I agree with you on that Sensible, i can just about understand Gat on here !!! i am digging myself in!!! Yes let them speak their jargon to each other and not us, i don't understand some of the garbage they speak either... Its better to say it as it is!! Trouble is alot of these people speak that way and don't understand what they are saying!! So how do they expect us to understand.. I think Brent thinks People down here will just go along with him and not revolt.. i have not read the stuff on other sites, pasti or Adt, never been on them or have any desire. I heard it was all kicking off on Face book the other night. i don't belong to any of that rubbish either.. I suppose we will find out what will be going on soon. i did read some were there is a meeting next week..
But that's my point Sensible. You're trying to drag an anti-Brent argument out of this but what precisely does the man in the street understand from "the stand"? Does a row of shops come into their mind? Or a cinema? Or an hotel? No they do not and you have to be starting from a particular ingrained point of view to say that they do.
Sensible, I have to agree with notdistant; a stand is where one stands (or sits) to watch something. A retail outlet is generally somewhere that sells crap at inflated prices to fleece the captive audience. The leaseholder i.e.the retailer then uses the net profit to pay the rent to the outlet real estate owner. Unless the retailer is the same person as the owner and also (in this case) 'owns' the football club there was never a chance that the footballing side would benefit from the retail outlets. 'all of the content of the stand would benefit the club' is a perfectly legitimate statement- it will, but the benefit may not be in hard cash......improved profile, greater footfall (some of whom may then pay to watch the footy) etc. BTW I visited ATD and almost registered as a user, but saved myself after reading some of the one eyed, ill informed, anti JD bile on some of the threads. If I had joined , I would probably be banned in advance.... . Instead I gave PASOTI another go and there is actually some rational debate on there sometimes, although it doesn't take long for even the most civilised discussion to degenerate into a name calling playground spat by those with entrenched positions. Anyway that's enough again already-going back to the prediction thread to see if I can charm treble points from GAT.
An alternative to the conversation sensible;You can just imagine it can't you. "Go on James be a devil and buy the club" "Oh I dunno, do you really want me too because I'm not sure-I don't really know anything about about football but it seems odd that a city the size of Plymouth has a club on the verge of extinction. The club has probably been financially mismanaged by outsiders chasing a pipe dream that didn't materialise and then they baled out. There must be a way of saving the club, laying the foundations for the future and making a tidy sum in the process-I cant understand why no one else seems interested in saving the club and improving the area" "Yea go on you know everyone wants you to" 'Well if we can come up with a business model that works we may be able to improve the infrastructure, stabilise the football side of things and generate enough interest to increase the number of people from Plymouth who want to visit the area- perhaps an ice rink, hotel and a few shops might increase the appeal'. 'oh good the plans have been approved- we have even made the model work so that we can afford to replace the old decrepit so called grandstand with a new comfortable and modern facility. Am sure some of the fans would like a much bigger stand but it simply doesn't make financial sense when the club rarely gets crowds much above 10k. I guess if we ever get to the top tier there will be enough money sloshing about to rebuild the whole thing elsewhere- the current ground will probably need knocking down by then anyway.' later-much later. "Well I bought Plymouth and it came with a football club. Never mind I put a hotel here, and one here, and one here. It looks like a Monopoly board now, but then again it looked like a derelict Monopoly board before. It is pity I had to let the football club go but after the sit-in by the tree-huggers and the blockade of the retail units by those that for some odd reason thought I would spend all this money and not expect anything in return I had no choice. Am sure they will be very successful in the conference south.Odd there wasn't a queue of people with bottomless pockets waiting to invest a fortune in the footballing side of things"
Nah lyndhurst I prefer my conversation piece. I agree with you in the main regarding ATD in that the main theme is negativity and Brent bashing. That is when not having a go at pasoti, Ian Newell and Webb of course. But, despite that you don't get banned easily and would have to be mega offensive to achieve it. I wasn't advocating you join it just look at the Drip thread. Pasoti is just a Brent flag waving board these days and anything Newell doesn't like gets deleted or moved. Both sites are the polar opposites and neither much good at two sided arguments. As for Politician like speach, I simply don't like it and things should be made plain and simple. After all the customers are ordinary folk and not members of the Bar. Well not that bar anyway.
If you look at GAT's post " Land owning issues at Home Park" you'll see that all of the land transfers are from the City Council to Akkeron et al. PAFC is only mentioned in relation to it leasing the ground from the Council. That's the bigger issue: at least in living memory, PAFC only owned its ground & the land behind the stand during the brief period between the Stapleton era and administration and near liquidation. It had it but it lost it under Gardner, not Brent.
Just noticed your previous post notdistant and the answer to your question is. The man in the street was led to believe that the build was the stand and the content of the build was to benefit the club financially. Cleverly it was not seperated at the outset and it was widely known that the clear misconception was not what was to be the end result. You cannot tell me that Brent and his people do not look at fans websites. If they don't then that's even worse than I thought. It says I don't care what my customers are saying or think. But all the signs were there that they believed different to what was intended and he did nothing to correct this. There was supposed to be transparency not hidden mirrors. Remember that being said at the beginning? "I want to be open and transparent". Like bollux he does and never has. The minutes of any meeting have to go back and forward between the parties until the club is ok with what is being said. It takes weeks for the minutes to be published. The real fans outfit, the AFT have been sidelined and the contrived club fan mouthpiece has been used to drip feed his agenda. I say drip feed because it is draged out screaming and the goal posts keep being moved further and further away from the football. You are damned right I say it to cause an anti Brent argument. I am no longer in the jury out camp, I am firmly in the he will be our downfall camp and he has used Argyle and the fans for his own gain and will not give a stuff when the football goes belly up.
Whoa sensible, I thought I had been following the whole re development/post administration rescues process quite closely but from your comments i have either a) completely missed something b) been in a coma or c) you are deliberately trying to wind me up. What is it exactly that JB has done (not what you think he might be plotting) that seems to make him the anti-christ. From memory he said from the outset that the football side had to be financially self sustaining. It follows that there was never any intention to subsidise the football side from the commercial side. if I have always understood that to be the case, what different communication have you received from JB that differs from this? I think that is pretty transparent statement and iin addition it is standard practice for minutes to be agreed by all parties before becoming the official record. No one should be under any illusion that the football club would not be in existence if JB and Co had been unable to come up with a profitable solution. Therefore he is providing the infrastructure for the football side to operate as a separate (albeit linked)entity to the rest of the development. You may not like it but it is the only sensible way to proceed from a business perspective.
The commercial side was supposed to be part of the self sustaining as without it none of the rest made any sense at all. As for the communication bit there are more things than minutes of meetings. It's the misinformation that isn't corrected when it could easily be. It's the lack of anything coming out of the club in most cases. It's the clubs refusal to talk to certain factions of the fanbase when all of it is it's customers. Won't talk because they won't behave and ask the right sort of questions the Board want asked instead of questions of their own. The drip feed of the new build being watered down as time went on under the guise of it being "subject to alteration". We all understand that aspect except the alterations have been mega and not tweeking. I was prepared to give Brent the benefit of the doubt given our previous failed board and the lies and non telling how it is from them. He wasn't to blame for the Administration and I've never suggested he was. So far all I can see is Brent raping PAFC in open view of the world and sticking his fingers in the air like he doesn't care. I don't know but I suspect that once he has taken every last penny he can out of the club he will cast it off without a backward glance. He does nothing at all to make me see it differently. Actually not only raping PAFC but pretty much doing what he wants with Plymouth in general. I don't much care what he does with the Civic Centre building as it is an eyesore anyway but I do care what he does at Home Park and all it is is him making bucks and the club being shafted.
Okay, you obviously have a different perspective than I do. All I can say is that I have now had 2 separate one to one conversations with him a semi social setting (albeit not since the stand plans were passed) I was 'working' for my organisation and he was hosting us - all I can say is that he comes across as having a genuine connection with the club and all things green, and and his delight at the result on the day (argyle were at home) was very evident. He has engaged with the fans far more than any other owner that I can remember- I had the misfortune in meeting Mr Rotolok once in a similar setting- he was just rude and arrogant who didn't give a stuff about the fans and Mr Stapleton had very little engagement. Am not sure what the 'lack of anything coming out of the club in most cases' refers to. I agree that bits of the club's PR are poor but not sure all that can be used against JB. Probably more a lack of professionalism in some areas- perhaps the new Chief exec may sort that out... There is a huge difference between listening to what the fans have to say and agreeing with them. Frankly in my professional life I spend a great deal of time listening to others but then have to make decisions based on all the information I have- often it will be unpopular but as I am 'in charge' it is about making the right call, not bowing down to the majority-it's called leadership. I still don't see where the evidence is that he is 'raping PAFC in open view of the world and sticking his fingers in the air like he doesn't care' . I said on a previous thread that I didn't want to go over all this again; when he does does something outrageous then perhaps I will eat humble pie but for now, I wish him every success- one thing is for sure, if he fails, the club fails.
I'm with you Lyndhurst, how anyone came to the conclusion that the club that the club was going to benefit from non-football development & activities is beyond me. Clearly some are so keen to bash Brent they are willing to strain plain English beyond breaking point. I'd understand to a certain extent if someone had bought the club at a bargain price WITH landholdings and had then separated them off for his own profit. The fact is though that not only would the club have been unable to mount these developments financially or managerially, it had already lost the land and therefore any right to participate in the wider development during the Gardner era. That's quite apart from the fact we'd be playing Jumpers For Goalposts football in front of two men and a dog now if it wasn't for a rescue based only on the fact there was property development value. We play in the League today and the development is ready to go, that was the bargain and now it's here. And don't give me that "better to have a clean start" rubbish. There isn't much enthusiasm for PAFC at the best of times. Go out of the League & Blue Square altogther and it's finished forever.
Lyndhurst....I agree with what you say about James Brent.....not a popular thing to say in many areas......certainly on another website you could get lynched for less. I have spent an evening with him at a PASALB meeting with Webb & Newell in attendance as well,....okay awhile back (Nov 2011)...and he certainly wasn't stand-offish in anyway and was willing to answer any question put to him. and mingled well afterwards talking to all that were there. I just let most of the anti-Brent vitriolic comments pass me by and try to make my own mind up on what is happening,which is difficult as an exile. I fail to see how a new Grandstand which is a little undersize...according to some.....can be seen as a mini stand.....especially seeing at present we would fill less than half of it with present crowd numbers, just away of twisting the knife I expect. Mr Brent is a businessman and will develop HHP and make a profit....what is wrong about that....he never said that he was going to be a philanthropist or PAFC's sugar daddy. John Sheridan has now assembled his own team and I'm sure James Brent will back him all the way. He backed Carl Fletcher for what it seemed to be forever....long beyond what most of us thought was possible......so Brent will not be leaping to and fro and will stick with what he has set up for PAFC for the forseeable future....and we just need to set our sights on supporting the team.
I don't dislike Brent because I don't know him personally. However, I don't trust him on the basis of what I see and believe. I know what his Rep told me as I was there at the time. It's that simple. I don't go along with I met him and he seemed a good bloke either. He probably did but then again I met Rolf Harris in person once and he was great. It's taken me quite a while to come to my opinion because I'm not one for condemning out of hand at the first opportunity. I've always given people the benefit of the doubt at least to start with. I'm simply not a fan and genuinely believe he will dump us when his coffers are full enough. Time will tell and I hope I'm wrong. I have nothing against the size of the stand either even if I think it should be a bit bigger or at least wished it was. I can see it is hard to justify bigger so that isn't an issue with me.
Right so one person made a somewhat misleading remark in the Theatre Royal presentation, probably mixing up the match day catering shops and entertainment inside the ground with the shops outside it, and that forms your entire opinion? Now I agree it's not good to make misleading statements, albeit I'm sure innocently, but I don't suppose the person involved thought that his remarks would subsequently be trawled over as if he'd been in a murder trial in the High Court. But that's football fans I suppose. Meanwhile, what about the match yesterday. I have no info. Unlucky? Rubbish? Which? Another example of starting quite well then fading? Second hand opinions welcome as being better than none.
I repeat "I never had sex with that woman". It was the man's job to give people details of what was intended. Innocent my arse he said what he was told to say at the time. There was no ambiguity about his statement, it was no mistaken idea of what was asked, he lied. I remember believing in the last Board and look where that got us. Do you believe everything you are told by rich people?
The Devil is always in the detail Sensible and even now you are misquoting President Clinton, who actually said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". He's a lawyer and chose his words carefully so that he wasn't lying. He wasn't telling the whole truth but he wasn't lying. You started with the quote "all of the content of the stand would benefit the club". All of the content of the stand will benefit the club. The bits outside won't benefit the club. What's complicated about that?
