Jon
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Post by Jon on Mar 19, 2010 0:32:40 GMT
While talking about Bateson, Roberts etc it had me thinking that in our history room we had have many threads on past managers but not one thread that showed all the club owners from the day we were founded. I'm not sure how far back it would be possible to go but it would be great if our history boys could make such a thread and possibly included such information about how successful we were under each owner. I guess Mike Bateson was unique in that he was the only sole owner (with the possible exception of the Webb and Roberts fiascos when ownership was clouded in mystery). For the rest of the time control of the club - to the best of my knowledge - has been held collectively by a number of individuals (as now). So, in this sense, I guess we might be talking chairmen rather than owners or maybe plotting eras between major share tranactions (as far as these where ever publicised). And I suppose the role/significance/power of the chairman has varied over the years: sometimes a majority shareholder (not sure if this was ever the case other than MB?); sometimes a true leader of a group; other times something of a figurehead; on occasions a marionette. I think Barton has pretty well summed it up. Torquay United Football Club Ltd was founded on 26 July 1921 and has always been owned by its shareholders. I'm fairly sure that the shares were fairly well spread around until relatively recently. By 1982, the share capital was still only £50k and Chairman Tony Boyce only held just over 10% of this. I would imagine that the format had changed little in sixty years, with the Chairman leading a group of equals (much as today) not acting autocratically. Unfortunately, the format began to fail as our crowds plummeted in the early 70s. It became increasingly difficult to finance professional football and even a man of Tony Boyce's calibre began to find the task impossible. I'm sure that Boyce would have liked to cajole a few more local businessmen on board, but by early in the 1983/84 season he and his board advertised the club for sale in the Financial Times. I can only imagine this was with a heavy heart - effectively an act of desperation. In February 1984, Foremost Security Ltd took ownership of two-thirds of the share capital of TUFC Ltd with Webb and his associates owning two thirds of Foremost Security Ltd. So began the first dictatorship. Lew Pope became Chairman but effectively had no power - Managing Director Webb was in charge. In 1986, Lew Pope and Gilbert Harvey managed to wrest power back from Webb - returning the club to the old style of regime. The accounts for that year note an exceptional write-off of £21k of a loan due from the holding company. Pope and Harvey managed to keep things going for four years helped by a fortuitous £79k "surplus of insurance monies received over cost of demolition and removal of fire damaged grandstand” and of course by the genius of Cyril Knowles. By 1990, things were again pretty desperate – particularly as there was a pressing need to carry out expensive work on the decaying ground. In the 69 years up to 1990, the total share capital invested added up to just £76k. With the arrival of Mike Bateson, that was quickly whacked up to £492k - £421k of it paid by Bateson. This was the first time that a single contribution so utterly dwarfed the sum of all others - the response to the open offer in 1990 was lamentably poor. Bateson ended up selling £170k worth of shares to Mick Sadler via Chris Roberts for £300k and £251k worth of shares to the current consortium for £192k. The share capital has been doubled since the consortium takeover to £984k - £484k of the extra being bought by the consortium and £8k by various small shareholders. So the consortium, via the holding company Plainmoor Ltd, now owns £735k (for which it paid £676k) of a total share capital of £984k – just under 75%. Although the club is now three quarters owned by a single shareholder in Plainmoor Ltd, the old spirit of shared responsibility and ownership has returned as no single individual owns more than a third of the holding company and no two individuals added together control more than half. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Mar 19, 2010 14:29:35 GMT
Cheers for that, Jon. Really insightful. The first time that I really took an interest in those owning was quite a way down the line. It was when we were thumped away at Lincoln in the Stevenage season and a group of our fans were singing "We want Bateson out". I believe he may have "moved aside" for Benney shortly after that, but remember thinking to myself that I was quite pleased we had a Chairman who had gone for Ground improvements rather than Stevenage having had one at that time. My views on MB changed a bit as his interest seemed to wane, but not so drastically as may have been the case with others. My late Grandfather rarely spoke of ownership though spoke highly of Boyce, I recall. He also spoke of his favourite ever player as "Shaw". Can you help me on that one, Jon. Nippy midfielder/barn door forward/centre-half/? I've gotten a bit nostalgic of late. It'll be down to turning 40, no doubt. I quite like the traditional Torquay way you describe of shared ownership. A meeting of minds rather than a personal fiefdom sits well with me and I don't consider that it has to mean an inability to act where action is necessary per se. The lot that we have now are a real blessing to us and I do hope that their enquiry for further investors is one borne out of pragmatism for the longer term rather than, at the other end of the spectrum, panic regarding short-term viability. I'm guessing its somewhere in between, though more of the former, but the losses posted in recent years need plugging. In terms of corporate facilities, I was very impressed with my stint as sponsor the other day and the treatment by the Club and its employees. I know its not the be all and end all, but the carvery was the best I have ever had, anywhere, ever. And whilst not as Sponsor myself, I have had that "treatment" under a previous regime and it was a step-up despite best efforts. The reinstatement of the Youth set up (as well as regained League status, of course) was a massive sign to me that we were back to respectability. It is an essential part of putting a Club back in its community in my opinion, and who knows, as the reputation grows, a good source for future 1st Team talent. Long may our present ownership remain. (Don't tell Kevin I said that.  ) Edit: Maybe a little share for you know who  ) |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2010 19:00:56 GMT
Plenty of interesting material from Jon on this thread. I would imagine there was a gradual change after 1921 from the old committee-style approach to a more business-like board of directors now there were increased financial responsibilities. I wonder how the personnel changed? Out with the old club volunteers – in with local worthies, men of substance around the town?
Interesting how Rob’s grandfather rarely mentioned the ownership of the club. I guess this was par for the course up until relatively recent times. I’m sure the 1950s were seen – even at the time – as the days of Eric Webber (the manager) in stark contrast to how the 1990s – during and after – will always be seen as the Bateson Era. Certainly, as a kid, I was aware of Tony Boyce’s importance but never once saw him – as Jon clarifies – in terms of being “the owner” (or even "an owner”). It was more the case that the board oversaw the finances and made contributions – together with their expertise – as appropriate.
That was probably true for football as a whole in those days when, whatever may have been claimed by some fans, it was difficult to make much money out of the game. Football – even at the top – was hardly a licence to print money – and directors usually became involved because of a good old-fashioned love of the game, civic spirit, ego or vanity. It was rather like being an Alderman – or chair of the chamber of commerce – and it kept your name in the papers which, no doubt, was quietly good for business.
I suppose things changed when it became permissible legally for directors to be paid (sometime in the 1980s or 1990s I believe) and – of course – when people started to queue up to invest in the game. Then shares became valuable and – as we saw with the Halls and Shepherds at Newcastle – the pigs started to gather around the troughs.
Our first inkling of a New Age was probably – as Jon reminds us – when Dave Webb appeared in 1984. Something like that was always possible once the club had been advertised in the national press and, by that time, you had started to see “consortiums” – often with no previous connection to a club – materialise out of the ether. We’ve probably drawn the attention of a couple of dozen of these entities over the years and it’s fascinating how the two outside bids which have been successful – Webb and Roberts - have both been wholly shambolic. Fortunate, too, that each was seen off with the club - just about - in one piece.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2010 15:36:33 GMT
Glancing at Timbo’s latest programme from the early 1950s, Ron Blindell’s name should really be put forward as an early example of a serial outside investor in football clubs. Torquay, Argyle, Brentford…was he anywhere else? Not sure where he came from – or what his line of business was – but he was also a successful racehorse owner. Has anybody any recollection – or material – from his time at Plainmoor? And, looking at those lists of directors, who was C W Baschwitz? Type that name into Google and there’s something in the National Archives from 1915 involving Belgian currency and a Dutch bank. The same man? Mind you, I don’t see his name on the list of Torquay mayors alongside good old Colonel Rowland Ward and Phillip T Read at www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=6323f3ca444cb763b2edb7a8f15132a9&topic=304100.0. Indeed search elsewhere and it seems the Colonel, for his part, had Masonic connections… |
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merse
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Post by merse on Mar 22, 2010 17:29:52 GMT
Glancing at Timbo’s latest programme from the early 1950s, Ron Blindell’s name should really be put forward as an early example of a serial outside investor in football clubs. Torquay, Argyle, Brentford…was he anywhere else? Not sure where he came from – or what his line of business was – but he was also a successful racehorse owner. Has anybody any recollection – or material – from his time at Plainmoor?  I'm almost certain Blindell's money came from hotel ownership ~ which wouldn't be a surprise given his involvement with Torquay United during the fifties. I think too that he had a somewhat "autocratic" reputation as Chairman at Gnome Park and it was not unknown for him to demand the right of "approval" of the teams that his managers selected and also enter the dressing room at half time to demand changes.................... I'm also pretty certain he was the Chairman who pulled the trigger on manager Andy Beattie on Christmas Eve in the early sixties. Certainly he was gone from the Devon football scene by '65 and re-emerged as the man who saved Brentford FC in '67 with a then almost unprecedented interest free loan of over over a hundred thousand pounds and became chairman of a newly re-constituted board when the club was facing closure and seeing Griffin Park being taken over by neighbouring Queens Park Rangers. Sadly, Mr Blindell was dead two years later with his eighteen year old son (also called Ron) taking his place on the board as a form of "proxy" protection for the investment. Whatever the reasons were for his departure from the Plainmoor board, how we could have done with that hundred grand at a time when we were struggling to establish the club infrastructure to back up that marvellous team Frank O'Farrell had put together that was inevitably destined to become the highest that our club has ever reached in the structure of the Football League. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Mar 22, 2010 20:29:38 GMT
Glancing at Timbo’s latest programme from the early 1950s, Ron Blindell’s name should really be put forward as an early example of a serial outside investor in football clubs. Torquay, Argyle, Brentford…was he anywhere else? John Lovis wrote of the 1950/51 season : Col. Ward retired as Chairman and became President. George Gillin took over as Chairman of a United board which included the colourful Ron Blindell, a blunt and wealthy man who later took over at Plymouth and set off a chain reaction which put Argyle in the headlines for dubious reasons.What is all that about then? If nobody else knows - Mark, ask your Dad for us will you? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2010 20:59:08 GMT
It would be fascinating to learn about the extent of Ron Blindell's influence at Plainmoor in the early 1950s before he headed off to become Argyle's chairman. Did he put much cash in? Was he full of bright ideas? What if he'd stayed longer? Was there an outbreak of disharmony in the boardroom? The cuttings below - taken from an old Harley Lawer book - show that Ron was a man for both the limelight and a spot of controversy. Looks like we missed out on a lot of fun. And, if you look on the web, Argyle fans aren't quite sure about his background - more likely from "up the line" than a Janner it seems. There's a thought he may have owned a chain of shoe shops (or an early washing machine magnate, perhaps?) but, in that same Harley Lawer book, there's a picture of Argyle players visiting Ron's furniture factory in Banbury. I certainly seem to recall my father - a man who sold cheese to Robert Daniel, Argyle chairman of the 1960s - saying Blindell was a colourful old rogue. But was he partial to a spot of brass band music? The RJ R Blindell Cup has been competed for in Cornwall since the 1950s. Ah yes, and when Ron died, his wife apparently sold the house in Sunningdale to John and Yoko. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittenhurst_Park     The new owner of Ron's old place entertains a few mates at his new gaff (some of whom were about as pally as the Argyle boardroom thereafter):  |
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merse
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Post by merse on Mar 22, 2010 21:11:55 GMT
Three journalists ~ Lorenzo, Toye and Bromley who all went on to great things nationally and internationally.............Lorenzo to The Sun, Toye as Commissioner of Football in the USA and Bromley to the BBC and later the ITV football supremo. Blindell was also the chairman who enticed Malcolm Allison to take up his first management job in the Football League when moving in from Bath City.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2010 19:47:41 GMT
The Torquay United board in 1945 from Mike Holgate's book:  |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Oct 30, 2012 0:47:46 GMT
Glancing at Timbo’s latest programme from the early 1950s, Ron Blindell’s name should really be put forward as an early example of a serial outside investor in football clubs. Torquay, Argyle, Brentford…was he anywhere else? Not sure where he came from – or what his line of business was – but he was also a successful racehorse owner. Has anybody any recollection – or material – from his time at Plainmoor? A little on Blindell and his father here:    |
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) Edit: Maybe a little share for you know who 
)