keyberrygull
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Post by keyberrygull on Feb 8, 2018 21:52:55 GMT
A rare serious post from me but nevertheless a very important one : link Surely credit must be given to Brent for this pragmatic piece of journalism popping up on the BBC website today. OK, he’s only doing his job but I’ve thanked him personally, hopefully others will do the same. An ally at the BBC and one in Westminster just may help salvage the situation. Let’s hope so. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Feb 9, 2018 0:07:13 GMT
It was very refreshing to read his article. It represents a great start and a watershed in reporting on TUFC’s ownership. Well done Brent and the Beeb.
Jim Parker referred to Plainmoor being the elephant in the room on today’s HE podcast. Thank you to Brent for starting media coverage of the real elephant in the room - Clarke Osborne and the historical panning out of his new stadia press releases at various locations.
Barty’s brilliant recent postings over on BTPIR concerning Milton Keynes, Reading, Poole, Bristol, Swindon, South Gloucestershire, Hereford et al have provided plenty for the media to further consider in the months ahead. I hope the BBC and ITV play a part in that discussion, too.
Kevin Foster, after effectively challenging the ‘alignment’ observation the HE treated us to last month, comes over well again.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Feb 9, 2018 0:18:13 GMT
Indeed. Refreshing to have somebody wake up to the questions that need to be asked. You can bet Clarke Osborne will not answer them - but that in itself tells a story. Kevin Foster does come over well. Good to see the lengths that he was prepared to go to to get Osborne to meet him, but shocking that he had to go to those lengths. Again, that in itself tells a story. In contrast, Jim Parker's article in the Herald was a terrible piece of journalism that missed the point entirely. Unfortunately, the Herald Express is alienating itself from TUFC fans with its arrogant attitude - pretending to be two steps ahead when they are probably 22 behind. They will wake up eventually - but not before it is far too late. Smug Jim is congratulating himself on HIS brilliant idea about a Quinta land swap. It was discussed on here - and probably on other forums - OVER THREE YEARS AGO.The last piece in the jigsaw. Housing on the Westlands pitches at Quinta. Westlands takes over Plainmoor. |
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Post by loyalgull on Feb 9, 2018 9:28:19 GMT
Too call parker and even daveoldschoolthomas journalists is an insult to real journalists the weekly arse wipe is now all its worth they are a shambles
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Feb 9, 2018 11:57:42 GMT
Mainly agree with the above in that it is an article that sets out the genuine fears of the fans about the direction of the club. I disagree with Florida about fans right to needing to know the owners direction of the club as basically it is a community club and it is from that community and beyond that the majority of income for that business is derived from, hence the term "supporters." Any major infrastructure changes needs the support of the supporters both financially and from a planning perspective. Just look at the details provided for Bristows Bench - full plans, costings and timing of the work provided.
On the Westlands, now Spires College, angle, I did write to the governors with my concerns last April and the Chair (Kevin Hill!) assured me that neither the school or the governors had any sort of contact with CO / TUFC about any sort of land deal but at that time it was all about getting the freehold first to then use as leverage for some sort of deal.
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Post by plainmoorpete on Feb 9, 2018 13:16:35 GMT
I think Florida and rjd make good and valid points, which are also in opposition to each over.
Firstly Florida is correct in saying that the club would probably be dead had Osborne not stood in, the club was in the position it was as the result of decisions taken over a long period of time dating back to the bateson era.
Florida is also correct when he says that Osborne is under no obligation to reveal his business plans and the fans have no entitlement to know them.
However here is the rub. Rjd is correct that a football club such as TUFC is a community entity, if not actually a community owned club.
Therefore Osborne needs to carry that community along with him. The fact that he appears cagey and reclusive doesn't bode well for the fans I feel, and TUFC may be nothing more than a means to an end for him.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2018 15:59:57 GMT
plainmoorpete That's a big part of what makes the current situation so fascinating. I think Osborne is fairly confident that the Community would welcome an events facility and attendant recreational or retail attractions. Torbay isn't an area of football fanatics. Yet it's difficult for him to build on that (no pun intended  ) by appealing over the heads of the club's fans. Take that survey thingy from a little while back that some people filled in. I think there was a majority in favour of not moving from Plainmoor. And remember how many were then quick to draw the conclusion that it should only be what the football watchers wanted, and sod what the wider Community might prefer if they were surveyed. It's a dilemma for Councillors also. Do they come out and deny the wider Community a new concert venue and all the other wonders that the Osborne Arena would offer in order to pander to just the football watching voters in their wards ? No straight forward answer there, as a pre-share issue or TUST event held locally indicates only apathy at best, and that's if we're being kind. Then you complicate things further by observing that the real agitators mostly aren't members of the local community, (hence TUST officials travelling to meet their distant loyalists tomorrow), to what extent should a Council or Mayor deny new modern facilities not exclusively for football to their own locals in order to placate the main body of Militants living in London or locations hundreds of miles from Torbay ? This couldn't have been any better exemplified that by this weeks Brent Backs Commies scribblings, notable only for there lack of balance. For his upcoming Thursday piece, Brent or any of his journalist mates could have hung around Plainmoor last Saturday for 15 minutes and found any one of a thousand local fans to provide an opinion. However while Brett made certain to get the anti-Osborne views he was after, we had to hear from someone who is apparently a 4 hour drive away from Plainmoor. If it's going to be presented as a Community issue then you'll have no option than to genuinely let the community have their say. Not just give publicity to an anti Osborne voice who lives half the length of the country away, or present the Maidenhead Militants who crowd around Michel tomorrow as the authentic voice of the community in Torbay. Actually give the community a voice, and Osborne should have little to fear. Or instead, allow the power to rest with an MP or vociferous others who also spend the majority of their lives in London, and the reality of the Red Star Gulls along with their Honorary President Pilnick will crush our ambitions for a resurgent TUFC for good. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Feb 9, 2018 16:57:26 GMT
For anyone new to the site, Alpine Joe is aware of Osborne's record on new stadia delivery. He just pretends he isn't. Nobody on any of the TUFC forums or at the Herald Express has yet uncovered a single one built from scratch and ready to move into. AJ has previously offered us a reason why GI might never have built a stadium. Jerry Perhaps other sectors of their overall business have been more profitable. No reason to doubt AJ in the absence of one ever being built. The £19m received from IKEA by Osborne led BS Ltd. in 1996 for the land at Eastville is possibly one of the examples he was thinking of. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Feb 9, 2018 19:15:51 GMT
Jerry Perhaps other sectors of their overall business have been more profitable. As Oscar Wilde once said, "there is only one thing in the world more profitable than building new stadia and that is not building new stadia. Or was that one of Shaw's? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2018 22:21:15 GMT
Even issuing Brent Pilnick with a Ministry of Trust uniform isn't going to alter TUST's fundamentally weak argument, and that's the core reason why they're still stuck with a sub 500 worldwide membership. Trusts naturally need clubs to be badly run or with financial difficulties for them to have the best chance of gaining ownership. Hartlepool are a prime example at the moment. Then in order to keep the club at least running at a lowly level, a Council owned ground available at a peppercorn rent is almost a necessity too, if you're starting with little money. This is why Clarke Osborne with his sensible business approach, insistence on sustainable success, and plans to take us to a modern non council owned stadium would cut the legs from under TUST. No council ground, no impending financial crisis = no TUST ownership. And Clarke Osborne's intentions make their ambitions a whole lot more difficult, if not impossible to achieve; no wonder they hate him. If Osborne showed appalling business sense the Militants would love him. Other than Towcester have any registered greyhound stadiums been built in Britain within the last half century ? While some would be appalled at Osborne's lack of judgement if he'd been building new greyhound stadiums for a sharply declining sport, TUST militants can't grasp the concept of wasted resources. No wonder they cheered Chavez and his Venezuelan Socialist economic miracle....until people started complaining of starvation. The decrepit fire hazard that was Eastville; a combustible shambles, what an admirable piece of business to attract IKEA and their millions to that run down old site. The thought of that business brain being put to use to benefit Torquay United is the last thing the Militants want. Just think of that nasty rugby club in Exeter. How dare they abandon their speedway mates. How inconsiderate not to insist on a speedway track being incorporated into the plans for Sandy Park ? The fact is it made no sense. Halving your capacity and takings, in order to provide facilities for the dying sport of speedway instead of allowing the rugby to thrive as it could and did. Yet I assume there's some Speedway Trust somewhere still complaining how the Exeter Chiefs should have concerned themselves more with speedway and it's requirements, just as they imply that Clarke Osborne was responsible for Bristol Rovers 30 or more years ago. Seemingly working day and night to get the new stadium stopped. Canvassing MPs. councillors, starting petitions, finding any impediment they can to get the plan halted, and yet these would be the very people who would then announce 'Oh look, Clarke Osborne has failed to get the new stadium built'. It's the sort of two faced position that's been adopted that doesn't sit well with the Torbay public, and doesn't win TUST new friends. Guardianistas, Beeboids, they may all be recruited to propagandise on your behalf, but TUST's destructive message will continue to struggle to gain support outside of a hardcore of Corbyn voters. Let's support the club and support the team. History shows those hard left solutions only make things worse, even when they're presented with a 'Community' sugar coating.  |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Feb 9, 2018 22:35:57 GMT
Case Study 1, courtesy of haldonrambler:- Here’s a bit of detail about Milton Keynes. The Groveway dog track opened in 1963 and was known as Bletchley for a while. The Bristol Stadium company acquired it in the late 1990s and ran it until the end of 2005. The site is now a housing estate. There’s not been a replacement track. In 1998 the Racing Post reported that the BS Group had won council backing to redevelop the area around Milton Keynes Bowl where a new greyhound track would feature as part of a multi-million pound leisure site. The 160 acre site would also include a cinema, hotel and a family entertainment centre with health and fitness facilities. In making the announcement Clarke Osborne put to bed the rumours that the company was moving out of greyhound racing. Indeed it was actively seeking a new site in Bristol (never returned after demolition) and looking to add Dewsbury (never happened) : "There is no substance in the rumours whatsoever. You only have to look at what the group has done during the past couple of years or so and what it has planned for the future. The industry knows that BS Group is constantly looking for new sites for tracks."
www.thefreelibrary.com/BS+Group+unveils+new+track+plans.-a060712053Four years later Gaming International revealed plans to develop a new greyhound stadium, complete with leisure facilities, as part of a £5m leisure complex on a 17-acre site adjacent to the Milton Keynes Bowl. Said Clarke Osborne: “We recognise the future requirements for the leisure seeker and racing enthusiast will be for multi-choice activity in the same venue. The new Milton Keynes stadium complex will, for the first time, allow us to easily incorporate these alternative uses that will flow from the government relaxation of licensing and gaming regulation.”
Subject to final planning permission Gaming International planned to start work on the leisure complex towards the end of 2002 with completion scheduled for 2004: www.leisureopportunities.co.uk/news/Gaming-International-going-to-the-dogs-in-Milton-Keynes/1924The deal was to be financed by Gaming International selling its existing Milton Keynes site to English Partnerships. Mr Osborne: "We are delighted with both of these agreements, having sold our original Milton Keynes site for well in excess of book value, and securing a great location for the new Milton Keynes stadium complex, while ensuring through the agreement'sthat we are able to continuously maintain our successful operations in Milton Keynes. We set out with our investment in Milton Keynes to achieve the redevelopment of the existing site, releasing its potential value and to provide new, well located and appointed facilities. I am delighted that we are now well towards achieving that objective.”
www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=200204080700151422UzSelling the old site before securing a new one? But then, at the start of 2006, the Milton Keynes Citizen reported: "The party is well and truly over for the Groveway Greyhound Stadium after 43 years of going to the dogs. Boxing Day was the last ever meeting at the Ashlands venue with racing moving to a new track at Elfield Park.But plans for a temporary facility there to have been opened on New Year's Day have since been shelved. Dog racing could hopefully return to Milton Keynes at the end of 2006. "www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/dog-track-closes-1-855743Elfield Park? I don’t think so but there was another application relating to land close to the National Bowl. Application 06/01242/OUT - milton-keynes.cmis.uk.com – included: A greyhound stadium, located to the north of the arena, with a maximum capacity of 3,500 people, consisting of a dog track, facilities building, sports bar and kennels on a site of some 3.6 ha. That, I believe, was the last anybody ever heard. |
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Post by bomber on Feb 11, 2018 16:17:02 GMT
Alpine Joe is missing the point entirely - if Clarke Osborne is so keen to move the club to a new stadium, how about producing an artist's impression of the proposed new site?
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Feb 11, 2018 19:56:26 GMT
The decrepit fire hazard that was Eastville; a combustible shambles An interesting link here: pitchinvasion.net/eastville-stadium-flowers-fire-gas/An extract: the biggest blow to the ground came in 1980, when a “mysterious” fire broke out in the south stand, with disastrous consequences, as the club’s history describes:
Rovers’ future at Eastville was cast into great doubt following the events of the night of 16-17 August 1980, when a mystery fire badly damaged the South Stand at Eastville. The club’s administrative offices and changing rooms were destroyed. Eastville was left as a shell, with seating only in the North StandI am not sure why there are inverted commas around the word mysterious. Gaming International (or the Bristol Stadium Company as it then was) had wonderful plans for a spectacular new stadium. I am sure Jim Parker and Alpine Joe will be surprised to hear that it never happened. On top of this, the club continued to pay the price for not owning their own ground. The actual owners of the stadium, Bristol Stadium Company, came up with perhaps one of the most ambitious ideas in the history of lower league clubs: in 1983, they announced their intention to transform the ground into an all-seater venue with a sliding roof.
Neither this plan nor Rovers own attempts to build a new stadium panned out, and when the stadium’s owners decided to raise the rent on Rovers in 1986, the decision was made to leave their historic home and groundshare with Bath City instead.But one man's misfortune is another man's fortune and it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Gaming International was able to book £800,552 of extraordinary profit - presumably the excess of insurance receipts over repair costs.   (BS Group 1989 annual report p31) Small beer compared to the millions made from the site after turning Rovers out, but better than a poke in the eye with a pointed stick. And of course Rovers may not have felt the need to leave if they still had their grandstand intact. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Feb 11, 2018 20:08:29 GMT
Why do so many fans miss the most obvious point about new construction, and that is how to fund it? Some fans even miss the even more obvious point about the new construction and that is that, given Clarke Osborne's past record, it will never happen. You may think it is crazy that some cannot see this. Alpine Joe constantly parodies this tendency to overlook the bleeding obvious but you only have to read Jim Parker's ridiculous article to see that the stupidity that AJ parodies so relentlessly does actually exist. Of course Clarke Osborne wants the freehold BEFORE he builds. There isn't going to be an AFTER he builds, is there? |
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Feb 12, 2018 8:25:06 GMT
Of course Clarke Osborne wants the freehold BEFORE he builds. There isn't going to be an AFTER he builds, is there? Who knows, Jon? But the sale of the freehold only has to be conditionally tied to the construction of the new stadium. No stadium, no freehold sale. It's hardly difficult, is it?[/quoteenforce] I think it is very difficult to enforce if the freehold was sold first. CO has a history of encountering unforeseen “problems “ along the way, he talks the talk but does not walk the walk! Would a cash strapped local authority go through an expensive court case if it wasn’t then built? Particularly if a groundless TUFC then folded in the interim.... |
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) by appealing over the heads of the club's fans. Take that survey thingy from a little while back that some people filled in. I think there was a majority in favour of not moving from Plainmoor. And remember how many were then quick to draw the conclusion that it should only be what the football watchers wanted, and sod what the wider Community might prefer if they were surveyed.