Fruit Market OFF - Club redeveloping Mem instead.

I used to be more ITK under the old board and said nothing when I did know something. I share a box with Nick Higgs now and I’ve heard him regale the story about Lansdown a few times, that how I know it. I know about as much as you regarding all things club these days and I make no waves about trying to find out what’s going on either.

Why would a family consortium buy a footballing business and assume that the previous owners set up the best deal possible? Why would they not do further exploration of everything in place? That would be even more foolish.

Personally I think them walking away from the UWE thinking they get easily get another piece of land to build a stadium, if indeed that was their thinking, was naive. I do know Ed Ware spent time and money of his own trying to keep it alive long after the Al’Qadis walked away but also UWE weren’t willing to renegotiate what had already been agreed so it became a stand off. Perhaps it would have been different if Wael was the sole person in charge then rather than Hani, who seemed to be the one who was controlling, or rather authorising the spend.

I don’t wish to insult anyone, but sometimes there is no objective long view when it comes to peoples perception on how long it takes to build something from the bottom up as well as the perception that throwing money at an obvious problem, in this case the Mem, is going to work.

I’ve had experience of working for a company like that where the assumption was that a brand new shiny glass car dealership would cure all the issues they had. It in fact made things worse to a large degree, the never cured the internal problems that made everything function, they just moved a whole set of problems to another site with a greater amount of debt and more pressure to return a higher budget to satisfy the investment. And that’s what kind of is happening here.

Let’s throw £75M at the Mem because we need more seats and problem solved is the assertion, without looking at whether it’s going to answer all of our prayers and problems or just cause a massive noose around the clubs neck in terms of huge debt that it can’t pay back in the quantities that would match the investment.

When building the infrastructure from the inside out properly whilst looking for a new site, whether that’s the FM, Lyde Green or A N other, is the most logical thing to do at this stage and certainly puts us on a more sure footing going forward.

By rights, the board have no need to keep us informed until there is something to announce, especially if there maybe some confidentially agreements surrounding it, which wouldn’t be unusual.

The last I heard anything about the FM deal didn’t come from the club but came from a client of mine who has a business operating out of the existing site, which was then repeated by a poster here who’s mother has a shareholding in another company on the FM site. I’m effect, they had exactly the same information. The real hold up seemed to be relocation of one particular business of the site.

Don’t start that whole “the owners have given you a script to post” nonsense. It’s utterly ridiculous and is the sort of paranoia that used to get Jim Chappell and Ken Masters all revved up. I’m pretty sure Wael, Tom and David are more than happy to speak freely and directly to you to answer any questions you may have without the need for a 3rd party on a football forum.