President's progress

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

The marketing is the fault of the Administrator and not Brent though which is why I say best offer on the table.

But was it really?

At the very start of the administration Brendan Guilfoyle mentioned that he didn't think there would be a problem finding a new owner and that there had already been a lot of interest.

Then there was the Heaney fiasco that obviously represented previous owners and took up valuable time.

Between that lot Chris Webb pops up from nowhere and somehow becomes the leader of the Trust. Other Trust of other clubs when placed in our position have gone out and worked their socks off to find as many potential owners as possible, but not Chris, he backed Brent from day one and from what I can tell he didn't spend a minute seeking out other potential owners between "working tirelessly” posting comments of how to derail any other bids that got in the way. Whilst it may have been the right thing to block Heaney there were others as well, remember the much maligned Posty’s Bullivant as well as several others?- - During this his side kick was posting email addresses and telephone numbers to, once again, create mayhem for anyone that looked like they could possibly chuck a spanner into Brent’s works as well as slur any name that popped up into the frame. Also and as we know only too well, a huge campaign was commenced to hush the voice of those that may question the dealings and again as we know, this continues!

Meanwhile, Brent is dealing with his “friends “ (that’s a quote from Pengelly) on PCC to involve the City Council Tax payers in a buyout designed to maximise his profits so he ends up with a plush hotel and Council Tax payers end up with a half empty and somewhat derelict football stadium.

So we’re left with:

A) A piece of valuable land in Central Park now owned by Brent.
B) A half derelict stadium owned by City Council Tax payers.
C) And the third entity that’s been conveniently forgot, the club, PAFC that incidentally cannot be financed without the help of A) The valuable land. Note: No club in the FL sustains itself without external financing, yet Brent expects PAFC to be able to? In the Conference however, clubs do manage to finance themselves!

Remember the staff as well and how the GTs via the fans are paying their wages, it's not Brent, it's the fans that are forking out indirectly!

I recognise that PAFC had huge debts and this was always going to be a game that we would lose, but let’s not believe for a minute that we should be grateful towards Brent as he makes a packet out of this deal. I would have understood more if he had laid his cards on the table and told us how it was instead of portraying this image designed for him by his sidekicks to promote his “gentleman” and superfan image.

What was in this for Webb and Newell then? – We now know the benefits received so far, a made up title, a place in the director’s box and probably a few other perks chucked in, but is that the last of the perks? _ I have a sneaky feeling that one or two other, for the want of a better word “perks” were considered, whether that’s still the case remains to be seen but they have certainly opened up a whole can of conspiracy theories.

So as anyone can see, this deal is an excellent deal for Brent and make no mistake, others would have shown a big interest if they were encouraged and permitted and had not been a potential victim of phone, email and personal abuse!

I went off on a slight tangent there but still, the question now is, what does the future hold?

This is priceless. Mike PAFC84, the "robust" chap pictured with TCE at the Exeter game, thrown out of the Torquay game and involved in an incident at the Stourbridge away game, has been posting some interesting things on Pasoti, and comes on to apologise that his account has been hacked. Then it's been pointed out to him that the posts last night and his apology were from the same IP address

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Amongst his posts last night were demolish the Mayflower stand it's a pile of crap and we're going to get relegated anyway, and a waste of money going to Larrieu's testimonial

His account was probably hacked, or he left his PC on, but it's obviously a family member or close friend, but he doesn't know what it means that it came from his IP address.

How bizarre!

My understanding is that the council actually approached Brent asking him to get involved.

I'm not sure what other "buyers" were interested other than Buttivant and Michael Jackson's bodyguard...... plus a couple of mysterious people from weird & wonderful places like USA that Ridsdale was trying to engage with.

knecht wrote:

My understanding is that the council actually approached Brent asking him to get involved.

I'm not sure what other "buyers" were interested other than Buttivant and Michael Jackson's bodyguard...... plus a couple of mysterious people from weird & wonderful places like USA that Ridsdale was trying to engage with.

When he was appointed Administrator, Guilfoyle said something to the effect that he didn't need to market the club for sale, as that had been done, and he'd already met the person he thought was going to be the club's new owner.

So, we'll never know who else may have been interested, as no attempt was made to market the club beyond the 2 or 3 parties that had expressed an interest up to that point.

Andy_Symons wrote:

.......
When he was appointed Administrator, Guilfoyle said something to the effect that he didn't need to market the club for sale, as that had been done, and he'd already met the person he thought was going to be the club's new owner.

So, we'll never know who else may have been interested, as no attempt was made to market the club beyond the 2 or 3 parties that had expressed an interest up to that point.

True.

knecht wrote:

My understanding is that the council actually approached Brent asking him to get involved.

I'm not sure what other "buyers" were interested other than Buttivant and Michael Jackson's bodyguard...... plus a couple of mysterious people from weird & wonderful places like USA that Ridsdale was trying to engage with.

Yes it was PCC Officials that invited Brent.

It was Guilfoyle that stated he had much interest from potential new owners.

We had the weird, the wonderful, the skint and the scum interested in PAFC, but Brent was the only one truly interested....so we're told, time and time again.

Andy_Symons wrote:

knecht wrote:

My understanding is that the council actually approached Brent asking him to get involved.

I'm not sure what other "buyers" were interested other than Buttivant and Michael Jackson's bodyguard...... plus a couple of mysterious people from weird & wonderful places like USA that Ridsdale was trying to engage with.

When he was appointed Administrator, Guilfoyle said something to the effect that he didn't need to market the club for sale, as that had been done, and he'd already met the person he thought was going to be the club's new owner.

So, we'll never know who else may have been interested, as no attempt was made to market the club beyond the 2 or 3 parties that had expressed an interest up to that point.

Greenskin and myself have always maintained this. We both remain convinced that if ever the club is correctly marketed to investors interested in a potential PL club, on the cheap, then Argyle is a great long term prospect.Staplebum could have been a real fan and found someone but no, he got greedy and the Avivas loved him for it'
If monied investors came in even now, and showed the sort of cash backed ambition others have received elsewhere,even Bournemouth ffs !, developing the stadium to cope with the demand from spectators would need to be high on the agenda.
The 'same old argo' tag would be lifted.

The thing is, as a businessman what gamble would you take...finance a football club with a half derelict stadium and no finance whilst sitting in the lowest division and with consideration that have never had any affinity with the game, or, grab a piece of land to build on and make a nice tidy profit?

One of the biggest problems appears to be that the local, influential rump of our support, led by the likes of the dynamic duo, still don't understand the history, or rather lack of it, of the club.Apathetic janners are blamed, then they howl 'Janner ! ' with the Banana every home game in their tent !
They seem content with mediocrity as long as they can look important and still have their parochial club to support and Avivas to say' QUA LIT EE' !
How we laughed at Naaaarich and Saints !

GOB wrote:

The thing is, as a businessman what gamble would you take...finance a football club with a half derelict stadium and no finance whilst sitting in the lowest division and with consideration that have never had any affinity with the game, or, grab a piece of land to build on and make a nice tidy profit?

I'd take both if the football team was Argyle in the league position it was at the time. If the club can somehow scrape through this season and stay up then the opportunity for a profitable revival is immense.

Guilfoyle's "I think I have already met the next owner" could just as easily have to Ridsdale but like so many of his statements it turned out to be not true in the end. There was plenty of publicity surrounding Argyle, Ridsdale and HMRC at the time. Anybody who wanted to buy a club would have made themselves known if they were serious.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

GOB wrote:

The thing is, as a businessman what gamble would you take...finance a football club with a half derelict stadium and no finance whilst sitting in the lowest division and with consideration that have never had any affinity with the game, or, grab a piece of land to build on and make a nice tidy profit?

I'd take both if the football team was Argyle in the league position it was at the time. If the club can somehow scrape through this season and stay up then the opportunity for a profitable revival is immense.

Guilfoyle's "I think I have already met the next owner" could just as easily have to Ridsdale but like so many of his statements it turned out to be not true in the end. There was plenty of publicity surrounding Argyle, Ridsdale and HMRC at the time. Anybody who wanted to buy a club would have made themselves known if they were serious.

None of it was good publicity though. Toads like that involved and £17 million being quoted. It was a stitch up.

I think the stitch up failed.

I'm a little perplexed that I post one line and it receives a thesus reply to it. I'm not sure however that the reply actually takes the sentence much into account.

I know it is fashionable to bash the Pres on here exception being his work to try to save the club or assist in it and for Newell's fund raising efforts, but why anyone should even think he (Webb) should have been seeking out alternative investment is beyond me. It is the job of the Administrtor as I stated and it is him that should have been marketing the club not some aggitator who appeared on the scene. Out of the bids on the table I still have no doubt the best option was Brent. Nobody has ever tried to pretend there was nothing in it for him but it is probably true to say there must have been something in it for ALL bidders at that time. The Heaney bid was based on development and not the club itself and for all I know so was Butivants mainly. What didn't happen was the Administrators seeking anything alternative to the ones up front. Easy job, we have bidders, no need to do anything except draw our inflated fees at the end, job done. I did not follow a lot of the Politics of it all that closely but I accept that PCC were instrumental in Brent being invited to the table. The creditors were never going to get much back from any of the bidders so I count them out from here on. PCC buying the stadium back at less than they received for it when selling was a decent option. They will make money on the deal in the long run, far more than putting money into and Icelandic Bank, and will still own the thing to re-sell at some point in the future probably for a further profit. I don't subscribe to the theory that the CTax payers have been short changed.

There will always be conspiracy theories in anything if people want to look for them. I do not believe for one moment that anyone was bribed with anything from the fanbase to push, bully or support any bid. That is what is implied. I believe that there were a bunch of people desperate to help save the club and maybe they saw the best opportunity in Brent and didn't want to see anything else. Desperation rather than any alleged corruption. We basicallly got what the Administrator delivered to us which was a businessman of some success who told everyone from the start he would not be chucking any fortune at the football bit. He was not a superfan as also suggested and admitted from the start he knew nothing about football at all. He has perhaps become a fan now although he could hardly say he isn't could he and will not want to see it all fail. There is nothing wrong with making money out of an investment. Nobody on here for example would invest money in anything to deliberately lose it would they. Maybe one day there will be a supergrass who lifts the lid on Argyle The Sale but just as feasible is that there really isn't anything particularly to lift the lid on. The chances of the great unwashed finding out without a supergrass is next to nil. Nothing wrong with raising questions that are ligitimate and have some substance but to expect anyone to respond to a conspiracy theory is stretching things a wee bit too far.

In response to SFD....................It did.......... but it didn't encourage any outsiders to even have a look and maybe see the bigger picture. Brent played a very clever game.

brents plans are unravelling berfore our very eyes.
how chris webb can say hes a union man is strange to me, can you imagine if 'volunteers' we used to deliver the mail for example !!!!

GregCampbellFanClub wrote:

brents plans are unravelling berfore our very eyes.
how chris webb can say hes a union man is strange to me, can you imagine if 'volunteers' we used to deliver the mail for example !!!!

Ah but thats Chris Webb as opposed to El Presidente. There's a bloody huge difference between the two unfortunately.

A casum ! surely.

SG, for what it's worth, I have only one problem with El Pres, and that is his apparent inability to answer awkward questions, or those that if he does answer, put him in a difficult position.

What he did for PAFC is without doubt admirable, what he has done since is the problem.