I might feel differently in the morning but right now I've had a gutful and don't care if I never go to HP ever again !
Remember Gat that it isn't Plymouth Argyle the football bit that is to blame for anything that goes on off the pitch. People like Stapleton, MaCawley, Wratheral, Brent etc. come and go in football clubs. They are not the club they just hold the keys for a while.
I have slept on it and sadly I still feel the same this morning, so after 49 years of supporting Plymouth Argyle I am bowing out ! I CANNOT nor WILL NOT support a club being belittled from within. The club I loved died whilst under the tenure of the un magnificent 7 and Wratherall played his part in its demise. I think its morally and ethically wrong for him to come back now that the ship isn’t sinking. I can’t get out of my head the hardships that the unpaid staff went through because of him. We all know some lost their homes, some have never recovered financially and are still going through dire times due to him and the other 6 directors. On other sites his friends are saying what a lovely man he is, I’m sure Hitler’s family and friends said the same about him, and that he didn’t know what was going on ….. Bollocks if they expect us to believe that, and if he didn’t he has no right being in business. He is in the paper today quoted as saying “I am extremely sorry for the past” …. And that makes it alright does it ? What I don’t understand is why Brent turned the Argyle Fans Trust down when they wanted to invest £400K in the club with a seat on the board but he has accepted that scumbag who has only invested £100K …… something stinks and I no longer want any part of it. I will stay on here until the end of the season for the Prediction League but after that I shall be gone. If anyone wants to take over as Mod please PM me. If anyone wants to take over the Prediction League again if they PM I will supply them with the spreadsheet which makes it easier to store the scores on. Sorry to all my Argyle buddies, I shall miss you all. PAFC RIP
Just to answer your question with a guess GAT, Brent didn't want to have the AFT with a full seat on a board which would inevitably end up discussing matters such as sacking & appointing managers, buying & selling players, management of player indiscretions as & when they occurred and player wage levels. I'd guess he'd guess the chances of that remaining confidential for very long would be vanishingly small. If you think about it, I think you'll have to agree Brent would be a fool to accept £4m for that never mind £400k. And to correct you on one thing, the club nearly died, not died.
Ok if Notdistant if we are being pedantic the club that high morals and standards died at the time of the un magnificent 7 what has followed is a very dim shadow of what the club once was ! Brent is only in this for himself which is fine but as a fan I don't have to like it or infact financially support it either ! You can tell a lot about the moral fibre of someone by what they think is acceptable !
Well, as they say, ethics is a county north of the Thames. I'd have thought the most moral and successful period in Argyle's recent history was under Stapleton and others, including Wrathall. It's a pity that they felt the need to bring in the likes of Gardner, presumably with the idea that would give the fans what they most desired: to move the club on towards the Premiership. I'd contend that football fans' generally aren't entirely innocent in all this: they want success for their club without caring too much how it's achieved. When it goes wrong, they blame the owners.
I've been keeping my eye on the other sites and a bit surprised Plym hasn't put some of the stuff on here before now given what is being suggested. Don't know the truth behind this but it seems Brent's empire is beginning to crumble and he may not have the cash to keep the club going. Hence the requirement to get somebody, anybody, onboard who had some readies and was prepared to whack it into the coffers. There is talk of Akkeron hotels going belly up and even talk of a further Admin for Argyle. Please god it doesn't happen but all of this may just explain why we have a new director on the board and who it is despite the pledge from Brent previously about former directors and walleted people.
Well there's something happening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26443255 http://www.catererandhotelkeeper.co...oes-into-administration-with-loss-of-jobs.htm I'll say two things. There were those that argued that PAFC should benefit from the wider development of Home Park. I pointed out at the time that participating in the benefits would inevitably mean sharing the risks. Secondly, there were those that argued that Brent should not expect the club to be self financing but should follow the Manchester City model and subsidise it to success. Hopefully PAFC is not currently linked to any risk in Brent's other business interests and is not reliant on hand-outs from Brent for survival. Are we all agreed on that now?
I haven't bothered to drag some of the "its all going belly up" waffle from those two other sites on to here. I'm sure notDistant understands far more about the business world than anyone else on here. Moving things around always seems to be happening in that world.....and for the likes of me means nothing.....if things were bad ....I'm sure PAFC wouldn't have bought two players for the first time in four years.
I would merely say that I know enough about business to know I don't know enough to make a judgement about what this means. Hotels change hands all the time. Yes, a company has gone into administration but as I read it, no hotels have closed. Eleven people have lost their jobs and I have every sympathy with them as individuals but it's hardly an earth shattering event. Regrettably, it happens to good people all the time. Lastly, and most importantly, this wouldn't have made the papers if Brent didn't own a football club. It's too good an angle for a journalist to resist. It scares people but there's nothing in the story to link it to Argyle. In fact there are categorical denials from the board that there is any connection. What I will say is that both the Home Park and Oldway Mansion projects seem to be stalled. There are a thousand reasons for that to be so but one of the one thousand is cash flow.
One other little thing. I know someone who knew Brent from a distance through working for an organisation Brent's had a connection with - I will say it's not PAFC but not more. That person says that Brent had an awful lot of plates spinning in various enterprises and had to spread himself very thinnly. Perhaps that's why he has to rely on people like Martin Starnes, Colin Sextone and dare I say it, Tony Wrathall. Whilst I'm breaking confidences, another little tit-bit - I know someone who knows someone who's involved in the medical programme at Argyle. There's a whole lot going on monitoring player's blood levels and whatnot to guide their individual training regimes etc. It's cutting edge stuff that's beginning to be used by the biggest clubs in Europe. When I say biggest clubs in Europe, I mean just that. We may be down in yokel country and damn proud of it, but don't imagine everything at the club is backward.
The problem Brent has is his previous reluctance to let the supporters know anything. A statement now is just shrugged at and not believed by many. He would say that wouldn't he being the obvious dismisal of it. It's his own fault if people don't believe a word he says. Not that I think he cares much either way. It's also not a wonder, given history recently, that the supporters get more than a little nervous when things happen.
Like all business people, he tells two things: 1) What he's obliged to by law etc and 2) What it is to his advantage to reveal. Why would anyone say more?
Most of this is factual but it's springled with statements likely to mislead the unwary. It's notable none of them would mislead in favour of Brent. Why on earth would he comment on what went on before and during the administration when he was an complete outsider? Amongst other things, doing so could be a short route to a libel suit. He may or may not have the necessary reputation to raise money for his mainstream businesses but I suspect there aren't queues of financial institutions waiting to lend money to League 2 football clubs. If there are, why were there so few bids to take the club on when it was in administration? What madness would persuade any businessman to reveal the commercial assumptions behind his projects other than to those who need to know? Do that once and you'll be outbid on the next one given that the opposition know how you do your sums. Why would PAFC alone amongst the millions of businesses in the UK publish more comprehensive accounts than it is required to do by law? And so on and so on....
Seems to me that this article is just regurgitation of old speculation, half truths and rumour. The most striking thing that the author (and others of his ilk) always fail to say is what the alternative way of funding the club is. There is no queue of millionaires waiting to lose their cash on a football team in the far south west. I care little what actually happens in the boardroom but as long as something happens to keep the club going, I am reasonably content to focus on things on the pitch.
