a society to stop listening to others legitimately held views but merely denounce those we disagree with as traitors and throw rocks at them.
@glasshalffull said:
Brilliant post above from EwanHoosaami. I think the point about ‘what if Mr.Couhig decided to sell on in the future’ is irrelevant to this debate. No club can look that far ahead. What if Abramovich leaves Chelsea? What if the Glazers leave Manchester United? You can only deal with the here and now and the only way WWFC can have absolute control of its long term future is to remain supporter owned, a model that we’ve been told is unsustainable.
oh and ps. "what if Abramovic leaves Chelsea?" is a question more people should be asking really - I for one can't wait for that to happen
and pps. Utd would be miles better off without the Glazers, that's a terrible example
Come on Eric, you know what I meant. I was making the point that no club has control over its long term future beyond the next potential owners. Your remarks about Chelsea and United are personal opinions, no one knows whether those clubs would be better or worse off without their current owners.
PS Mr.Couhig believes that we could be sustainable but only if there’s significant investment.
@micra said:
Yes, if only we didn’t have so many good players.
Obviously no one wants that, but that's the reality of living within our means, and I'd actually be pretty pissed off with the trust if we have overstretched as it has massively forced our hand - fortunately RC seems to be a good, genuine guy with at least vaguely sensible plans but frankly the position we're in, we could easily be victim to another sharky, which is much worse than having a sub par team.
The suggestion is that to be sustainable in league 2 you need an average home gate of 5k, and for us to be sustainable in league 1 we need to sell out... Football league finances are broken > @OxfordBlue said:
PS Mr.Couhig believes that we could be sustainable but only if there’s significant investment.
And therein lies the reason why the claims that "the club will be debt-free when Rob Couhig takes his majority holding," which are one of the key positives being put forward in support of a "Yes" vote, should not be misunderstood as being any kind of indication that the club will remain debt-free.
Presumably, Rob Couhig intends to provide this significant investment himself. We've not seen the terms of the deal yet, but my assumption is that this investment would be in the form of loans to the club, so the club will again be in debt; probably very soon after a "Yes" vote.
One thing that was said last night that I am a little surprised hasn't been picked up.
GA said that the budget we would have had to work with this season without Couhig money was a very bottom of league 2 budget. He clearly thought it unlikely the club would be able to survive in Lg1 on that salary budget for very long.
On one level that doesn't seem the end of the world. If retaining supporter ownership had a consequence of dropping one level to Lg2, many including me would feel that is perhaps an acceptable price.
But that ignores (and perhaps requires spelling out again) football finance. Dropping to Lg2 would cut TV money by over £0.5m and gate money from away fans (and possibly home fans) by some more. That could only be covered by cutting the "bottom of lg2 budget" substantially, requiring us to compete in Lg2 with perhaps a "bottom of conference budget"
And if we don't survive in Lg2 for long that reduces TV money and gate money in Conference requiring a cut in player budget etc.
@Username is right, accepting the Couhig money and ownership is a huge gamble. But I would argue that NOT accepting the Couhig money would also have been a huge gamble - in my view bigger.
I suspect that RC will get rid of him when the Couhigs take over the club, or at least get him off the Club Board and send him back to The Trust. That would probably be a good thing as I have maintained for a long time that it is unacceptable to have the chairmanship of both The Trust and The Club Boards vested in the hands of a single person.
I don't think Mr Couhig will be able to select who the Trust's representatives on the football club board would be. As residual 25% owners of the club the directors of the Trust would appoint two directors (presumably) of their own choosing.
Maybe those two representatives should be directly elected by the membership and term limits agreed upon.
Think Trevor would be elected for one if he ran. Would also good to see a space on the Trust board for someone under 35 perhaps.
The suggestion is that to be sustainable in league 2 you need an average home gate of 5k, and for us to be sustainable in league 1 we need to sell out... Football league finances are broken > @OxfordBlue said:
@OxfordBlue said:
I see quite a few comments asking why the club has taken out more debt over the last year or so.
The answer is pretty obvious isn't it? It was essential capital required to keep the club functioning. What would you rather they had done?
Not signed such a good squad, pretty simple really.
Even with proposed budget cuts compared to last season we were still projected to lose money.
Yes, but you can lose less money rather than increasing the budget without the means to pay for it - it's a huge gamble
I don't know what you want, but it certainly seems that without an investment we are doomed!!
Without an investment Gareth will take the next job offered to him and go to a team with ambition, we'll be looking for a new manager with no financial attraction or ambition on the pitch to achieve anything better than trying to stay in the league after a season or two, plus we'll probably fold and go out of business, or if we're lucky we might just 'live within our means' as you put it, get trash players and relegate ourselves back to non-league.
If it wasn't for accepting help from potential investors, we might have been in the news a lot recently for different things, not for achieving our highest ever league position with JJ's bizarre hat-trick, but for being in the same boat as Bury and Bolton.
This vote is for a chance to look forward and better ourselves with people who believe they can do what it takes to achieve that.
Are there no sustainable teams in league 2 or league 1 because the successful teams with ambition have already moved on? The gates you quoted are our targets too, this won't happen overnight. It won't happen at all if we don't get a good investment.
The suggestion is that to be sustainable in league 2 you need an average home gate of 5k, and for us to be sustainable in league 1 we need to sell out... Football league finances are broken > @OxfordBlue said:
@OxfordBlue said:
I see quite a few comments asking why the club has taken out more debt over the last year or so.
The answer is pretty obvious isn't it? It was essential capital required to keep the club functioning. What would you rather they had done?
Not signed such a good squad, pretty simple really.
Even with proposed budget cuts compared to last season we were still projected to lose money.
Yes, but you can lose less money rather than increasing the budget without the means to pay for it - it's a huge gamble
I don't know what you want, but it certainly seems that without an investment we are doomed!!
Without an investment Gareth will take the next job offered to him and go to a team with ambition, we'll be looking for a new manager with no financial attraction or ambition on the pitch to achieve anything better than trying to stay in the league after a season or two, plus we'll probably fold and go out of business, or if we're lucky we might just 'live within our means' as you put it, get trash players and relegate ourselves back to non-league.
If it wasn't for accepting help from potential investors, we might have been in the news a lot recently for different things, not for achieving our highest ever league position with JJ's bizarre hat-trick, but for being in the same boat as Bury and Bolton.
This vote is for a chance to look forward and better ourselves with people who believe they can do what it takes to achieve that.
Are there no sustainable teams in league 2 or league 1 because the successful teams with ambition have already moved on? The gates you quoted are our targets too, this won't happen overnight. It won't happen at all if we don't get a good investment.
3/4 of championship teams lost money too. It's not about being successful or not, football is a broken business. Bearing this in mind - that we're almost certainly going to lose money overall (let's face it, we're never going to be regularly filling Adams Park in league 1. The question is do we believe we can minimise these losses by increasing revenue and setting a realistic budget? - RCs consistent use of the word sustainable and off the field plans are very encouraging, and secondly what form is the inevitable debt in, and what happens when it needs paying back? Not having money secured against the ground is a huge plus on this point.
I'm not convinced by the ultra-optimism, but right now it's a yes from me.
Is it as simple as ‘die or die trying’? Ie if it’s a yes vote and the Couhig’s end up hanging us by our balls, we’re in the same situation as we would be with a no vote anyway. We’re backed into a corner regardless so the vote is a no brainer in my opinion. We then live in hope that they are the right people for this club (which I believe they are).
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
@Gary said:
Is it as simple as ‘die or die trying’? Ie if it’s a yes vote and the Couhig’s end up hanging us by our balls, we’re in the same situation as we would be with a no vote anyway. We’re backed into a corner regardless so the vote is a no brainer in my opinion. We then live in hope that they are the right people for this club (which I believe they are).
I have to agree @Gary I do think we have reached a position whereby the options are die (or at least bear no resemblance to the current club) or try to maintain / grow what we have. Yes it may go wrong (however I would point out most clubs have a single owner, and are not fan owned) but everything we have seen or heard so far from the Couhig's makes it much less of a risk than the other option.
@Uncle_T said:
So much of this is history repeating itself:
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
I think there is a massive difference in that prior to Steve Hayes taking full ownership literally no effort had been made at all to run the club within its means. In fact quite the opposite.
@Uncle_T said:
So much of this is history repeating itself:
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
I think there is a massive difference in that prior to Steve Hayes taking full ownership literally no effort had been made at all to run the club within its means. In fact quite the opposite.
Also, Rob Couhig isn't trying to build a stadium for the benefit of a London rugby club.
What would happen to Adams Park if we fell out of the EFL and went bust? How would it receive the rent it needs to survive? What about the manager and playing squad? What about the dedicated non playing staff employed by the club? What about the part time employment offered on match day and such like? Have we no ambition or even worse, we don't care.
Wake up, smell the roses (coffee for our American friends), get real and VOTE YES or I truly believe it's curtains for us before 2020.
This is the journey that the majority of our support base has dreamed of for so long and I for one want to be part of it. The analogy I see here is that football has a financial cancer that in some cases is terminal. The potential life saving and life extending treatment is investment. Like drugs and treatments, some investments are bad and eventually don't work, however some are sound and provide huge life extension. My instincts tell me this investment package from the Couhig's is sound as I genuinely believe that they are themselves. We're all on a life journey that has no guarantees, so what is the worry here?
The vast majority of clubs have owners that are not the fans, sadly it is a matter of fact and that is the way football has gone as a result of pay tv and the riches it has brought to the top table to the detriment of the clubs out of the Premiership. Do I think we can be run better under Rob Couhigs control, yes. I think he will maximise our revenues under his control. I genuinely feel that we can only benefit, lets face it the stadium facilities are run down and needs money spent on them and its money we have not had and unlikely to have going forward as we are, so in my opinion without serious investment the future looks bleak. Fan owned has always sounded great but lets face it the vast majority of fans had no control over anything, the control has always been with the people that are owed money as they pull the strings. We never had enough or the right staff in my opinion to get things right and we could not do that because we did not have the money to invest in the right staff. I was dead against the previous USA investors, something was not right and we never got any information about their proposals. Rob and Pete have been totally different, they want to engage and they seem to genuinely care about us, the club and what it means to the community. Its a big step to hand control and ownership over but in my opinion we need to vote this through or we could be the next Bury. Some fans I know don't care what league we play in as long as we are fan owned, but having been involved in my local football club I can assure you there is nothing glamorous about poor facilities and an ever increasing struggle to make ends meet. Accrington Stanley are not fan owed and they have a great owner, the fans love him so for every Bury or Bolton there are very many other clubs with decent owners and I believe Rob Couhig seems to be one of them.
@Uncle_T said:
So much of this is history repeating itself:
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
Thank you Uncle_T, those words of knowledge, wisdom and experience certainly resonate with me. It's all too easy to be impressed and get carried away by the enthusiasm that the Couhig's clearly have for the club and by some of the promises we heard at last night's fan's forum meeting. However as you say, we have been round this loop once before and look what a dreadful state the Club was left in after the end of the Steve Hayes era. We need to see the full details of the Couhig's proposal and then weigh up what's best for the Club and for the supporters in the longer term. It may well be that there are no alternative proposals that are in any way viable, but it would be good to know whether anybody in authority at the Club had considered what alternative options there might have been.
@Uncle_T said:
So much of this is history repeating itself:
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
A couple of quotes off of a website does is not provide evidence of history repeating itself... Haha!!
The key difference is the protections in place this time around, and the Trust have learned from their 'mistakes' and have received additional legal support. The Trust have also learned from the previous recent interest. Plus the proposals will be available for viewing if you want to go and review them personally before voting.
The plan is quite different this time around, and the circumstances surrounding it are different too.
How many alternative proposals do people need? This is at least a Plan C, surely? They've made it quite clear that they have run out of options now. If this doesn't go through, it will be the start of bad times...
The comparison between the current share exchange and the 2009 Hayes "Voting share" approach will be in the ownership of Adams Park. The Supporters Trust will own Adams Park whatever happens to WWFC. The Frank Adams Stadium is in the hands of the "Legacy Members" if 75% agree to the current proposal. I am certain the Legacy Members would wish to preserve the Frank Adams gift to the town for future footballers.
RC's approach to the requirements of providing a successful sustainable for the Football Club may or may not be successful but only time will tell. Is this any different than the situation for most of the EFL Clubs? My vote as a legacy member is YES.
Comments
Some clarity is needed around the future role of the 500 Club and what happens to the money that 500 Club members very kindly donate to the Club, after the Couhigs take over. Will the Couhigs have access/control of that money and decide how it should be spent?
An excellent post, very considered and well written @EwanHoosaami.
Brilliant post above from EwanHoosaami. I think the point about ‘what if Mr.Couhig decided to sell on in the future’ is irrelevant to this debate. No club can look that far ahead. What if Abramovich leaves Chelsea? What if the Glazers leave Manchester United? You can only deal with the here and now and the only way WWFC can have absolute control of its long term future is to remain supporter owned, a model that we’ve been told is unsustainable.
My understanding is that the 500 club monies are ring fenced for Gareths' squad fund, can't see why that would change should Mr Couhig take over?
It’s not irrelevant, but there isn’t that much that can be done about it, which ends up meaning approximately the same thing.
What I mean is that it’s irrelevant to the current debate, ie is Mr.Couhig the right man to take the club forward or not?
I'm not sure that's the message that Rob Couhig is sending out to be honest. He's saying it is sustainable, but only if you have the knowledge and expertise to make it work, and he claims to have both.
oh and ps. "what if Abramovic leaves Chelsea?" is a question more people should be asking really - I for one can't wait for that to happen
and pps. Utd would be miles better off without the Glazers, that's a terrible example
I don't think Mr Couhig will be able to select who the Trust's representatives on the football club board would be. As residual 25% owners of the club the directors of the Trust would appoint two directors (presumably) of their own choosing.
I too pay tribute to @EwanHoosaami 's excellent post above.
Many commented last time around on the parallels between the process while the Luby and Harman bids were considered and Brexit. I have a feeling we will see the same parallels again this time around. Some human beings base their opinions on fact and reality but can lack emotion, others base their feelings on emotion but can be prone to ignore facts that don't correspond with what they would like reality to be. Neither side can remotely understand why the other side cannot see what is so obvious to them. These days sadly we seem as a society to stop listening to others legitimately held views but merely denounce those we disagree with as traitors and throw rocks at them.
Did what they intend to do to ensure maximum turnout come up? Surely the vote has to be sold as a case of 'Save Wycombe Wanderers'.
Come on Eric, you know what I meant. I was making the point that no club has control over its long term future beyond the next potential owners. Your remarks about Chelsea and United are personal opinions, no one knows whether those clubs would be better or worse off without their current owners.
PS Mr.Couhig believes that we could be sustainable but only if there’s significant investment.
Obviously no one wants that, but that's the reality of living within our means, and I'd actually be pretty pissed off with the trust if we have overstretched as it has massively forced our hand - fortunately RC seems to be a good, genuine guy with at least vaguely sensible plans but frankly the position we're in, we could easily be victim to another sharky, which is much worse than having a sub par team.
A more than slightly depressing article I came across when trying to find out if any lower league football clubs make a profit.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/premier-league-epl-efl-league-one-two-championship-miguel-delaney-a8926126.html
The suggestion is that to be sustainable in league 2 you need an average home gate of 5k, and for us to be sustainable in league 1 we need to sell out... Football league finances are broken > @OxfordBlue said:
Yes, but you can lose less money rather than increasing the budget without the means to pay for it - it's a huge gamble
Even with proposed budget cuts compared to last season we were still projected to lose money.
And therein lies the reason why the claims that "the club will be debt-free when Rob Couhig takes his majority holding," which are one of the key positives being put forward in support of a "Yes" vote, should not be misunderstood as being any kind of indication that the club will remain debt-free.
Presumably, Rob Couhig intends to provide this significant investment himself. We've not seen the terms of the deal yet, but my assumption is that this investment would be in the form of loans to the club, so the club will again be in debt; probably very soon after a "Yes" vote.
One thing that was said last night that I am a little surprised hasn't been picked up.
GA said that the budget we would have had to work with this season without Couhig money was a very bottom of league 2 budget. He clearly thought it unlikely the club would be able to survive in Lg1 on that salary budget for very long.
On one level that doesn't seem the end of the world. If retaining supporter ownership had a consequence of dropping one level to Lg2, many including me would feel that is perhaps an acceptable price.
But that ignores (and perhaps requires spelling out again) football finance. Dropping to Lg2 would cut TV money by over £0.5m and gate money from away fans (and possibly home fans) by some more. That could only be covered by cutting the "bottom of lg2 budget" substantially, requiring us to compete in Lg2 with perhaps a "bottom of conference budget"
And if we don't survive in Lg2 for long that reduces TV money and gate money in Conference requiring a cut in player budget etc.
@Username is right, accepting the Couhig money and ownership is a huge gamble. But I would argue that NOT accepting the Couhig money would also have been a huge gamble - in my view bigger.
Yes fair enough, will wait and see > @Cyclops said:
Maybe those two representatives should be directly elected by the membership and term limits agreed upon.
Think Trevor would be elected for one if he ran. Would also good to see a space on the Trust board for someone under 35 perhaps.
I don't know what you want, but it certainly seems that without an investment we are doomed!!
Without an investment Gareth will take the next job offered to him and go to a team with ambition, we'll be looking for a new manager with no financial attraction or ambition on the pitch to achieve anything better than trying to stay in the league after a season or two, plus we'll probably fold and go out of business, or if we're lucky we might just 'live within our means' as you put it, get trash players and relegate ourselves back to non-league.
If it wasn't for accepting help from potential investors, we might have been in the news a lot recently for different things, not for achieving our highest ever league position with JJ's bizarre hat-trick, but for being in the same boat as Bury and Bolton.
This vote is for a chance to look forward and better ourselves with people who believe they can do what it takes to achieve that.
Are there no sustainable teams in league 2 or league 1 because the successful teams with ambition have already moved on? The gates you quoted are our targets too, this won't happen overnight. It won't happen at all if we don't get a good investment.
3/4 of championship teams lost money too. It's not about being successful or not, football is a broken business. Bearing this in mind - that we're almost certainly going to lose money overall (let's face it, we're never going to be regularly filling Adams Park in league 1. The question is do we believe we can minimise these losses by increasing revenue and setting a realistic budget? - RCs consistent use of the word sustainable and off the field plans are very encouraging, and secondly what form is the inevitable debt in, and what happens when it needs paying back? Not having money secured against the ground is a huge plus on this point.
I'm not convinced by the ultra-optimism, but right now it's a yes from me.
Is it as simple as ‘die or die trying’? Ie if it’s a yes vote and the Couhig’s end up hanging us by our balls, we’re in the same situation as we would be with a no vote anyway. We’re backed into a corner regardless so the vote is a no brainer in my opinion. We then live in hope that they are the right people for this club (which I believe they are).
So much of this is history repeating itself:
2009: Steve Hayes tells a meeting to promote his proposals to take full ownership that key to those proposals is "achieving a 'sustainable business model'."
2019: Rob Couhig says the club can be and needs to be sustainable and this is key to his plans.
2009: At the Steve Hayes meeting referenced above, "Club Chairman Ivor Beeks confirmed there were no alternative proposals and asked for the support and trust of Steve Hayes."
2019: Trevor Stroud tells a fans forum that there are no alternative proposals and asks for support and trust of Rob Couhig.
Plus ça change.
(Ref. 2009 quotes from http://www.chairboys.co.uk/)
I have to agree @Gary I do think we have reached a position whereby the options are die (or at least bear no resemblance to the current club) or try to maintain / grow what we have. Yes it may go wrong (however I would point out most clubs have a single owner, and are not fan owned) but everything we have seen or heard so far from the Couhig's makes it much less of a risk than the other option.
I think there is a massive difference in that prior to Steve Hayes taking full ownership literally no effort had been made at all to run the club within its means. In fact quite the opposite.
Also, Rob Couhig isn't trying to build a stadium for the benefit of a London rugby club.
What would happen to Adams Park if we fell out of the EFL and went bust? How would it receive the rent it needs to survive? What about the manager and playing squad? What about the dedicated non playing staff employed by the club? What about the part time employment offered on match day and such like? Have we no ambition or even worse, we don't care.
Wake up, smell the roses (coffee for our American friends), get real and VOTE YES or I truly believe it's curtains for us before 2020.
This is the journey that the majority of our support base has dreamed of for so long and I for one want to be part of it. The analogy I see here is that football has a financial cancer that in some cases is terminal. The potential life saving and life extending treatment is investment. Like drugs and treatments, some investments are bad and eventually don't work, however some are sound and provide huge life extension. My instincts tell me this investment package from the Couhig's is sound as I genuinely believe that they are themselves. We're all on a life journey that has no guarantees, so what is the worry here?
The vast majority of clubs have owners that are not the fans, sadly it is a matter of fact and that is the way football has gone as a result of pay tv and the riches it has brought to the top table to the detriment of the clubs out of the Premiership. Do I think we can be run better under Rob Couhigs control, yes. I think he will maximise our revenues under his control. I genuinely feel that we can only benefit, lets face it the stadium facilities are run down and needs money spent on them and its money we have not had and unlikely to have going forward as we are, so in my opinion without serious investment the future looks bleak. Fan owned has always sounded great but lets face it the vast majority of fans had no control over anything, the control has always been with the people that are owed money as they pull the strings. We never had enough or the right staff in my opinion to get things right and we could not do that because we did not have the money to invest in the right staff. I was dead against the previous USA investors, something was not right and we never got any information about their proposals. Rob and Pete have been totally different, they want to engage and they seem to genuinely care about us, the club and what it means to the community. Its a big step to hand control and ownership over but in my opinion we need to vote this through or we could be the next Bury. Some fans I know don't care what league we play in as long as we are fan owned, but having been involved in my local football club I can assure you there is nothing glamorous about poor facilities and an ever increasing struggle to make ends meet. Accrington Stanley are not fan owed and they have a great owner, the fans love him so for every Bury or Bolton there are very many other clubs with decent owners and I believe Rob Couhig seems to be one of them.
Thank you Uncle_T, those words of knowledge, wisdom and experience certainly resonate with me. It's all too easy to be impressed and get carried away by the enthusiasm that the Couhig's clearly have for the club and by some of the promises we heard at last night's fan's forum meeting. However as you say, we have been round this loop once before and look what a dreadful state the Club was left in after the end of the Steve Hayes era. We need to see the full details of the Couhig's proposal and then weigh up what's best for the Club and for the supporters in the longer term. It may well be that there are no alternative proposals that are in any way viable, but it would be good to know whether anybody in authority at the Club had considered what alternative options there might have been.
A couple of quotes off of a website does is not provide evidence of history repeating itself... Haha!!
The key difference is the protections in place this time around, and the Trust have learned from their 'mistakes' and have received additional legal support. The Trust have also learned from the previous recent interest. Plus the proposals will be available for viewing if you want to go and review them personally before voting.
The plan is quite different this time around, and the circumstances surrounding it are different too.
How many alternative proposals do people need? This is at least a Plan C, surely? They've made it quite clear that they have run out of options now. If this doesn't go through, it will be the start of bad times...
The comparison between the current share exchange and the 2009 Hayes "Voting share" approach will be in the ownership of Adams Park. The Supporters Trust will own Adams Park whatever happens to WWFC. The Frank Adams Stadium is in the hands of the "Legacy Members" if 75% agree to the current proposal. I am certain the Legacy Members would wish to preserve the Frank Adams gift to the town for future footballers.
RC's approach to the requirements of providing a successful sustainable for the Football Club may or may not be successful but only time will tell. Is this any different than the situation for most of the EFL Clubs? My vote as a legacy member is YES.