Redevelopment Closer Than Ever?

[Melbourne Cobbler]

Ah the wisdom of a man who can go back in time, change history and predict the future...............
[/😂👍👍👍👍

Sorry, i haven't been keeping up. Has our Luton Branch come up with a viable plan yet, or is it still subjective opinion spouted from the depths of his arse?

[Melbourne Cobbler]

I think people need to start waking up to the fact that change is coming one way or another. There are 2 possibilities as I see it. The first is that the deal goes through, the stand is finished to whatever standard and KT/DB leave and sell the club to the highest/any bidder. The second option is that any deal is stalled/blocked and the owners eventually walk as they are not prepared to fund the club indefinitely. Seriously, whatever side of the fence you are on what comes next? Some talk of a better future, but what is the plan because without something viable we are possibly in serious trouble. Have the board of the Trust, any member of this forum, supporters group or anyone anywhere got anything tangible to present to give the average supporter any confidence that the club has a secure future beyond the current owners. Forget the cheap points scoring, has anyone got anything that can give real hope beyond fantasy opinion, unrealistic expectations that border on psychotic delusion, and deluded assumptions about what our catchment area will bring. I have seen and read nothing that brings me any comfort whatsoever and Im worried, properly worried and time is not improving matters.

[guest168]

The whole thing is a complete farce.

The valuation of less than £1m for 20 acres, with no breakdown of it's parts is a bad joke.

The numbers as quoted ahead make no sense nor on the face of it does KT urgency of getting it approved (note - approved not done)

Those figures are clearly wrong, everything that KT / DB has done has been driven by return on investment, and as they look at everything historical through gloomy dark glasses, virtually NOTHING has been updated or improved, especially around supporter facilities.

Carr's Bar falls further behind local establishments every season  

4000 More seats behind goals, club say would only have sold 11,000 in 5 years !!!!!  (despite playing Man U, Derby, MK x3, Pboro x2, Oxford x2, Sunderland, Swindon x4, Portsmouth etc etc)

Painting the gates and parts of west stand to stop place looking like it is closing down - no as it will take money from playing budget (I expect answer to be)

Improving away facilities to encourage more fans and more spending - "they can get a drink, some food and a seat, what more do they need"  quote unquote

Yet spending £4m on the East stand with some boxes will give us £250k profit every year. 16 years to get the minimum outlay back, without interest charges or start to get a return.

But the owners are desperate to get this done now - (although not that desperate as they have no confirmed plans after being here for 6 years).

They are using every trick in the book to try and prove to the council it is what supporters want, so they can bulldoze planning permission through.

Call me sceptical but as you why is that?  why so keen to do this yet little else?

Of course they will not be that affected if it doesn't go ahead like they say - THEY HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED £6.68M IN THE NAME OF THE CLUB FROM THE CHINESE NON-DEAL

So that being the case, we need to appeal to them to look at a longer term, bigger project. Like MC says, almost every fan wants that.

We have waited 17 years for the stadium to be improved, now is not the time to just except something for the sake of it.

I believe that if we do, we are resigning ourselves to repeating the last 40 years of underachievement and L2 football in the main.

[Knockingonabit]

Oh here we go again, 6.68million Chinese money allegedly pocketed, you just do not know!

Melly sums it up beautifully.

I was sitting on the fence throughout but have toppled off in the last few days.

We have an extensive independent report, the club and council reach an agreement and then....Jesus wept, as I suspect do the vast majority of supporters.

[guest168]

I think people need to start waking up to the fact that change is coming one way or another. There are 2 possibilities as I see it. The first is that the deal goes through, the stand is finished to whatever standard and KT/DB leave and sell the club to the highest/any bidder. The second option is that any deal is stalled/blocked and the owners eventually walk as they are not prepared to fund the club indefinitely. Seriously, whatever side of the fence you are on what comes next? Some talk of a better future, but what is the plan because without something viable we are possibly in serious trouble. Have the board of the Trust, any member of this forum, supporters group or anyone anywhere got anything tangible to present to give the average supporter any confidence that the club has a secure future beyond the current owners. Forget the cheap points scoring, has anyone got anything that can give real hope beyond fantasy opinion, unrealistic expectations that border on psychotic delusion, and deluded assumptions about what our catchment area will bring. I have seen and read nothing that brings me any comfort whatsoever and Im worried, properly worried and time is not improving matters.

Hi Melly,

There are plenty of options and examples to follow but we NEED that change.

If you look at all the clubs that have fans / community very involved in their club, most are overachieving. Many of the smaller, recent non-league clubs are community led, have a sense of togetherness and focus. Look at the more established clubs that are struggling, they are generally treading water and so moving backwards, repeating the same mistakes, doing the minimum and not creating an attractive, dynamic, value for money experience for its fans.

Don't agree Melly about deluded assumptions re catchment area, you cannot deny we have the 'customers' there in our local area that given the right product would be there in their droves (sooner or later). We took 7000 away to MK with the hope of a home tie v Chelsea, that ironically not all those 7000 would even have gotten a ticket. 44000 to wembley means something - it was the largest ever following at wembley at the time, again it means something, its not everything, but its something.

The catchment area, our central easy access location and the space around the ground, are our assets. That is where we should be looking for a far better return on.

It has to come from people who are invested in the football club, short, medium and long term  - until we have that we will not move forward.

[guest168]

Oh here we go again, 6.68million Chinese money allegedly pocketed, you just do not know!

Melly sums it up beautifully.

I was sitting on the fence throughout but have toppled off in the last few days.

We have an extensive independent report, the club and council reach an agreement and then....Jesus wept, as I suspect do the vast majority of supporters.

IT IS NOT ALLEGED, I DO f***ING KNOW, FFS

Extensive independent report my backside - even the council are now saying it is useless

[guest3481]

IT IS NOT ALLEGED, I DO **** KNOW, FFS

Extensive independent report my backside - even the council are now saying it is useless

You know how much they received. You don't know how much they spent.
The independent assessor was appointed by the council, you know that right.

[Deepcut Cobbler]

IT IS NOT ALLEGED, I DO **** KNOW, FFS

Extensive independent report my backside - even the council are now saying it is useless

Have you forgotten to take your Meds again?
It is alleged, no one else has confirmation of what happened to the Chinese money, as affirmed by KeithB on here.

[Peter Frost]

IT IS NOT ALLEGED, I DO **** KNOW, FFS

Derek - I'm not trying to be deliberately contrary here and yes you are right it is fairly well documented that the club was sold for the figure you state - what I have not seen is evidence of, is any monies KT & DB did or did not pay to take back ownership of the club - of course it suits your argument that they paid nothing and therefore "pocketed" the original amount but frankly the thought that the Chinese simply walked away with that loss or had no contingency for a deal failure is hard to believe. Some of your colleagues claim to have evidence that this was a net profit but consistently refuse to provide details.

I think this is really important to clarify - if your thoughts are true essentially the owners have already recovered their loans of approx 7 million and I 100% agree that there should be more continued pressure for the club to benefit more from any land deal - if on the other hand they paid the Chinese a similar amount back it puts a different complexion on how much investment has been made in the club.

So in summary if you have the evidence that they paid nothing to get the club back why do you not publish those details as it would significantly strengthen your argument.  

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Hi Melly,

There are plenty of options and examples to follow but we NEED that change.

If you look at all the clubs that have fans / community very involved in their club, most are overachieving. Many of the smaller, recent non-league clubs are community led, have a sense of togetherness and focus. Look at the more established clubs that are struggling, they are generally treading water and so moving backwards, repeating the same mistakes, doing the minimum and not creating an attractive, dynamic, value for money experience for its fans.

I would argue that The Trust Board has been majorly complicit in the division(s) between the supporters, the club, any community spirit and sense of togetherness that there ever was.

[Knockingonabit]

Random, I haven't seen it reported that the council are saying the report is useless. How do you know this or have I missed something?

Unless you tell me otherwise I have to assume that this is feedback from the liaison between the two council members and the trust, which has always felt uncomfortable to me. Somehow smacks of the equivalent of Parliamentary Lobbying.

Standing by with my hard hat.

[Melbourne Cobbler]

Hi Melly,

There are plenty of options and examples to follow but we NEED that change.

If you look at all the clubs that have fans / community very involved in their club, most are overachieving. Many of the smaller, recent non-league clubs are community led, have a sense of togetherness and focus. Look at the more established clubs that are struggling, they are generally treading water and so moving backwards, repeating the same mistakes, doing the minimum and not creating an attractive, dynamic, value for money experience for its fans.

Don't agree Melly about deluded assumptions re catchment area, you cannot deny we have the 'customers' there in our local area that given the right product would be there in their droves (sooner or later). We took 7000 away to MK with the hope of a home tie v Chelsea, that ironically not all those 7000 would even have gotten a ticket. 44000 to wembley means something - it was the largest ever following at wembley at the time, again it means something, its not everything, but its something.

The catchment area, our central easy access location and the space around the ground, are our assets. That is where we should be looking for a far better return on.

It has to come from people who are invested in the football club, short, medium and long term  - until we have that we will not move forward.

Hi Mate, look I get all the suggestions and observations. What I am asking for is something tangible that goes considerably further than holding up other clubs as examples. So far it’s still just really nothing more than opinion. We might have a considerable population but there aren’t really any examples that I can recall during our time at Sixfields where there has been an appetite to follow the club. Our Wembley appearances didn’t do it and nor did our automatic promotions. There has to be more than just assumption at some point otherwise it will be difficult to motivate investment. With respect to everyone the rhetoric so far just doesn’t cut it. What everyone has to acknowledge is that there is a risk the club could be in real danger if judgment is misplaced. It seems to me that one side of the great fan divide is asking for nothing more than a show of faith from the other. That’s fine to a point, however there has to be a lot more than that on the table moving forward. The clock is ticking, is it towards a new dawn or Armageddon, at this  time I’m not sure and anyone who states otherwise is misguided.

[guest49]

Couple of points:
- I have no view or knowledge about 'Chinese money' but I think enough has been said that the lawyers would be shutting down some of the allegations by now. Unless KT sees it as idle, harmless noise on a little read forum.
- The report is clearly detailed, costly and by a private company. You could argue it will be subjective in certain areas but I'm glad the council paid for it and not the club or else you can imagine the conspiracy theories that would be out there.

I know the Trust haven't officially questioned the report (to my knowledge) but how about they go and pay for one?
It'll never get resolved at this rate.

[Carton Lid]

What everyone has to acknowledge is that there is a risk the club could be in real danger if judgment is misplaced. It seems to me that one side of the great fan divide is asking for nothing more than a show of faith from the other. That’s fine to a point, however there has to be a lot more than that on the table moving forward. The clock is ticking, is it towards a new dawn or Armageddon, at this  time I’m not sure and anyone who states otherwise is misguided.

I'm struggling to see where "the new dawn" is, we get a Stand finished as cheaply as possible, hemmed in by warehouses and an organisation that loses £1M + per year. I'm saying "as cheaply as possible" based on everything else at Sixfields in the last 6 years. Who is going to buy that ?
       Someone is going to need a long barge pole for that !
    

[guest2608]

Sorry, i haven't been keeping up. Has our Luton Branch come up with a viable plan yet, or is it still subjective opinion spouted from the depths of his arse?

He's gone hi tech, he's got a random data generator now that is factual for land grabber, outsider P&L based hearts and minds winning discussions.

[Melbourne Cobbler]

I'm struggling to see where "the new dawn" is, we get a Stand finished as cheaply as possible, hemmed in by warehouses and an organisation that loses £1M + per year. I'm saying "as cheaply as possible" based on everything else at Sixfields in the last 6 years. Who is going to buy that ?
       Someone is going to need a long barge pole for that !
    

The new dawn was the club without KT/DB and a secure and bright future ahead.

[Manwork04]

Is this the Trusts official position "we want a completed East Stand fit for purpose, ideally with as many seats as the West" ?

I mean, wouldn't we all, but as that involves knocking down the majority of the existing abortion and starting again is this realistic or Cloud Cuckoo Land - you decide...

Of course it realistic, I very much doubt it’s been costed, KT said it cost about £1000 per seat, which is correct for a modern stadium, so for a 4000 seat stand it would be circa £4m. Now where have I heard that number before?

[Manwork04]

Thomas is threatening to walk away and call in the debt if he doesn’t get his way, the clue as to where the Chinese money went is in the statement where he says the Trust will be on the wrong side of history if the deal doesn’t go through and that David and himself won’t be financially affected.

[Peter Frost]

Of course it realistic, I very much doubt it’s been costed, KT said it cost about £1000 per seat, which is correct for a modern stadium, so for a 4000 seat stand it would be circa £4m. Now where have I heard that number before?

All of which tells me if you just have 4 million to spend, live with the carbuncle and put 2000 seats on both the North and South  - a moderately successful period on the pitch would give significantly more revenue than the East stand.

[Manwork04]

Random, I haven't seen it reported that the council are saying the report is useless. How do you know this or have I missed something?

Unless you tell me otherwise I have to assume that this is feedback from the liaison between the two council members and the trust, which has always felt uncomfortable to me. Somehow smacks of the equivalent of Parliamentary Lobbying.

Standing by with my hard hat.

Do you know what parliamentary lobbying actually is?
Labour and the Libs don’t believe the “independent “ report on the land valuation and require a fully validated red book one.
Note the caveat at the start of the valuation letter.