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Post by justin blue on Sept 26, 2018 9:42:35 GMT
When the new owner came in the club had momentum I expected the new owners to continue that momentum. That hasn't happened we are treading water at the moment and have stopped looking like a club on the up. What I would really like is for the owners to show some genuine ambition.
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Post by Henbury Gas on Sept 26, 2018 9:44:21 GMT
Back in May I was having a debate with a friend who's quite pro-owners, we eventually agreed that it would be reasonable to expect: - An announcement that the planning application has been submitted for The Colony by 1st of Jan 2019 (one year from this).
- A tangible plan for the redevelopment of the Mem or a new site identified, with design mock-ups, by 18th November 2019 (18 months from that day).
That seemed like an easy ask to me at the time. At the last AGM (March?) it was announced that a Planning Application for the Colony was expected to be submitted "within six to eight weeks". Tick tock tick tock.......... it was..... for the Barn conversions so they did not lie....
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Post by farmygas on Sept 26, 2018 9:51:19 GMT
When the new owner came in the club had momentum I expected the new owners to continue that momentum. That hasn't happened we are treading water at the moment and have stopped looking like a club on the up. What I would really like is for the owners to show some genuine ambition. The last season and a half have been such a waste of momentum. After the double promotion there was such a surge of interest, footfall and good feeling about the club and it's been squandered due to a lack of ambition. That's not going to happen again.
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Post by axegas on Sept 26, 2018 9:56:47 GMT
When the new owner came in the club had momentum I expected the new owners to continue that momentum. That hasn't happened we are treading water at the moment and have stopped looking like a club on the up. What I would really like is for the owners to show some genuine ambition. Maybe a reason for the slow down in momentum is due to the fact we’ve just hit a ceiling as a club. We were a massive fish in a small pond in the conference and still a large fish in a small pond in league two but as we’ve got to league one, we are 9/10th in terms of attendance and even lower for turnover and infrastructure. On the basis of that we should be where we are, finishing in mid table on a regular basis, we’ve perhaps even slightly overachieved in the first couple of years of being back in the third tier, especially in the first season to be a top 10 club as a newly promoted side. The Al Qadi’s have always stated that they don’t want to inflate the clubs transfer budget with large funds which is fine, I can perfectly understand that. What I can’t understand is why there isn’t seemingly a plan for the future in terms of infrastructure and why we haven’t committed to anything on the site of the colony. Any owner of BRFC will be judged by their intent and their plans for developing the club, so it’s easy to see why they are failing in a lot of supporters eyes. For owners that claim to want a sustainable future, throwing money at redeveloping the mem and not immediately planning for what infrastructure to put in place to start making us more turnover is rather counterintuitive.
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Post by Henbury Gas on Sept 26, 2018 9:57:56 GMT
At the last AGM (March?) it was announced that a Planning Application for the Colony was expected to be submitted "within six to eight weeks". Tick tock tick tock.......... And this is why people don't believe any of this confidentiality crap because they have previous form for telling us stuff like this which was patently just fluff to shut people up and make their questions go away. They have obviously at least realised that it won't wash now and just tell us nothing at all. Their silence is still deafening though. funniest post today
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 9:59:15 GMT
When the new owner came in the club had momentum I expected the new owners to continue that momentum. That hasn't happened we are treading water at the moment and have stopped looking like a club on the up. What I would really like is for the owners to show some genuine ambition. The last season and a half have been such a waste of momentum. After the double promotion there was such a surge of interest, footfall and good feeling about the club and it's been squandered due to a lack of ambition. That's not going to happen again. That time was badly wasted wasn't it. To think, the squad that finished 10th in the first season in Div. 1.....if three or four quality signings were made we would probably have finished in the top six, with the possibility of promotion. I know this is all conjecture, but..............
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Post by justin blue on Sept 26, 2018 10:24:05 GMT
When the new owner came in the club had momentum I expected the new owners to continue that momentum. That hasn't happened we are treading water at the moment and have stopped looking like a club on the up. What I would really like is for the owners to show some genuine ambition. Maybe a reason for that the slow down in momentum is due to the fact we’ve just hit a ceiling as a club. We were a massive fish in a small pond in the conference and still a large fish in a small pond in league two but as we’ve got to league one, we are 9/10th in terms of attendance and even lower for turnover and infrastructure. On the basis of that we should be where we are, finishing in mid table on a regular basis, we’ve perhaps even slightly overachieved in the first couple of years of being back in the third tier, especially in the first season to be a top 10 club as a newly promoted side. The Al Qadi’s have always stated that they don’t want to inflate the clubs transfer budget with large funds which is fine, I can perfectly understand that. What I can’t understand is why there isn’t seemingly a plan for the future in terms of infrastructure and why we haven’t committed to anything on the site of the colony. Any owner of BRFC will be judged by their intent and their plans for developing the club, so it’s easy to see why they are failing in a lot of supporters eyes. For owners that claim to want a sustainable future, throwing money at redeveloping the mem and not immediately planning for what infrastructure to put in place to start making us more turnover is rather counterintuitive. That didn't stop the likes of Brentford or Bournmouth. Our attendance has since eastville been limited by our capacity and our infrastructure I would hope would improve as we become more successful. I thought that the Alqadi's bought us because they thought we were investable and I hoped they had the means to take us forward.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 10:32:57 GMT
No but they have owners that have gifted money or councils that have gifted land etc for no return. They also play the rules by owners (Fleetwood) using the stadium as offices for the other work / businesses So my question is why can't we go down these avenues? We have by far the worst ground in the Football League and it's getting worse by the year. I don't know how many people know this but I had a convo with Wael at Shrewsbury back in 2017 and at that time he said we were facing an FA imposed capacity restriction on the North Terrace due to it being unsafe. I'm genuinely amazed that new tent has passed any kind of H&S check tbh. Good point about the H&S - the bloody thing reminds me of that flying carpet fairground ride, how it stays still in the wet on terracing God only knows.
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Post by stevek192 on Sept 26, 2018 10:45:11 GMT
I have no expectations other than low ones and hope. I distinctly remember Wael saying the money for the new ground was not a problem! That was a long time ago.
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Post by Topper Gas on Sept 26, 2018 10:51:01 GMT
The last season and a half have been such a waste of momentum. After the double promotion there was such a surge of interest, footfall and good feeling about the club and it's been squandered due to a lack of ambition. That's not going to happen again. That time was badly wasted wasn't it. To think, the squad that finished 10th in the first season in Div. 1.....if three or four quality signings were made we would probably have finished in the top six, with the possibility of promotion. I know this is all conjecture, but.............. But what would promotion have actually achieved, a dreadful season watching us getting trashed most weeks in the Championship, I sense/fear we've reached our ceiling now until someone spends millions building a new stadium/training complex and increasing the playing budget.
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Post by singupgas on Sept 26, 2018 10:56:05 GMT
That time was badly wasted wasn't it. To think, the squad that finished 10th in the first season in Div. 1.....if three or four quality signings were made we would probably have finished in the top six, with the possibility of promotion. I know this is all conjecture, but.............. But what would promotion have actually achieved, a dreadful season watching us getting trashed most weeks in the Championship, I sense/fear we've reached our ceiling now until someone spends millions building a new stadium/training complex and increasing the playing budget. I think most of us are in agreement ALQs are not likely to do this... and now are hopeful of a takeover/big outside investment. Currently situation looks as if we will go nowhere for sometime, but will steadily decline.
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Post by warehamgas on Sept 26, 2018 11:04:04 GMT
Have read the numerous threads on here which always appears to degenerate into tit for tat arguments about our owners and whether or not there are realistic plans or a vision, whether their heart is in it, whether they should be gifting money to the club etc etc Much of these debates seem to stem from people's expectations of what a football club owner should or shouldn't do and therefore rather than argue amongst ourselves and call each other names, I thought it might be wise to understand where each of us is coming from with regards to a football club ownership. We can at least understand people's motivation and perspectives before falling back to the tit for tat arguments! So what is your expectations of a football club owner (could be any club)? For me I have simple views: 1. Talk to the fan base on a regular basis (but only on important topics when there is something to communicate). 2. Make the maximum available budget available each year to the manager for recruitment based upon the rules in place 3. Invest in improving the facilities of the club on a reasonable commercial basis (i.e I do not expect owners to gift or write off money they loan to the club but that if the loan and charge interest then it is at a reasonable level and they have a right to protect themselves on the loans they make 4 Support the development of the club through improving the infrastructure and operations 5. Support the manager by putting in place the best staff support around him based upon what he needs and requests 6. Invest in youth teams / development to support throughput into first team squad and create assets that can either mitigate the need for transfers or can generate transfer income in the long term 7. Involve the fanbase as far as possible in major decisions such as ground redevelopment or improvements and be transparent as far as reasonable on them 8. Continually seek to improve the customers experience through improving offers, the match day and non match day opportunities etc 9. Charge reasonable prices and explain when prices change why they have and what's influenced it 10. Make good commercial decisions that put the clubs interest at the forefront and benefits the club in the maximum way possible Based upon the above my view of our current owners is that they are doing OK. There are some areas they could be better in and they could take the opportunity more to bring the fans along with them and involve the fans a bit more and communicate a bit more (e.g they possibly would get less criticism about the training ground if people new at a summary level why it is taking the time it is taking or where in the process they were - be a little bit more transparent without breaking commercial leverage or non disclosure agreements and re the temporary stands, they sought feedback on - the fans could have stand a) which would cost £x amount or stand b) that would cost £y amount but if you go for a)then ticket prices will be whatever, but if you go for b) then ticket prices will have to increase to whatever to make it commercially viable. Fan representatives you decide which option we select and build.) But I don't believe that they should get as much stick as they currently do. However, that's my view and not the debating point. My interest is as I said, what do people expect from football club ownership? (Not necessarily ours but owners in general)? Thanks for that bluestick. Good thread and I can’t argue with what you’ve said. I like the way you’ve set out what your expectations are and that you’ve avoided the tendency of many on here to label people as “rose tinters” if they like the owners or closet “sh*******” if they don’t. i think that a lot of what has been said on the forums could have beeen avoided with better communications from the owners as you said in your first point. Once the UWE went wrong they needed to come out with a vision, a way forward. When they didn’t, they allowed a vacuum to exist which was filled with rumour, bad feeling and frustration. Since then they’ve been on the back foot and have been reactive instead of being proactive which they should have been. Our three big problems are the idea of a new ground, the lack of progress in a training ground when we already have the land and the accumulation of debt set against the Mem. These soar above all the other current issues and affect the feeling of trust from some of the fanbase towards the owners. I would like owners to be able to resolve any issues our club has either with outside investment or from their own resources. My concern would be that there are very few financially sustainable football clubs, most depend on the goodwill and willingness of their owners to invest in them themselves. I’m afraid it’s becoming increasingly less likely that the Al Qadis want to do that. I can live with that but it would be good to have better communication along the lines you’ve set out. I won’t hold my breath. Thanks for posting a thread which should encourage some good posts. UTG!
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Post by Henbury Gas on Sept 26, 2018 11:09:21 GMT
So my question is why can't we go down these avenues? We have by far the worst ground in the Football League and it's getting worse by the year. I don't know how many people know this but I had a convo with Wael at Shrewsbury back in 2017 and at that time he said we were facing an FA imposed capacity restriction on the North Terrace due to it being unsafe. I'm genuinely amazed that new tent has passed any kind of H&S check tbh. Good point about the H&S - the bloody thing reminds me of that flying carpet fairground ride, how it stays still in the wet on terracing God only knows. look underneath the seats and you will see about 12 very heavy concrete blocks tethered to the metal work
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Post by wertongas on Sept 26, 2018 11:12:20 GMT
Of course the real owners of this club are not Wael and family but the supporters if it wasn't for us paying admission fees and using the bars and food outlets etc the club would not exist. I get fed with people referring to the AQ as the owners, admittedly they did pay off the Wonga loan , but money paid for the colony field and new pitch has been set against our ever growing debt which is covered by income from us. You also need to remember that Wael said that the reason why he put a charge on the stadium was so the family could get their money back if needed (which would mean selling the stadium). Most of the recent improvements to the stadium have come from sponsorship from companies that are supporters of Rovers. The family do not have the money to develop the colony field or do any major development of the stadium and have to rely on us to keep the club going as does DC with his players budget, though admittedly he has been able to bring in new players through transfer fee income. We should never forget that we are the true owners of this club and have the right to express our views to the owners on its future and be informed of the clubs intentions.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 11:17:05 GMT
Good point about the H&S - the bloody thing reminds me of that flying carpet fairground ride, how it stays still in the wet on terracing God only knows. look underneath the seats and you will see about 12 very heavy concrete blocks tethered to the metal work Hope there are no feet sticking out of the concrete blocks !
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Post by justin blue on Sept 26, 2018 11:18:42 GMT
That time was badly wasted wasn't it. To think, the squad that finished 10th in the first season in Div. 1.....if three or four quality signings were made we would probably have finished in the top six, with the possibility of promotion. I know this is all conjecture, but.............. But what would promotion have actually achieved, a dreadful season watching us getting trashed most weeks in the Championship, I sense/fear we've reached our ceiling now until someone spends millions building a new stadium/training complex and increasing the playing budget. How can you know what would have happened. We survived on much less at Twerton and thrived for a few seasons in the second tier. The hope is that success breeds success, but we won't know if that's true unless we have some.
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Post by toddy1953 on Sept 26, 2018 11:21:35 GMT
My expectation then was that within 3 years we would have moved to the new stadium & things would be in place to evolve the club. That they would rebuild trust with the fans through communication & long term vision for the club. I think the question for me is what was their expectation. When the present owners took over they raised the expectations of a lot of fans - yes, they said evolution not revolution but they also said we needed to build a new stadium & the sale of the Mem wasn't depending on that build. They inherited a half decent squad of players and a very good manager. There was planning permission for a stadium. Why did they buy the club? Was is there expectation to make a lot of money off the back of the UWE project? The team can evolve once the infrastructure is in place IMO. The club is in more debt than before, albeit the debt, for the time being, is being serviced. Will this be the case when the debt exceeds the value of the Mem? As far as I'm concerned I will continue to support the team & go to games, it's in my blood, like a drug I can't stop. But as far as the owners, I expect they will pull out when they have had enough, if they haven't done so already.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2018 11:30:42 GMT
But what would promotion have actually achieved, a dreadful season watching us getting trashed most weeks in the Championship, I sense/fear we've reached our ceiling now until someone spends millions building a new stadium/training complex and increasing the playing budget. How can you know what would have happened. We survived on much less at Twerton and thrived for a few seasons in the second tier. The hope is that success breeds success, but we won't know if that's true unless we have some. Yep, it would be nice to get there and give it a go, rather than settle for mid-table mediocrity in Div. One.
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Post by Severncider on Sept 26, 2018 11:31:56 GMT
Of course the real owners of this club are not Wael and family but the supporters if it wasn't for us paying admission fees and using the bars and food outlets etc the club would not exist. I get fed with people referring to the AQ as the owners, admittedly they did pay off the Wonga loan , but money paid for the colony field and new pitch has been set against our ever growing debt which is covered by income from us. You also need to remember that Wael said that the reason why he put a charge on the stadium was so the family could get their money back if needed (which would mean selling the stadium). Most of the recent improvements to the stadium have come from sponsorship from companies that are supporters of Rovers. The family do not have the money to develop the colony field or do any major development of the stadium and have to rely on us to keep the club going as does DC with his players budget, though admittedly he has been able to bring in new players through transfer fee income. We should never forget that we are the true owners of this club and have the right to express our views to the owners on its future and be informed of the clubs intentions. So who do you think is making up the short fall of several million pounds each season?
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Post by lastminutewinner on Sept 26, 2018 11:34:36 GMT
Imo they bought the club and now regret it because they couldn’t have the uwe development too themselves,so now a tart up operation has begun until they can find a way out that suits their pockets.Ground wise we are going backwards. Communication backwards Playing budget backwards Training ground that’s a laugh. Improving the Matchday experience,the style of football we play gone backwards the most important thing imo. Most places you stand in the ground you get wet and if que for food you get wet if raining. Thatchers bar very good Butcombe bar good Overall we ain’t going nowhere but backwards until a full revamp or new stadium we can all sit in and sing good night Irene. Tents are not for us....
That's pretty much how I feel towards Wael & Family currently. Cant argue against any of your other points either although some will.
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