Speculate to accumulate

[BensGrandad]

Simple questions LI

Who OWNS this club?

Who will benefit when the club is eventually sold whether it be 1 year or 10 years?

When did I accuse The Board of misplacing play off funds my informant and I will not diclose him said, and I believe him, that there was an investigation into irregularities over the play off money not somebody hade misplaced it a considerable difference.

Who wouldn't use the club to promote their business. It is a known fact that Adenstar are going to tender for the construction of FALMER if it is granted. It is also known that Derek Chapman made a directors loan of money to the club. If it is benficial to all parties where is the problem. Do not certyain newspapers or companies subscribe to the political parties and for what?

If you wish to put up a constructive argument against me please do so and I will sit and take part.

 

[Yorkie]

the responsibility for running the club is that of the directors they own the business - based on your current scenerio we the customers will be keeping all failing business alive with our donations

What failing businesses? We have a club that we are fighting for because of past business dealings.

We are donating money because we want to, If you feel the legal process isn't going to work and the club is going under then you don't have to donate. It is voluntary.

I am not going to slate anyone that hasn't donated. I am not going to slate the Board for any discrepancies in the accounts (even though they have invested of £7.5million}

Either way don't sit there wringing your hands in two years when we get kicked out of Withdean and no stadium to move to.

 

[London Irish]

Simple questions LI Who will benefit when the club is eventually sold whether it be 1 year or 10 years?

Who the hell do you think is going to come in and spend tens of millions to buy the club? What fantasy world do you live in? We are not Manchester United or Chelsea, we do not have American football billionaires or Russian oligarchs stalking us ready to snap us up, and we never will because we are never going to be a club that can have that international brand or cache. Stock market listings for football clubs of our type have dried up - why? Because you can barely give shares in football clubs like ours away. They don't make money commensurate with the huge risk you take on.

We are a mid-sized club about to embark on a huge capital project that is going to be funded mainly by grants and debt, debt that will live with us for many, many years. It is these debt-holders who will be the real "owners" of the club once we get Falmer.

But you persist in this delusional fantasy that our directors are looking forward to that day in 10 years' time when the "bonanza" rolls in? What age will most of our directors be by then? Don't you think many of them will be grateful just to be sitting at Falmer in their bath-chairs rather than greedily off somewhere living the high life on their ill-gotten Albion money?

When did I accuse The Board of misplacing play off funds my informant and I will not diclose him said, and I believe him, that there was an investigation into irregularities over the play off money not somebody hade misplaced it a considerable difference.

You repeated a lot of hearsay rubbish with the express intention of smearing the board and insinuating that they were either incompetent or corrupt. That's your style - throw enough mud at the board until some of it sticks. That's why many of your posts are beneath contempt.

Who wouldn't use the club to promote their business. It is a known fact that Adenstar are going to tender for the construction of FALMER if it is granted. It is also known that Derek Chapman made a directors loan of money to the club. If it is benficial to all parties where is the problem.

Yes, but you snidely always insinuate that this is the only reason why our directors are involved with the club. It's nothing to do with their lifelong support of the Albion, nothing to do with them being of a certain age where they feel they can put something back into the community, the only motive you attribute to them is that they are "on the make" or looking out for a fast buck. You reveal your own very sour outlook on life with these insinuations.

 

[dougdeep]

What exactly would this Knight in shining armour be buying? Perhaps someone could list our current assets.

 

[mindyjaja]

Most high street lenders refuse to deal with FC's.

The biggest asset of any club, aisde the ground and any revaluation applicable to it which is only intangiable any way, is the clubs badge (branding).

 

[BensGrandad]

LI I do not know you but from your posts would assume thast you are either a journalist or somebody with aspirations to be so because you write so many words and say nothing about the subject in question.

Your assertion about not being a Chelsea or Man Utd and nobody would buy us is rubbish to say the least Chelsea were 5 days from going out of business when Abramovich came in and bought them because he saw potential for investment. Portsmouth were plodding along losing money when Milan Mandaric saw the same potential and bought them having previously been approached, then turned us down.

Nobody can be sure but I am sure as sure could be that as soon as planning permission for Falmer is granted DK will receive phone calls from prospective buyers.

3 months before DK bought the club I attended a breakfast meeting with a barrister and a well known sporting figure at The Savoy in London, nothing to do with football actually it was in connection with my role as a member of a Leaseholder Association fighting a pub eviction but that is not really important, I was introduced to this sporting personality and he was told of my affection towards BHA whereupon he told me that he had attended a lunch meeting with GS BA and DB a week earlier and offered to pay £7m to buy BHA and BA had got up and walked out saying the club is not for sale. All this goes to show that irrespective of problems at the time if the club own their ground somebody will offer to buy it. When we get Falmer this will happen.

I believe and I think that this belief is increasing amongst supporters that DK and MP have made a mistake in their plans for FALMER as somebody said on the phone in yesterday they have looked at the future and forgetten the present.

Nobody can deny that the value of BHA dropped dramatically the day they left The Goldstone and the only time that they will again become worth investing in is when we get permission or start building Falmer until then, are we to continually be expected to financially keep the board and their business, not mine not yours or anybody elses but theirs, afloat by donations.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

This is an argument that is going round in circles.

Bens Grandad (and a few others) seem to be suggesting that only a business solution will secure the future of the club. And that DK can't make it. And that he is wrong to have launched the Alive & Kicking appeal.



How about this alternative?

Increase the price of tickets by 50 per cent.

That will undoubtedly lead to smaller crowds, but more income. Using some rough & ready figures, I come up with the following:-

Current income from ticket sales:-
25 games x 6200 tickets x £20 = £3.1 million a year

Assume that we lose 1,700 regular customers who can't afford to come any more:-

Projected income from higher prices:-
25 games x 4500 tickets x £30 = £3.375 million a year

Add in the benefits arising from the fact that tickets will be easy to get for all games and that this will make marketing so much easier:-

25 games x 500 tickets to new rich customers x £30 = £375,000 a year

Result:- we end up £650,000 a year better off.

Whingers can still go to away matches, of course (average ticket price is £16; travel costs about £14; total costs £30 - the same as a game at Withdean)



Would this make the NSC Business Brains happy? I somehow doubt it. But we would be better off. We might even be able to afford a new striker.

 

[BensGrandad]

Lord B you seem to have missed the point.

The whole point of this is Why should we the supporters of the club/ business be expected to prop up the club/business that is owned by about 6 people. To say that if we dont the club will go broke is not a solution.

If the club went either bankrupt or into receivership or administration somebody would pick it up cheaply the losers would be the directors with their loans not being repaid. Not the supporters financially. The club would lose 10 popints and be relegated to Div 1 which will possibly or even probably happen anyway if we do not get a striker in. Am I so wrong I am quite prepared to discuss this with anybody in a rational civilised manner.

 

[Yorkie]

Once again - who is this somebody?

You have a lot more faith that there is somebody who wants a football club with no assetts.

 

[BensGrandad]

I cannot put a name on 'somebody' because he/she hasn't come forward but rest assured they would if the club was going to the wall. By the time that our fate for next seasons division is known so will the Falmer decision.

So we could be a club with approval for a new ground or one with an athletics stadium and most of players out of contract in Div 1 to start over again. With the knowledge that Withdean is our home whether we like or not. Somebody would take up the challenge I am certain.

 

[Yorkie]

We would have a lot more problems keeping Withdean as a home than we have getting Falmer.

Two Withdean residents have been putting the kybosh on the extra seats and Park & Ride so you can imagine what they would do if there were signs of us staying there.

 

[Ernest]

I don't think it is a secret to know that there is a Plan B and it will mean staying at Withdean.

 

[Biscuit]

If the club went either bankrupt or into receivership or administration somebody would pick it up cheaply the losers would be the directors with their loans not being repaid. Not the supporters financially.

The supporters are giving the club money NOT loaning it to them. The financial state of the supporters is less of an issue than the financial state of the club. You're deal in hypothetical situations. The board wouldnt let the club go 'either bankrupt or into receivership'. If someone want to come in with a couple of mill, the board WILL let them. Obviously certain restraints must be in place though. However, without a stadium how/why would anyone want to invest?

DK is doing his upmost to get us a ground. We have our hands tied behind our backs financially, so it must come off. He realises the club need a future and that future is a stadium at Falmer. No one will put money in untill the club have a ground. If they (for some reason) want to, they will be allowed to.

Once we have the ground I imagine we will get investment. Untill then DK HAS to go cap in hand to the fans. I'd rather that than he lied abput our finances and we ended up in real poo.

It's twats like you that mean if Falmer is a no, DK will be off. Frankly I can't blame him. The amount he HAS done, and is CONTINUING to do is nothing short of amazing. Get of his back and wise up. Nobody wants a club with no home.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Lord B you seem to have missed the point.

The whole point of this is Why should we the supporters of the club/ business be expected to prop up the club/business that is owned by about 6 people. To say that if we dont the club will go broke is not a solution.

It's not me who's missed the point. It's YOU, BensGrandad.

The point is that, in 1997, the Club's supporters welcomed Dick Knight and the consortium as the ONLY people who could keep us going.

You didn't.

The Club's supporters have kept the faith and continue to do so.

You never had it. You don't have it now.

I can live with you being a dissenter, BG. What I object to is the way that you continue to argue against DK's leadership without telling us that you didn't want him in the first place.

It might help if you remind us how you would have saved the club in 1997.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Dick Knight is a blooming hero and anyone that disagrees with that can see me outside the club shop.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

If someone want to come in with a couple of mill, the board WILL let them. Obviously certain restraints must be in place though.

Well said, Biscuit.

Rotherham were offered salvation and investment, on condition that Ronnie Moore was sacked and Paul Gascoigne brought in.

Despite their dire circumstances, the Club's supporters have made it plain that they don't see that as a solution. The 'investors' have now gone away.

Well done Rotherham, I say.

 

[BensGrandad]

Lord B.

I am not trying to detract from what DK has achieved that is unchangeable. As I have explained on another thread I wrote to everybody bar the pope during 1997 including going to see Lord Cowdray because at the time he was mentioned in his paper The Financial Times as wanting to invest in a football club and was rumoured to be the money behind Irvine Scholars bid to buy Nottingham Forest. I received replies from most of the Football Clubs Chairman a number said it wasnt their problem and they would look at it if and when the club changed hands. Some wrote and suggested that us, being the supporters would be best off if we stuck with the existing owners as they had money and eventually we would prosper with them as opposed to the resources that DK had at his disposal. Two chairmen came and saw me at my pub independantly of each other and told me that Dk didnt have sufficient money to buy the club. One said unless the situation changes rapidly during our time at Gillingham wewould be left with nowhere to play because you, being the club cannot afford to rent a ground and nobody will be willing to lend you one.

Armed with this information I went to a fans forum at Southwick and mentioned all of this and was ridiculed by Dick Knight saying who is this idiot get him off and not attempting to answer my questions. He just caused a commotion which resulted in people throwing beer and punches at and over me. John Baine was the Chairman of the meeting and spoke of action and bringing in protesters to the Goldstone similar to those used at the animal right marches at Shoreham Harbour a ploy I totaly disgreed with.

I said on that night that we would struggle financially under DK and now I appear to be being proved right. We are in as bad if not worse debt than we were in 1997 and we do not own a ground to borrow against, not Dicks fault that I know but it is still fact.

As I have said before and nobody has even attempted to correct me other than to say it is our club and our responsibility but the responsibility of keeping the club afloat and going on to achieve Falmer is the boards not for the supporters to provide donations.

I hope that this has explained why I hold the views that I do and that I am in noway connected with or acting on behalf of the last 3 or indeed anybody else.

 

[The Large One]

I said on that night that we would struggle financially under DK and now I appear to be being proved right. We are in as bad if not worse debt than we were in 1997 and we do not own a ground to borrow against, not Dicks fault that I know but it is still fact.

We would be in this position no matter who was in charge. It doesn't matter how much money was thrown at the Falmer project - we would still be in this position.

As I have said before and nobody has even attempted to correct me other than to say it is our club and our responsibility but the responsibility of keeping the club afloat and going on to achieve Falmer is the boards not for the supporters to provide donations.

Disagree. The whole point of the protest in 96/97 was to make the club one for the fans - not the moneymen. You are seriously out of touch with the prevailing mood of the supporters.

You suggest more money goes into the club - but you only want large donations from rich people. what is wrong to small donations from many not so well off people? Would you talk this utter bollocks if just one person had donated the £220,000 so far raised by Alive & Kicking. Your comments are hypocritical.

 

[BensGrandad]

We would be in this position no matter who was in charge. It doesn't matter how much money was thrown at the Falmer project - we would still be in this position.



Disagree. The whole point of the protest in 96/97 was to make the club one for the fans - not the moneymen. You are seriously out of touch with the prevailing mood of the supporters.

You suggest more money goes into the club - but you only want large donations from rich people. what is wrong to small donations from many not so well off people? Would you talk this utter bollocks if just one person had donated the £220,000 so far raised by Alive & Kicking. Your comments are hypocritical.

This £220k has been put in by probably 1000 people and what do they have for their efforts?

If one man had put in £220k he would have expected something in return and this is what irks me as it appears that the club want the supporters to give their money and offer nothing in return as opposed to one man getting a stake in the club.

Would you give £220k and expect nothing in return.

If the club asked supporters to pay a deposit on future season tickets as Arsenal have done and hope to raise £30m in so doing, I would have been at the front of the queue but to ask for a donation to keep them afloat and give nothing in return to me is taking the p..s

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I am more than happy with my certificate and the promise of a named seat at Falmer. It is an unconditional gift from me to the club I have loved and supported for 33 years. A small recognition for all the joy the club have given me over the years.

I expect nothing in return.