It's 12 years today since we played our first league game at the KC Stadium (against Hartlepool) and we're playing against the side we played in the first ever football game there (the Sunderland friendly a week or so before). I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Council for providing us with the stadium we needed. Without them we'd still be either stuck in the lower leagues or have gone bust.
12 years on and still no plans to further develop the stadium in to a worthy Premier League ground, disappointing.
There's at least 3 worse grounds in the PL now just from the ones I've been to (Palace, Burnley, QPR).
Are you at least, ideally more, grateful to the Allams for them saving your actual club Ric? Why no thread about that?
I'd guess that it may have something to do with yesterday not being the 12th anniversary of the owners taking over the club. Although I believe I read somewhere that yesterday was the 12th anniversary of our first competitive fixture at the KC. Unless there's a connection between our owners & our first competitive game at the Council funded KC Stadium that I'm missing then I'm also guessing that my guessing is about right.
I find it odd anyone would thank HCC for anything. Yes we have a ground. No they haven't done a good job of administering it. No they haven't ensured it will have a long and lasting legacy. Yes imo it was mostly for FC. Yes they are a buncha ****s who only look after themselves with the citizens of Hull's money. Why start a thread on here thanking them was my point, when I havent seen any similar displays of gratitude from Ric regarding the family who saved our actual football club. HCC wouldn't have, in fact I suspect some of them woulda been pleased to see us go so they could carry on with the notion Hull is a rugby city. You're welcome.
Agree with you about a lot involved with the building of the KC being more interested in safeguarding FC than City. When City were struggling Pat Doyle stated that sport played no part on his agenda. When Lloyd floated the idea of FC ground sharing with Leicester Tigers this man who said sport played no part on his agenda declared he would move heaven and earth to keep FC in Hull.The Boulevard needed a fortune spending on it and had been allowed to remain open longer than it should have leading to serious concerns about something going wrong. FC were given £750,000 for the Boulevard when not long before the owners were willing to accept £350,000 for the team and the ground. This enabled them to move into the KC debt free. Rovers had debts written off by the council, and were sponsored in round about ways by them. City are the only ones not to have had help from HCC.
A friend of mine called Trevor Larsen worked very hard on getting the plans and development of the KC going, ex council member and he pushed through the development of the museum section of High St, Wilberforce House and the Transport Museum. He is a Hull lad and as far as I know has always had the best interest of the city of Hull as his prime interest. A lot of what he did culminated in us getting awarded the City Of Culture nomination. Now I know there has been some shady rats involved with the council over the years but don't tar them all with the same brush. The KC has obviously been a huge part of where we are now compared to where we were 20 years ago and for that I would like to say thank you Trev
Good to see you back, I was, for some reason, thinking of you yesterday but for the life of me couldn't remember your surname. Hope you've been keeping well.
He did a good job keeping us informed on the original CI Rivals site. Wrote a very good article entitled The Grass Isn't Always Greener where he castigated the HDM and various others for their negativity and duplicity. He is an FC fan not a City one. His brother lives a couple of streets away from me. They aren't at all alike.
In the 1950's Hull City Council became the first local council in the UK to provide financial support for families who had a student who had passed O levels at age 16 and had a chance of studying for a further 2 years to A level with the possibility of attending university. This was done via an education grant to the parents for the 2 year period and for working class parents such as mine helped them with the financial burden and enabled me to go on to Uni and beyond. I thank HCC for this help to my parents and all other parents who were helped by this innovative approach in assisting their children to reach a higher educational standard. It was, of course, a Labour council and my uncle was a councillor at that time
The SMC has paid next to no rent for the past 12 years. The only rent the SMC has had to charge Hull City AFC was to maintain the ground and pay the staff. Hull City Council's subsidy, including renting space for the library and other facilities, subsidised Hull City AFC indirectly to the tune of £10 million. That money helped City get into the Premier League twice. The money wasn't a loan, the Council didn't charge 5% interest and the lease still means Assem Allam's SMC doesn't have to charge Hull City Tigers Limited a penny for the rent of the ground, just its upkeep and day to day running. Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. A bit like falling out with the Council when there's a break in the lease for the library and other council facilities.
You'll find plenty if you go looking back to to things like when the first accounts were published under Allam and we saw he was loaning rather than giving us the money (with my approach to life in general I actually prefer that way of doing things, it's the constantly calling it a gift when it's not that pisses me off with it). As there's no new information and it's not the anniversary of anything I've chosen not to spontaneously start a thread. As for the ground, no ground and Adam Pearson and backers don't see an opportunity to make some money transforming the club, we don't get bought from administration by AP and the club is either gone or working it's way up the lower leagues like AFC Wimbledon. So let's thank the Council regardless of their main reasons for building it (beyond the obvious money having to be spent on capital projects), if it was a good thing they'll appreciate the gesture, if it was all about the rugby it'll annoy them being reminded that without them doing it we'd be gone and the rugby might actually be important.
