I was talking about a fans "consortium" of sorts reg.
This is the second time in as many days you've expressed some support for the idea of a community owned club.
You're starting to sound a bit bolshie for a brown shirt. I'd watch out for those long knives if I were you.
On a more serious note though, the first time was when you were supporting the only really serious proposal for change (Reg's) put forward on a thread on THISIS.
However, you'd spent the rest of the thread ranting along with the rest that the board were a bunch of shitbags and needed to get their wallets out.
Now there's a bit of a contradiction there. You either want some wealthy backer bunging a load of money into the club regularly to keep it going, and consequently acting as if he owns the club, BECAUSE HE DOES. Or you want to take your chances with the community getting of its arse, taking on the ownership and management, and doing something to save the club.
You can't have both.
As Reg, quite rightly as always, pointed out no-one, not even the tuppenny-happenny local businessmen like Hillier were prepared to put in any significant amounts without ownership and control, and the clubs rules were changed in order to facilitate that.
In my heart I'm with Reg. I'd love to see the club owned and controlled by a fans consortium. In my guts the idea scares the shit out of me. Partly because the fucking idiocy that is all too apparent on that Thisis thread makes me think these are not people that should be running a bath let alone a football club. But mainly because i think everybody underestimates just what a difficult job it is keeping a club above water in the lower leagues.
Admitedly fans only get clubs handed to them when things are really bad, but Bournemouth, Rotherham, Wrexham, they've hardly gone from strength to strength have they.
Rotherham are probably the closest equivalent to us, i don't think they own the ground either, and look where they are. No bugger breaks even on their football income, and like them we've no other assets, and no other serious income streams.
In our current state with the CVA pending i just don't think it's a goer I'm afraid.
Which leaves us with the current board, and the hope that the development goes through. (Because despite what the deluded what idiots on that other forum might think, there's no queue of people waiting to buy up the club and chuck money at it)
Incidentally on the subject of the development you made some statement that the board were only hanging around for that to happen and for them to get their money back.
Well Little Willie might have a hope of getting the £400k in loans that he put in back, but there's no fucking way it'll generate anything like what SSW's put in. And he know's it. He's just hoping it will stabilize the club enough for him to be able to turn off the drip feed of his own cash that it takes to keep it alive at the moment.
Fair shout the start was expected but i'll move on..........
I'll clarify a couple of things for you and then look at the rest.
I'm pissed off at the board, did they deliberatley hope to take the club down a division for the parachute money and two years (Including this one) of Div4 wages and put the "saving" on the loss to one side for the CVA payment next year?
Or was it a gamble at trying to retain L1 on the lowest possible budget, that hasn't looked like it's going to pay off from the kick off?
I don't know but as far as I'm concerned, deliberatley taking the club to a lower division, especially the lowest one in the football league is unacceptable. That division can be lethal to clubs who drop through the trap door, possibly into the abyss for all time. That, would fucking kill me.
As we all know everything is about money in the game but hangers on like one Mr Carson (Who I think has made it plain on a number of occassions, mainly on home matchday, that he doesn't want to be involved with the club) might be doing himself a favour by hanging on in there, I believe he's doing the club a dis-service at the very least. This is especially evident when you look at his record of involvement with the club since his publicly admitted financial "mistake".
Wills and his money have admittedly saved our arse on a number of occassions in the past but as they have control of the club, i'll refer you to the bit about gambling. The stadium issue is significant in all this as is this final cva of £900k. I hope SSW's cash can sort that one out and I have no problem with him getting cash out of the redeveloped/new stadium and additional facilities.
Wills doesn't have to go, Carson does. This is where the fans consortium comes in. I wouldn't like to speculate on exactly how much his share is currently worth but I can't imagine it would be an un-realistic figure to achieve considering everything i've just said and probably a lot I haven't.
I could go on about the stadium as well but i'll leave that one with you.