Yes Prince but multi storey's cost around £12,000 per space to build. Even if you get the number of spaces dead on and have no issues with planning etc and the space gets used 23 times a year and every single one of those people using it wouldn't have come anyway and totally ignoring maintenance and running costs and interest costs and assuming average income of entry ticket and parking fee of £25, it would take over 20 years to pay for itself.
It's definitely an issue, it's not just people going where a nice car park is, it's people who may already have long onward journeys or connecting trains trying it and hating it or just thinking it isn't worth the bother. I'm far more likely to come to a game than many occasional or untapped fans regardless of how well or badly we've played but the playoff semi is my only midweek attendance in ages, I just can't guarantee that I'd get there from work in time for kick off or that it won't take me hours to get home without having to rely on cabs at both ends.
Ultimately we should still have some money in the bank and have backers who are interested in progress so let's see what happens. The ground is also likely to need upkeep even if we don't expand. I'm not sure I like the way I suspect all this is leading but the Couhigs aren't Sharky, they've been good to us so far, and this isn't (yet) a totally unfunded Booker for the benefit of Wasps.
Is it not the case that, if RC wants to put in £3m to the football club, then the Trust have to stump up £1M to maintain their 25% stake?
If the deal that's been agreed is simply to vary this condition - so that, for instance, the Trust always maintains an X% stake without having to put in additional funds - is that actually so bad? RC could just put in the £3M and dilute the trusts stake anyway if the Trust can't put in funds to the required level.
If RC then wants to invest those monies in infrastructure which the football club, rather than the Trust owns, what's to stop him?
I don't necessarily agree with his vision - but what's to stop him? As the Trust said the members already agreed to sell 75% of the football club to RC in 2020 - that deal has been done long time ago.
If I've got my facts and/or percentages wrong I hope someone with greater knowledge than me will correct them.
If RC wants to put extra money in without requiring it to be matched and leave the 25% trust share in tact, or put money in to developing the ground (that he doesn't own) he's free to do so and it would be very generous. it's got to be fairly unlikely though and I'm not sure we'd need a meeting or a vote.
Whilst as a regular supporter I do agree with you, I met up with 2 old friends yesterday who both went to the Port Vale match.
One said, “credit to anyone who watches that every week. Near the end there was about 4 passes in a row from Wycombe”.
The other said “second half constantly playing that long ball over the top and being cut out by the full backs, awful watch. Paid £57 for that in the family stand”.
So it’s not to be overlooked that product entertainment and fan experience are also key, which in fairness the Couhigs are trying to address.
I agree, @StrongestTeam, but that's not what I'm saying.
The notice for the meeting tells us that the Trust Board have agreed the next logical step and it's a change to the business model that the Trust and Football club work to.
Since the current business model is that the Trust has to match 75/25% any investment to the football club then what else is there?
The vote will be to either maintain the status quo - and have to find £?M to match 25% of an investment from RC - or to accept the Trust stake is diluted. Under my proposal the Trust stake would always remain a stake of X%.
What happens to the monies invested is secondary. If RC builds an access road and car park I don't think it would be owned by FALL.
The only real question that needs to be asked at this Trust meeting is: Show. Me. The. Money.
DevC demonstrates how expensive building a multi-storey carpark is. Now let's talk stands. Oh, and then let's talk access road. If the Couhigs are serious about this proposal they will surely have had a viable route planned and costed? Has any football club had to pay for a mile-plus access road over rolling country hills before? We're talking many many millions. Oh, and that's greenbelt land - so not only do you have to persuade the landowners, the council, the government... but also the judges when environmental campaigners bring their judicial review(s)... not to mention the delays when they stage sit-in protests. Will the price of the delays - and the millions in legal fees - have been costed in? And what's the timeframe for this? Five years? Ten years?
Does anyone believe Rob Couhig has the funds for this? He's a small-city lawyer who owns a practice employing a dozen or so other attorneys. He used to own a pest control business (originally his father's). Various online profiles say he invests in other small Louisiana businesses - though nothing obvious. He couldn't even guarantee WWFC staff salaries during lockdown (until the furlough scheme kicked in).
Will the banks provide loans? Seems unlikely to me. Everyone knows lower league football loses money hand-over-fist. There's no guarantee of return on investment. Massive regulatory hurdles to jump through for planning permission. Oh, and few assets to be put up as security.
Hence the need to transfer the stadium. Without that, the Couhigs surely have no chance of getting any loan. Even with it I'd say it was unlikely. So before any vote is made by Trust members, another question to ask is: how much have you been guaranteed in loans if you have the ground to put up as security? And by whom? If it doesn't cover the full cost of this project, why risk the club's one major asset by putting it up as collateral?
One other option - the Dashwoods pay for the road in return for being given permission for a massive new housing estate. Again - we're talking years of judicial reviews and protests. Shovels won't hit the ground for a very long time, if at all - all the while the ground is being put up as security and can be lost at any moment if the deal falls apart. That's quite a gamble.
Looking at this biography (there's a little more detail in this book), Rob Couhig appears to have some experience of this already. In 1997 he bought a football club and renamed it New Orleans Storm. Three years later he tried to move it to another stadium. The move didn't happen and he suspended operations. The club never restarted.
It would be quite something if Rob C, who all those who have been connected to the club and him have maintained that he's interested in running a club profitably and showing it can be done sustainably, then suddenly turns out to have been the masked villain after all and wants the land, area and assets.
There is no suggestion I can see that the stadium has been put up as collateral for loans. Commercial lenders would be unlikely to offer loans to a Lg1 football club - lossmaking, reputational damage to the bank if need to call the debt in and the stadium has little or no value as a football stadium for the the bank to sell it on.
Suggest we dont have the discussion about what alternative use the Adams Park site could be put to......
Just a thought, in the (extremely to me unlikely event) that the council gives planning permission for a housing estate on Dashwood land accessed by a road linking to the stadium, that may create an opportunity for the Adams Park site to obtain planning for redevelopment for residential housing use (that frankly isn't there now) which may in turn contribute much more materially to a new stadium elsewhere. All seems pretty far fetched though.
@ReturnToSenda exactly right you are, sorry I meant entertainment in the form of chairboys village, sound system and dare I say fireworks 😂 (I’ve just ducked in case something is thrown at me across the Gasroom!)
If Rob wanted to, is there anything stopping him moving the club to a new ground if such a ground existed? Leaving FALL owning a stadium with no team?
to try to answer my own question I assume the current trust model stops him. But If that were to change?
”Sorry we tried to improve the ground, build a road and a car park but it’s too expensive and complex to do it. So we’re moving the club to a new stadium in Booker/Marlow/Aylesbury or wherever, with a conference centre, hotel and associated leisure complex. We have secured investors to pay for it all…”
I’m not suggesting he wants to do this but what would stop him. Or any other new owner?
And if WWFC left Adams Park what would FALL do with it?
I believe the tweet mentioned above implies that we've had our vote on not being 51% anymore and the trust board can now do as they please on our behalf. It could be to drop the percentage of ownership further or sell the stadium or agree a longer lease or exit clauses that give RC more confidence to invest. I'm not sure how valuable an exit road that we've survived without for 30 years would be to him even if he retained its ownership.
The tweet may be correct in fact, but it doesn't come across well in the spirit of a community club. They (legacy members) had their vote, we can do what we like now thankyou very much. Are the trust board not legacy members? Came across as 'them' and 'us'.
@Shev ‘s mention of the PNL reminds me that trying to depart their ground is much worse than ours yet they regularly get 8,000+ , yes a bigger city but I really don’t believe it is access that is holding crowds back.
Wycombe is unlike all of its surrounding towns and villages which tend to be more affluent white collar ‘managerial’ dormitories. Get the footie fans living there to come to AP when they are not going to Premier League club matches in London must offer a better ROI than road building etc- a latent market with coin in their pockets (for now). Fill the place with 9,000 every week then start worrying about expansion / infrastructure.
We will never know if access is the overriding reason for people not coming but it is a significant factor. If we can get better parking and a new access road , it will certainly improve the whole experience and could increase crowds, which will generate extra funds .
I've just re-read the mailer from the Trust in September 2022 regarding subscription renewal. This caught my eye.
"Additionally if you are a Legacy Trust Member, (Trust members who are in at least their 4th consecutive season of being a fully paid or subscription model season ticket holder) vote on key issues such as:
any decision regarding the ownership of Adams Park by Frank Adams Legacy Limited, including any decision to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of assets held by the Trust or by Frank Adams Legacy Limited;
any decision to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of Club memorabilia
such other decisions (relating to the history and character of the Club) as the board of directors of the Trust may reasonably determine from time to time."
Note there is no mention of the requirement to hold a vote on any change in the Trusts % share of the club.
that answers my question above, which was what I thought it was. That for Rob to own the ground, he’d have to have legacy members vote it to him.
As for expensive ground modifications I don’t see how even 10,000 per week would pay for it quickly. If 10000 spend £40 every match and we have say 28 matches (some cup action) that’s just over £10 million a year income. How much of that isn’t eaten up by day to day costs, player and staff wages I don’t know but I can’t see it paying off these building plans that soon. Or maybe that doesn’t matter, it’s just serviceable debt?
In hearing the pitch for the latest deal, it would be good to think that members would bear in mind that the Couhigs changed the terms of the last one after it had been put to members - reducing the value of cash put into the club and changing the treatment of the rent holiday in terms of the credit given to the Trust. But my recollection is that only a couple of us noticed that.
This should bear on the question of the Couhigs' trustworthiness to deliver what they are now promising and on the assessment of any cynicism on their part in the changes they made last time so late in the day. None of it necessarily a showstopper, but definitely a factor in my mind.
It’s very easy to get mixed up with urban population sizes - they all seem to measure different things. The population of Manchester city itself is around half a million.
If you’d been to both New Orleans and Stoke then you would know that it would be ridiculous to say the two were similar in size or importance.
I’m still going to wait for the proposal before I get too excited either way but after all the hot air and hyperbole I’ve read on here wouldn’t it be great if it was just an agreement between Rob and the trust to get working towel dispensers in the gents.
Comments
Yes Prince but multi storey's cost around £12,000 per space to build. Even if you get the number of spaces dead on and have no issues with planning etc and the space gets used 23 times a year and every single one of those people using it wouldn't have come anyway and totally ignoring maintenance and running costs and interest costs and assuming average income of entry ticket and parking fee of £25, it would take over 20 years to pay for itself.
It's definitely an issue, it's not just people going where a nice car park is, it's people who may already have long onward journeys or connecting trains trying it and hating it or just thinking it isn't worth the bother. I'm far more likely to come to a game than many occasional or untapped fans regardless of how well or badly we've played but the playoff semi is my only midweek attendance in ages, I just can't guarantee that I'd get there from work in time for kick off or that it won't take me hours to get home without having to rely on cabs at both ends.
Ultimately we should still have some money in the bank and have backers who are interested in progress so let's see what happens. The ground is also likely to need upkeep even if we don't expand. I'm not sure I like the way I suspect all this is leading but the Couhigs aren't Sharky, they've been good to us so far, and this isn't (yet) a totally unfunded Booker for the benefit of Wasps.
Is it not the case that, if RC wants to put in £3m to the football club, then the Trust have to stump up £1M to maintain their 25% stake?
If the deal that's been agreed is simply to vary this condition - so that, for instance, the Trust always maintains an X% stake without having to put in additional funds - is that actually so bad? RC could just put in the £3M and dilute the trusts stake anyway if the Trust can't put in funds to the required level.
If RC then wants to invest those monies in infrastructure which the football club, rather than the Trust owns, what's to stop him?
I don't necessarily agree with his vision - but what's to stop him? As the Trust said the members already agreed to sell 75% of the football club to RC in 2020 - that deal has been done long time ago.
If I've got my facts and/or percentages wrong I hope someone with greater knowledge than me will correct them.
If RC wants to put extra money in without requiring it to be matched and leave the 25% trust share in tact, or put money in to developing the ground (that he doesn't own) he's free to do so and it would be very generous. it's got to be fairly unlikely though and I'm not sure we'd need a meeting or a vote.
Whilst as a regular supporter I do agree with you, I met up with 2 old friends yesterday who both went to the Port Vale match.
One said, “credit to anyone who watches that every week. Near the end there was about 4 passes in a row from Wycombe”.
The other said “second half constantly playing that long ball over the top and being cut out by the full backs, awful watch. Paid £57 for that in the family stand”.
So it’s not to be overlooked that product entertainment and fan experience are also key, which in fairness the Couhigs are trying to address.
I agree, @StrongestTeam, but that's not what I'm saying.
The notice for the meeting tells us that the Trust Board have agreed the next logical step and it's a change to the business model that the Trust and Football club work to.
Since the current business model is that the Trust has to match 75/25% any investment to the football club then what else is there?
The vote will be to either maintain the status quo - and have to find £?M to match 25% of an investment from RC - or to accept the Trust stake is diluted. Under my proposal the Trust stake would always remain a stake of X%.
What happens to the monies invested is secondary. If RC builds an access road and car park I don't think it would be owned by FALL.
The only person who can address the problem of product entertainment is Gaz
New road, major carpark and stand rebuilds etc.
At some point someone's got to say is it worth all that expense versus thoughts of a new purpose built ground?
But that's another story.
The only real question that needs to be asked at this Trust meeting is: Show. Me. The. Money.
DevC demonstrates how expensive building a multi-storey carpark is. Now let's talk stands. Oh, and then let's talk access road. If the Couhigs are serious about this proposal they will surely have had a viable route planned and costed? Has any football club had to pay for a mile-plus access road over rolling country hills before? We're talking many many millions. Oh, and that's greenbelt land - so not only do you have to persuade the landowners, the council, the government... but also the judges when environmental campaigners bring their judicial review(s)... not to mention the delays when they stage sit-in protests. Will the price of the delays - and the millions in legal fees - have been costed in? And what's the timeframe for this? Five years? Ten years?
Does anyone believe Rob Couhig has the funds for this? He's a small-city lawyer who owns a practice employing a dozen or so other attorneys. He used to own a pest control business (originally his father's). Various online profiles say he invests in other small Louisiana businesses - though nothing obvious. He couldn't even guarantee WWFC staff salaries during lockdown (until the furlough scheme kicked in).
Will the banks provide loans? Seems unlikely to me. Everyone knows lower league football loses money hand-over-fist. There's no guarantee of return on investment. Massive regulatory hurdles to jump through for planning permission. Oh, and few assets to be put up as security.
Hence the need to transfer the stadium. Without that, the Couhigs surely have no chance of getting any loan. Even with it I'd say it was unlikely. So before any vote is made by Trust members, another question to ask is: how much have you been guaranteed in loans if you have the ground to put up as security? And by whom? If it doesn't cover the full cost of this project, why risk the club's one major asset by putting it up as collateral?
One other option - the Dashwoods pay for the road in return for being given permission for a massive new housing estate. Again - we're talking years of judicial reviews and protests. Shovels won't hit the ground for a very long time, if at all - all the while the ground is being put up as security and can be lost at any moment if the deal falls apart. That's quite a gamble.
Looking at this biography (there's a little more detail in this book), Rob Couhig appears to have some experience of this already. In 1997 he bought a football club and renamed it New Orleans Storm. Three years later he tried to move it to another stadium. The move didn't happen and he suspended operations. The club never restarted.
It would be quite something if Rob C, who all those who have been connected to the club and him have maintained that he's interested in running a club profitably and showing it can be done sustainably, then suddenly turns out to have been the masked villain after all and wants the land, area and assets.
That is possibly where this leads. Rob wants to expand, suggests expanding AP, can't get approval/too expensive => new stadium
@aloysius And not just greenbelt, but in the Chilterns AONB, so any road would have to cut through that.
There is no suggestion I can see that the stadium has been put up as collateral for loans. Commercial lenders would be unlikely to offer loans to a Lg1 football club - lossmaking, reputational damage to the bank if need to call the debt in and the stadium has little or no value as a football stadium for the the bank to sell it on.
Suggest we dont have the discussion about what alternative use the Adams Park site could be put to......
Just a thought, in the (extremely to me unlikely event) that the council gives planning permission for a housing estate on Dashwood land accessed by a road linking to the stadium, that may create an opportunity for the Adams Park site to obtain planning for redevelopment for residential housing use (that frankly isn't there now) which may in turn contribute much more materially to a new stadium elsewhere. All seems pretty far fetched though.
@ReturnToSenda exactly right you are, sorry I meant entertainment in the form of chairboys village, sound system and dare I say fireworks 😂 (I’ve just ducked in case something is thrown at me across the Gasroom!)
If Rob wanted to, is there anything stopping him moving the club to a new ground if such a ground existed? Leaving FALL owning a stadium with no team?
to try to answer my own question I assume the current trust model stops him. But If that were to change?
”Sorry we tried to improve the ground, build a road and a car park but it’s too expensive and complex to do it. So we’re moving the club to a new stadium in Booker/Marlow/Aylesbury or wherever, with a conference centre, hotel and associated leisure complex. We have secured investors to pay for it all…”
I’m not suggesting he wants to do this but what would stop him. Or any other new owner?
And if WWFC left Adams Park what would FALL do with it?
With regard to your final paragraph, I would suggest that a phoenix club would arise à la AFC Wimbledon.
I believe the tweet mentioned above implies that we've had our vote on not being 51% anymore and the trust board can now do as they please on our behalf. It could be to drop the percentage of ownership further or sell the stadium or agree a longer lease or exit clauses that give RC more confidence to invest. I'm not sure how valuable an exit road that we've survived without for 30 years would be to him even if he retained its ownership.
I think I’ll wait and see what’s announced before spending a week following all the speculation from part-time planning experts.
That said, displaying plans and having an immediate vote is not a great start.
@aloysius Small-city?
New Orleans population is 375,000 - making it the 53rd biggest city in the US, about the same size as Stoke-on-Trent.
The tweet may be correct in fact, but it doesn't come across well in the spirit of a community club. They (legacy members) had their vote, we can do what we like now thankyou very much. Are the trust board not legacy members? Came across as 'them' and 'us'.
Or we would try and flog AP to Oxford. Selling point: fourth stand.
@Shev ‘s mention of the PNL reminds me that trying to depart their ground is much worse than ours yet they regularly get 8,000+ , yes a bigger city but I really don’t believe it is access that is holding crowds back.
Wycombe is unlike all of its surrounding towns and villages which tend to be more affluent white collar ‘managerial’ dormitories. Get the footie fans living there to come to AP when they are not going to Premier League club matches in London must offer a better ROI than road building etc- a latent market with coin in their pockets (for now). Fill the place with 9,000 every week then start worrying about expansion / infrastructure.
We will never know if access is the overriding reason for people not coming but it is a significant factor. If we can get better parking and a new access road , it will certainly improve the whole experience and could increase crowds, which will generate extra funds .
I've just re-read the mailer from the Trust in September 2022 regarding subscription renewal. This caught my eye.
"Additionally if you are a Legacy Trust Member, (Trust members who are in at least their 4th consecutive season of being a fully paid or subscription model season ticket holder) vote on key issues such as:
Note there is no mention of the requirement to hold a vote on any change in the Trusts % share of the club.
that answers my question above, which was what I thought it was. That for Rob to own the ground, he’d have to have legacy members vote it to him.
As for expensive ground modifications I don’t see how even 10,000 per week would pay for it quickly. If 10000 spend £40 every match and we have say 28 matches (some cup action) that’s just over £10 million a year income. How much of that isn’t eaten up by day to day costs, player and staff wages I don’t know but I can’t see it paying off these building plans that soon. Or maybe that doesn’t matter, it’s just serviceable debt?
Me
In hearing the pitch for the latest deal, it would be good to think that members would bear in mind that the Couhigs changed the terms of the last one after it had been put to members - reducing the value of cash put into the club and changing the treatment of the rent holiday in terms of the credit given to the Trust. But my recollection is that only a couple of us noticed that.
This should bear on the question of the Couhigs' trustworthiness to deliver what they are now promising and on the assessment of any cynicism on their part in the changes they made last time so late in the day. None of it necessarily a showstopper, but definitely a factor in my mind.
It’s very easy to get mixed up with urban population sizes - they all seem to measure different things. The population of Manchester city itself is around half a million.
If you’d been to both New Orleans and Stoke then you would know that it would be ridiculous to say the two were similar in size or importance.
I’m still going to wait for the proposal before I get too excited either way but after all the hot air and hyperbole I’ve read on here wouldn’t it be great if it was just an agreement between Rob and the trust to get working towel dispensers in the gents.