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Post by lastminutewinner on Jan 22, 2019 1:07:59 GMT
Some of our forwards should pop along, guaranteed to score and win ugly! Didn't Holloway discuss a night at Chasers in an after match interview once? ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) I wouldn't be surprised. I always saw Simon Bryant in there absolutely smashed on Saturday nights, sometimes he was so drunk he could barely speak!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 1:21:18 GMT
Why pick on these owners?
I mean they have achieved nothing just like every owner in the clubs history.
I dont think coughlan was talking about a player revolt,he was simply frustrated at players suddenly not performing on the pitch.
We shouldnt be judging coughlan until he has assembled his own squad at the start of next season imo.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 2:03:32 GMT
Why pick on these owners? I mean they have achieved nothing just like every owner in the clubs history. I dont think coughlan was talking about a player revolt,he was simply frustrated at players suddenly not performing on the pitch. We shouldnt be judging coughlan until he has assembled his own squad at the start of next season imo. Well, we've picked on all the other owners we've ever had so it's only fair we need to hold these ones to the same standard. Let's be fair, Higgsy wouldn't have got away with telling us a vague story about a field that wasn't for sale.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 2:04:55 GMT
Didn't Holloway discuss a night at Chasers in an after match interview once? ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) I wouldn't be surprised. I always saw Simon Bryant in there absolutely smashed on Saturday nights, sometimes he was so drunk he could barely speak! There's a name from the past! What happened to him? He slipped into non-league obscurity didn't he after having Alex Ferguson express an interest in him?
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pirate
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Post by pirate on Jan 22, 2019 2:09:32 GMT
I wouldn't be surprised. I always saw Simon Bryant in there absolutely smashed on Saturday nights, sometimes he was so drunk he could barely speak! There's a name from the past! What happened to him? He slipped into non-league obscurity didn't he after having Alex Ferguson express an interest in him? Fergie was keeping an eye on both Bryant and Ellington after they caught his eye playing against Utd in Lee Martin's testimonial game.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 2:20:17 GMT
Why pick on these owners? I mean they have achieved nothing just like every owner in the clubs history. I dont think coughlan was talking about a player revolt,he was simply frustrated at players suddenly not performing on the pitch. We shouldnt be judging coughlan until he has assembled his own squad at the start of next season imo. Well, we've picked on all the other owners we've ever had so it's only fair we need to hold these ones to the same standard. Let's be fair, Higgsy wouldn't have got away with telling us a vague story about a field that wasn't for sale. True,he only announced stuff that was watertight.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 7:24:15 GMT
With the Communication breakdown engulfing the Club I will only believe an improvement has occurred when I see Hani and Wael both with megaphones facing the Thatchers Terrace on Match days singing "Bristol Rovers, we'll support you evermore". Even better would be if Hani had his hand up Wael's arse, aka Rod Hull & Emu, and were singing "Bristol Rovers all the way" !
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Post by faggotygas on Jan 22, 2019 9:55:32 GMT
You do know, don't you, that this is a Bristol Rovers forum and not Wael's email account? have you got it? No
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Post by Hugo the Elder on Jan 22, 2019 9:57:29 GMT
It's evilwael@moneygrabber.co.uk
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 10:20:14 GMT
Well, we've picked on all the other owners we've ever had so it's only fair we need to hold these ones to the same standard. Let's be fair, Higgsy wouldn't have got away with telling us a vague story about a field that wasn't for sale. True,he only announced stuff that was watertight. Unlike the current encumbents who only announce when the landing lights are on.
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Post by jfgas on Jan 22, 2019 12:34:08 GMT
I am still in the camp that I want them gone. I personally feel that the club is being held to ransom by the Al Qadis. Wael obviously doesn't want to upset his family otherwise he'd say it's not him that is holding the club back. But the family now have walked out on our best chance of owning a ground and not far off of seeing us relegated to league 2. They are clearly reducing cost now, there will players contracts up at the end of the season anyway and we will no doubt before the end of Jan let another 1 or 2 leave and bring some 18 year old loanee in. Hamer another one going maybe. I am not sure the London office, does Wael not have Wi-Fi in his house to do any work another unnecessary cost. I feel massively let down and disconnected from the club more so if I'm honest than our season when we were relegated from League 2. I can't evem bring myself to go watch on Saturday due to the fact we have a club that seems to be going absolutely nowhere apart from backwards. You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 12:36:32 GMT
I am still in the camp that I want them gone. I personally feel that the club is being held to ransom by the Al Qadis. Wael obviously doesn't want to upset his family otherwise he'd say it's not him that is holding the club back. But the family now have walked out on our best chance of owning a ground and not far off of seeing us relegated to league 2. They are clearly reducing cost now, there will players contracts up at the end of the season anyway and we will no doubt before the end of Jan let another 1 or 2 leave and bring some 18 year old loanee in. Hamer another one going maybe. I am not sure the London office, does Wael not have Wi-Fi in his house to do any work another unnecessary cost. I feel massively let down and disconnected from the club more so if I'm honest than our season when we were relegated from League 2. I can't evem bring myself to go watch on Saturday due to the fact we have a club that seems to be going absolutely nowhere apart from backwards. You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind. Welcome to the forum Wael.
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Post by jfgas on Jan 22, 2019 12:40:52 GMT
You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind. Welcome to the forum Wael. Hahah i wish - would spend his money alot better!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 12:41:50 GMT
Why change a manager in December and not do all you can to allow him to improve the team in the Jan window?? Might as well have kept DC until the summer. GC is on a hiding to nothing imo Totally agree... However we have a huge squad of 26 / 27 pros.... probably six more than we need and the previous manager has literally wasted significant money in previous windows. If I were Wael I would have serious reservations at throwing more money at the playing side. That said I think we might be surprised with a few late loan deals … with no game this weekend the club will leave things until the last minute to minimise wages costs etc...
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Post by Topper Gas on Jan 22, 2019 12:46:14 GMT
Why change a manager in December and not do all you can to allow him to improve the team in the Jan window?? Might as well have kept DC until the summer. GC is on a hiding to nothing imo Totally agree... However we have a huge squad of 26 / 27 pros.... probably six more than we need and the previous manager has literally wasted significant money in previous windows. If I were Wael I would have serious reservations at throwing more money at the playing side.
That said I think we might be surprised with a few late loan deals … with no game this weekend the club will leave things until the last minute to minimise wages costs etc... It's Catch 22 though as if he doesn't spend some more money then we'll most likely get relegated, only he can calculate what that will cost the club compared to staying in Div 1. Worryingly, for the fans, perhaps not a great deal if most of the players are already out of contract so can be replaced by players on Div 2 contracts.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 13:00:09 GMT
I am still in the camp that I want them gone. I personally feel that the club is being held to ransom by the Al Qadis. Wael obviously doesn't want to upset his family otherwise he'd say it's not him that is holding the club back. But the family now have walked out on our best chance of owning a ground and not far off of seeing us relegated to league 2. They are clearly reducing cost now, there will players contracts up at the end of the season anyway and we will no doubt before the end of Jan let another 1 or 2 leave and bring some 18 year old loanee in. Hamer another one going maybe. I am not sure the London office, does Wael not have Wi-Fi in his house to do any work another unnecessary cost. I feel massively let down and disconnected from the club more so if I'm honest than our season when we were relegated from League 2. I can't evem bring myself to go watch on Saturday due to the fact we have a club that seems to be going absolutely nowhere apart from backwards. You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind. It seems to be the latest trend for autumn/winter on here that attempts to invalidate criticism of the current board relies heavily on "my owners are better than yours!" to prop it up - you do realise you are just trying to win a tallest dwarf competition don't you? Where is the Al Qadi's legacy that is going to endure for 1,000 years? There isn't one because so far all they have done is apply a bit of lippy to a pig and they have even made sure they can recover the cost of the lippy. Until they actually build something or write off the debt/convert it to shares (which they won't. Ever.) they will remain only marginally better than Higgs and co. As an aside I fail to see why leasehold was such a big issue, as far as I am aware it is a popular model in the football stadium world (although I stand to be corrected) especially if the 'peppercorn rent' that was widely talked about was the case. It sounds like 'Bristol Rovers problems'. We also don't have any terms of the deal in the public domain, I really wish they were because my opinion of the owners would be changed significantly if it could be proven that they had the money to build the stadium and it was only because it was a bad deal for the club/the UWE were playing silly beggars that it fell through. Instead we had Hamer coming out with stuff like "Should have gone to Jordan" (letting the best chance of a stadium go because of that?!?!) and Wael effectively saying "We didn't think an out of town (WTF?!) stadium was right for the club anyway". The Al Qadi's even had a feasibility study come back positive! In the total absence of any further detail both of those comments from people at the club and the positive feasibility study don't fill me with confidence that the deal was canned in the interests of Bristol Rovers. So my biggest worry about the owners is that they might have let the stadium slip away because it wasn't a good deal FOR THEM/they didn't have the funds and rather than try and do the best by the club and find an alternative ownership that keeps the stadium on the table they have walked away, kept control of the club and the UWE and all the effort and years of planning etc have gone and that's the end of it, back to square one. That opportunity was massive for the club and I can't bear the thought that it could have been watered away lightly because it will likely be another decade or more before we see another solid stadium plan arise that is well thought out enough to be put into planning etc.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 13:02:51 GMT
Totally agree... However we have a huge squad of 26 / 27 pros.... probably six more than we need and the previous manager has literally wasted significant money in previous windows. If I were Wael I would have serious reservations at throwing more money at the playing side.
That said I think we might be surprised with a few late loan deals … with no game this weekend the club will leave things until the last minute to minimise wages costs etc... It's Catch 22 though as if he doesn't spend some more money then we'll most likely get relegated, only he can calculate what that will cost the club compared to staying in Div 1. Worryingly, for the fans, perhaps not a great deal if most of the players are already out of contract so can be replaced by players on Div 2 contracts. Agree … I think he won't lose anywhere near the amount of sleep that we all will if we go down. It's a crying shame for us as fans, I think we will go down, there will be a full clear out in the summer of players and back room staff and then we will look at retain our Division Two status.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2019 13:12:09 GMT
We are near the bottom of the division for a reason. The team/squad are not good enough. It is that simple. It is the same for all the teams around us. Now, all of those teams have made signings. Will this strengthen them? At this point we don't know, but at least they recognise that their current team/squad is not good enough, and they are prepared to make changes in an attempt to avoid relegation. We don't appear to be making any additions/changes, in fact, we are getting rid of players/staff. If we keep the same team/squad, then we'll get the same results, and we will go down without making any effort to stay up.
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Post by jfgas on Jan 22, 2019 13:23:29 GMT
You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind. It seems to be the latest trend for autumn/winter on here that attempts to invalidate criticism of the current board relies heavily on "my owners are better than yours!" to prop it up - you do realise you are just trying to win a tallest dwarf competition don't you? Where is the Al Qadi's legacy that is going to endure for 1,000 years? There isn't one because so far all they have done is apply a bit of lippy to a pig and they have even made sure they can recover the cost of the lippy. Until they actually build something or write off the debt/convert it to shares (which they won't. Ever.) they will remain only marginally better than Higgs and co. As an aside I fail to see why leasehold was such a big issue, as far as I am aware it is a popular model in the football stadium world (although I stand to be corrected) especially if the 'peppercorn rent' that was widely talked about was the case. It sounds like 'Bristol Rovers problems'. We also don't have any terms of the deal in the public domain, I really wish they were because my opinion of the owners would be changed significantly if it could be proven that they had the money to build the stadium and it was only because it was a bad deal for the club/the UWE were playing silly beggars that it fell through. Instead we had Hamer coming out with stuff like "Should have gone to Jordan" (letting the best chance of a stadium go because of that?!?!) and Wael effectively saying "We didn't think an out of town (WTF?!) stadium was right for the club anyway". The Al Qadi's even had a feasibility study come back positive! In the total absence of any further detail both of those comments from people at the club and the positive feasibility study don't fill me with confidence that the deal was canned in the interests of Bristol Rovers. So my biggest worry about the owners is that they might have let the stadium slip away because it wasn't a good deal FOR THEM/they didn't have the funds and rather than try and do the best by the club and find an alternative ownership that keeps the stadium on the table they have walked away, kept control of the club and the UWE and all the effort and years of planning etc have gone and that's the end of it, back to square one. That opportunity was massive for the club and I can't bear the thought that it could have been watered away lightly because it will likely be another decade or more before we see another solid stadium plan arise that is well thought out enough to be put into planning etc. Can't disagree with that. We don't know enough about what made that such a 'bad deal' that they walked away, and share your concerns that it could be quite some time before an alternative is found. And it really doesn't help to calm concerns that their communication across the board is bloody awful. But I am willing to give them a bit more time before I give up on them...this is only year 3...and honestly right now, I couldn't care less about the stadium or training ground - we need to make some quality additions before the window closes and focus on avoiding relegation...relegation would be the final nail in their legacy.
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Post by baggins on Jan 22, 2019 13:28:44 GMT
I am still in the camp that I want them gone. I personally feel that the club is being held to ransom by the Al Qadis. Wael obviously doesn't want to upset his family otherwise he'd say it's not him that is holding the club back. But the family now have walked out on our best chance of owning a ground and not far off of seeing us relegated to league 2. They are clearly reducing cost now, there will players contracts up at the end of the season anyway and we will no doubt before the end of Jan let another 1 or 2 leave and bring some 18 year old loanee in. Hamer another one going maybe. I am not sure the London office, does Wael not have Wi-Fi in his house to do any work another unnecessary cost. I feel massively let down and disconnected from the club more so if I'm honest than our season when we were relegated from League 2. I can't evem bring myself to go watch on Saturday due to the fact we have a club that seems to be going absolutely nowhere apart from backwards. You want them gone? Who is going to replace them? Who is going to pump the money in to keep the club going? You realise we are not making money so whatever the losses are, its being covered by them out of their own pocket...what i find most amusing is that so many of us seem to have forgotten where we were a few years ago pre these guys...were the Higgs years are glory days? Weren't we on the verge of going into administration under Higgs? Did he deliver a stadium? Or did he leave us with a potential deal with UWE that would have seen us paying rent for our ground for the next 99 years and never actually owning it! Sorry mate - this was the best chance for us to be tenants for the next 99 years - we would never have owned the ground. I also heard that a significant amount of matchday revenues would go to UWE, plus there was no agreement on naming rights...Higgs stadium deal sounds like it was a rather poor one...not to mention we ended up wasting a ton of cash on a court case with sainsburys!? And can't remember there being massive interest at the time from other potential owners who wanted to buy the club and do a better job...ultimately, if it wasn't for the qadis we may not even exist today! While I am not thrilled that these guys seem to be the only Arabs who don't like to throw their money about, leaving us without an unlimited budget, no stadium and no training ground - I am rather thankful that we at least exist! Plus - judging by how they are with their money, good chance we are in a far better place financially than we were under Higgs and that the chances of us being in administration again are long gone! As for going backwards...was i in a coma when we were in the Premier League, competing for trophies and ruling Europe? Some of you make it sound like we were a hugely successful team before these owners came along...our recent history doesn't back that up....before they came along we were broke, going into administration, no stadium , no training ground, the Mem was falling apart, and we were in league 2 having recently escaped the conference...if you look back over the last few decades, bit hard to say we are going backwards....we have spent the majority of the last few decades in L2...in fact, in the last 2 years we have been the highest we have been since we were in the old 2nd division! How the F are we going backwards!!? And while we don't have a new stadium, there have been lots of improvements across the entire club...the new shop, the do up of the bars, ticketing etc etc - AND - DC's biggest transfer budget ever. Plus, the fact they coughed up over a £1 million for that piece of land for a training ground shows they at least are thinking about building a training ground...remind me - where was the piece of land Higgs bought to build us a proper training ground? And if what the club says is to believed, then we are still looking for another site to build a stadium - anyone got a plot of land for sale to get this moving? I think the disappointment is our own making. We saw Arabs. We labelled them billionaires (because all Arabs are obviously). And expected a Man City experience where by now we are already in the pl, have a state of the art stadium and are lining up Neymar to replace Nichols! While the line irritates the life out of me, perhaps we should have taken the 'evolution' bit a bit more seriously. All that said - if we get relegated....i may changed my mind. Bit of a read, but worth it.
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