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THE SAM MORSHEAD COLUMN: Buyers must be right for Town
           
           


  SO WHERE do we go from here? What do we conclude at the end of a week which began with a broken dugout and ended with a for sale sign being slapped on Swindon Town.

           

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Do you know something we don't?

Bit of a big hint that 'property developing' would be a pre-requisite for any new buyer.

And, from what we hear, one of the Magnificent Seven is, indeed, in property development.

I'd want someone interested in the club first and foremost - not bricks and mortar

I refer you to my last post under "Patey wants a bidding war" In effect KR you're spot on alas I don't think we are going to get what we want entirely. WRT the development which has gone very quiet, could it be be that a prerequiste to selling the club is an agreemnet in principle with SBC to go ahead subject to planning approval which has been gaurenteed but not rubber stamped and away we go. New owners, new ground = ??????????????? Kassam or Madjeski? as in the out  come, not suggesting that they are involved in any way you understand.

Id like a property developer. We need someone who can fund a new stadium.

Only the right developer. As said we don't want a Kassam/Coventry situation on any new stadium. And preferably we don't want a property developer to come in, make money, fuck off at the first opportunity.

We'll see I suppose.

Agreed, and a common thread coming from the board for the last 2 years.

Wray always stated they wanted an investor of this ilk to join the board

Actually we probably do. At least as one member of a board that otherwise stays - a property developer that comes in, takes a profit, then fucks off, implies they've had their money and leave the club with the ground as an asset to derive revenue from. One that sticks around is most likely taking his profit from the ongoing revenues, a la Kassam.

What would worry me more is the rumours of agent Phil putting together a consortium - agents running clubs is not a happy recipe (for the clubs anyway, it's quite lucrative for the agents). Ask Donny and Blackburn

We agree, I meant solely a property developer exiting the football club itself stage left while owning the biggest asset.

 Oh for the days, before the hideous Thatcherite alteration of the Articles of Association in the mid 80's.

Then we could quite happily be a modest Div 3 club with the odd foray up to Div 2...under the watchful chairmanship of a local baker or butcher, who could be happily voted out by the many shareholders from The Works, under the one share one vote Rochdale sysytem.

Even the Diamond Mike shower, paid more heed to the small shareholders than the present Board. 

So we're now a modest Div 3 club, where the fans have exactly no say in the future of our club.  The Trust offers some hope of a voice, but it's been moribund...this is not criticising anybody, it was kind of inevitable, when the present regime seemed so good.

We need to be watchful and ready to mount a protest campaign, if the new owners are of the "dodgy" variety....it's the only way of making our voice heard.

I'll keep an eye out for Rufus Brevett at the game ;)

Ha!  I have just found my orange hat in a drawer upstairs.

we want Diamond Mike, say we want Diamond Mike

[url width=50 height=38]http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh49/juanrapr/banplease.gif[/url]

Hmmn, like the club was a model of fiscal efficiency in the 70's and early 80's and the fans voted out the butcher, the baker or even the Calne builder or did they just drift away in apathy?. We muddled through that time with the same old faces running the club. We couldn't afford to pay for the North Stand, the council bailing us out and taking a tidy cut of the gate money since and gates of a couple of thousand every week.

Took a stroke of luck or genius when Macari came in, with some backing from Lowndes Lambert, and a hard working manager gelling a team of hard working players with unrealised ability to propel us through the divisions and withing touching distance of the 1st Division.

Like it or not the game has moved on and it ain't going back. The days of a Forest or Villa winning the League and the European cup have gone and the likes of Man U, Chelsea and Arsenal in relative mediocrity who spent most of the 70's and 80's doing nothing except the odd cup win are now in ascendency.

The club is in a better position than in 2007 when the tax man was knocking on the door ready to close us and a professional set up that pay their bills and engage fans. However,  unless the supporters are willing to fund the £1-2M a year shortfall each season either through ticket prices or getting more bums on seats, we are always going to rely on a benefactor.

Let's hope the next bunch are in more in the Black, Fitton, Arrib mould than the badly advised and misguided intentions of the lot before that

A number of fair points, but as a point of information, it was the change of Articles which opened the door for the Calne builder...and saw the back of men of substance and probity like Cecil Green.  The club has always been strapped for cash, but the debt tended to be within a range, that could be wiped by selling a player or two...which is why terrace dwellers are always suspicious of the motives of the Board.

We now seem to have debt beyond the realistic for a club of our size....can this go on?

stop scaremongering

It's what Reg does best ::)

Is the question can the accumulation of debt go on, not a fair question? 

You're conveniently forgetting the small matter of the Club having to sell the County Ground Reg. I think that goes rather beyond 'the odd player or two'.

The club have never owned the CG.

Who did then? The Club surely sold it to the Council in 1982 didn't they?

I think Reg could be correct that we have always leased the CG from the council.

I am pretty certain that at minimum the land has always been owned by SBC with us paying them rent.

So what am I thinking of that happened in 1982?

Wasn't that when we sold the North Stand to the council? I can't quite remember, as the club bought and owned the stands and facilities but I think had to sell just the stand including its facilities to the council.

As we owned the stands but not the land itself.

I am not totally sure on that though.

I thought we had to sell the land to the council to get the cash to finish the North Stand.

This is probably one of Reg's riddles where it was probably owned by the Arkells family or something so was not technically owned by the Club.

It could well have been A N Other owner and not the club but TBH I don't really know but I had heard that the land has always been owned by SBC in the past.

Arkell's have bailed us out on more than one occasion but probably not since at least the 50's but definitely in the 20's and 30's if I remember from Dick Mattick's book The Robins

 The CG was owned by the Goddards, Major Goddard, bequeathed the CG to the "Corporation" now SBC, when he died, on the proviso it was always used for sporting events...which is the much talked about convenant.

 Sam Allen was complaining in the 20's that the Corporation were a rapacious landlord, who cared little for the club, compared to Major Goddard, whom he regarded as an excellent landlord.

 Probably the only time the Council have been onside, was when under David Murray John, although a Huddersfield fan he understood the cultural importance of a football club....and so facilitated the building of the Arkells.

 Back in the 50's through to 70's localism in government was important..so as CEO of SBC Murray John had a lot of clout. It was the Thatcherite "rate capping" attack of the early 80's, that emaciated local government, and centralised power to Whitehall.

 One more reason why the pygmies at SBC are unlikely ever to do anything to help at STFC.

Well bugger me buttocks, I stand well and truly corrected Reg. I could have sworn we sold the ground to the council in '82. Maybe I'm getting mixed up with the Bristol City 1982 thing - Oooh, I feel dirty :no: