people make up your minds

[Spud]

Arriba id agree with all of what dv has said, you come on here slatting the board but could you do anything better?

Pewrsonally I was thrilled to see Mark Devlin back at teh club.

Same as.

[STFC Village]

1.do the board have the interests of stfc as their main priority?

Yes, yes they do

2.why are we charged ridiculous prices for sub standard football?

We have to in order to make ends meet, if ticket prices were lowered that would mean less income, which would mean more budget cuts else where (ie players wages) and youd moan that we werent investing enough in the squad, so the club cant win. Plus if you look around yes our prices are expensive but alot of clubs charge similar amounts. Only 4 clubs I've been to this season have charged less than £15 for an adult ticket, all 4 of these were terraces (3 uncovered)

3.where are the new proposed locations of the athletics and cricket clubs?

No offence but this is something alot of us know nothing about. The Cricket club cant be moved for various reasons. Firstly you cant just create a cricket pitch its takes at least two years to bed in properly. The land is classed as open space and thus, if the cricket ground is re-located the land has to stay as open space otherwise the central ward will go under its quota of green space. There is no chance in hell of houses being built there. The Athletics track will stay where it is, and most likely been re-done to add a full 8 lanes as it currently only has 6.

4.why is a 15500 stadium not good enough for us?

Its nothing to do with the size of the ground, rather what it contains. All the ground generates is match day revenue, where as all these new grounds have conference facilitys and what not that bring in extra revenue which means the club is more financially stable...and thus can start turning a profit then re-investing in the club. Before money can go into improving the on pitch team it needs to be generated via extra income generated by the new stadium. Purely as a football stadium the CG is alright, from a business point of view it doesnt bring in enough cash

5.why were decent contracts not offered to last seasons squad?

Because they werent very good? maybe King only wanted to offer them one year at a time. As far as I am aware there is no proof that the one year offers were down to the board and not Andy King. However one year or two years, the greedy bastards would have jumped at a chance for more money. The likes of Igoe, Howard, G.Smith etc stayed here for two years anyway and would have gone in the summer.

6.how much does devlin earn?

Alot less than you think he does, and I expect he works alot harder to

So, what i said then?


 

[Simon Pieman]

Do members of the board plough their own money - thousands; millions; into companies in other businesses? What should make a football club any different?

People are very quick to criticise the board without knowing any facts. I don't even know the facts so I'm not preaching gospel here, this is more of a point that many are jumping on the bandwagon and (what could be) wrongfully accusing the board of raping the football club.

[Stef Troll]

I dont think you can accuse the board so much,  as there are a number of teams in our division (Port Vale,  Bournemouth, Chesterfield)  who all have similar poor financial situations, and they also seem to struggle.  

If we get relegated, then there will be a complete turnaround at the club.  I guess the top earners at the club will leave, with the rest of the players probably having to take a reduced pay packet.

If we do get relegated, then the future will be unclear.  In an ideal world, we go straight back up,  have a young confident team, and emulate teams like Southend, Luton,  ie push for promotion, or at least stay well clear of relegation
However if we dont get promoted fairly quickly, then im guessing we will be in for a long stay in league 2

[Batch]

Personally my opinion is:

"The board" (or more accurately the financial backers of the club) have had enough of pouring their money into a black hole indeffinitely. They are unwilling or unable to bankroll the club run at a loss evermore with no sign of it turning around. It's their money, I guess they can do what they like with it.

It would explain why the club is now on a shoestring with low contracts/periods being offered that unfortunately saw our squad broken up and replaced with what we have now.

I assume they think new facilities (including a stadium) would mean  chance to wipe the slate clean on the debt front and get the club on an even keel. If they personally make money out of this it seems fair enough to me. They covered our debts so they can reap any rewards.

Obviously there are a fair few people out there that want things to change now, starting with a replacement of the board. I can see where they are coming from. But what I haven't seen is a plan of how this is possible financially. There don't seem to be investors waiting to buy the board out and run things, only vague rumours that may happen one day.  So if there is noone else to bankroll a loss making venture with litlle or no assets then what can we do?

And I don't think it unreasonable for "the board" to ask for some money for a controlling interest should some knight in shining armour be found. They are the reason we can moan about this club today. Without them there may verywell be no STFC.

Ticket prices are high. It's not an easy problem.  The less money we get in the less we have to spend on players. The less we spend on players the worse we get and the less people come in......But what is the solution? Reduce them? By how much? Half them and we would not see a doubling of people to cover the shortfall. However the board should think carefully about next season if we go down because it will be harder than ever to attract fans.

Lastly Mr Devlin. He has his employers interests at heart and as such will no doubt avoid certain questions and spin certain news to make it sound positive. But on the whole he is a million times better at communicating with fans than his recent predecessor. And I am sure he is not sitting there thinking "how can I screw the fans today"....

We are in a frustrating position as a club. The board should not be given carte blanche to do what they want without question. The buck will always stop with them eventually. But given the lack of alternative the stadium seems to be the only plan we have at the moment.

[Asher]

Spot On.

[Panda Paws]

Ticket prices are high. It's not an easy problem. The less money we get in the less we have to spend on players. The less we spend on players the worse we get and the less people come in......But what is the solution? Reduce them? By how much? Half them and we would not see a doubling of people to cover the shortfall. However the board should think carefully about next season if we go down because it will be harder than ever to attract fans.

Ticket prices are high for one simple reason - it's the club's only income that is paying for the CVA.

Why do we have a CVA in place? Because of mismanagement from previous administrations.

Why are we in trouble now? Is it because of the current board? Hell no. You need to look back and take in Swindon's troubles in context. It's not the current board's fault, although at times they haven't helped ...

[janaage]

FUCK ME!!!!  What's happened???  I agree with DV85!!!  

I hate this "our tickets are too expensive, sackthe board, why do we need a new stadium, last season's team were so much better" bullshit.

Last seasons team were crap.  Duke was booed by a lot of the crowd, Igoe and Howard played like they didn't give a shit, Parkin was class but would never have stayed, Heywood was alright but again you'd have to be stupid to turn down a 3 year contract.  And as for Smith, it seems he only plays well when a new contratc is being sniffed around.

As for the tickets and stadium talk, we've been there before.

[Arriba]

but the whole stadium development depends on the redevelopment of the cricket and athletics grounds,something dv85 seems to have completely ignored as his post shows.he says we cant move either club but we need a new ground, so where is the money coming from then?
he contradicted himself there!
the club have made public their desire to redevelop the whole area,with the money for the stadium coming from the housing and retail development at the cricket club and athletics track sites, so dv85 is wrong as are those that agree with him.
if what dv85 has stated was true then there would be no chance whatsoever of the county ground being redeveloped.
the board cant just say we want to redevelop the whole area and remove two clubs from their homes without offering a decent alternative,its pathetic and will be rejected and rightly so by the council

[Narbs]

Im sorry arriba,

But you have come out with the post ranting and raving and the majority of people dont agree with you, dv85 is talking sense im afraid.

The club have talked alot about re-developing the current site on its current footprint.

as for Mark D Im sorry he is an assett,  do you think we would know what we know if it was left to Sandy Shaw?  I think not.  he cares

[Piemonte]

VD in being right shocker!

Arriba - It would seem that SBC dosnt want to lose "green space" which includes the cricket pitch and athletics track. I'd imagin the the club are reworking the proposals to incclude apartment blocks rather than houses ie build up rather than out.

[Arriba]

i dont give a flying fuck who agrees with me or not.
dv85's post is not accurate and neither is yours narbs i'm afraid.
do you honestly think that the club will find money  to redevelop the current site without redeveloping the cricket and athletics clubs first to fund it?
as for devlin he is the boards mouthpeice and their employee,he will say what they want him to.
 narbs you are one of the many misguided idiots that the board love.

[Arriba]

VD in being right shocker!

Arriba - It would seem that SBC dosnt want to lose "green space" which includes the cricket pitch and athletics track. I'd imagin the the club are reworking the proposals to incclude apartment blocks rather than houses ie build up rather than out.

if that is the case where will the appartments, hotel,shops and leisure facilitys go,that were all mentioned previously.
just proves the board make things up as they go along if what you say is true.
without redeveloping the athletics and cricket club sites there is little room is there.
its fucking ridiculous

[DV]

My post is much more accurate that your shower of shite trust me on that!

The club cant not redeveloped the cricket club, it is classed as open space and the central ward is already at the minimum quote. Plus they have a much longer lease than the football club and do not want to move, we cant make them.

The club needs to fund development another way other than planning on building houses on ground which they cant touch.

I dont know what the board are doing but I expect they are looking at this..

Class it as bullshit all you want, just because I dont agree with you doesnt mean I am wrong, infact the opposite.

Why dont you come to the next trust meeting and ask all these questions....or the next fans forum (if there is one?!)

I've felt the same as you arriba, but I personally took time out and clued myself up on the issues.....

[Piemonte]

Chances are it will be a scaled down development with less shops etc. but non of us know weather that makes the proposal finacially viable or not. Which makes this entire thread a bit poinless - we are all guessing redardless of the viewpoint.

Leyton Orient are building apartmernt blocks in the corners of their ground for example.

What exactly do you suggest the board do instead Arriba? let the club quietly die?