An interesting discussion

david_fisher wrote:

The letter from James Greenacre (10th July) advising that the Far Post will not be open this season states:

"A members' bar will be provided in the new Grandstand, details of which will be available as soon as possible"

What a "members" bar? In other words a corporate bar for corporate fans exclusive and inclusive with access to the shelf.
And some Prawn Sandwiches. 

Wake me up when this nightmare is over.

punchdrunk wrote:

david_fisher wrote:

The letter from James Greenacre (10th July) advising that the Far Post will not be open this season states:

"A members' bar will be provided in the new Grandstand, details of which will be available as soon as possible"

What a "members" bar? In other words a corporate bar for corporate fans exclusive and inclusive with access to the shelf.
And some Prawn Sandwiches. 

Wake me up when this nightmare is over.

Does sound rather like that. You won't even be considered for membership unless you're a pasoti face with very pro-brent credentials.

Why are people harping on about Exeter’s Sandy Park

There is no similarity between Sandy Park and Home Park

Exeter Sandy Park is a purpose built conference facility with a rugby club attached. It is adjacent to and has easy access to the motorway network with a good infrastructure of connecting roads, not a small part of a retail development with back lane access.
The Exeter suite alone at Sandy Park can accommodate 475 persons, there are 9 facility rooms catering for between 475 and 20 persons able to cater for around 1100 fans on a capacity of 10700.
Exeter has plans to increase capacity to 20600 nearly double the current capacity and to expand current conference facilities to match.

What is Argyle proposing?

Effectively reducing ground capacity!
Providing no option to expand anywhere!
Provide a small numbers of bars in the new development –yes. Which will offer what? Probably will only be able to service players, directors, and the few handpicked prawn sandwich sucking super fans.

What is not being catered for is the average fan who wants to go to the game, maybe watch the dinner time game have a few pints and a conversation? This is exactly what the far post club provided in the past.

This development is all about maximising the amount of retail space and maximising income from that space. Argyle fans do not fit into that equation!

Get the stand built, fill that desert of football aka Mayflower Steps, and surely it's got to be upwards and onwards  .class post from porky

But that desert of football will be a desert of shops, no fans other than on the tiny shelf, where is the atmosphere coming from? The Grandstand has never been rocking before, why would it now?
Also supporters bar = Walkabout.
Another thought that strikes me is that Porky is not allowed to question the development one iota, not one tiny little bit, not a clarification, not a thing, has he already been cast adrift from the top table, or was it part of the deal he did with Brent when representing us ordinary fans?

Snake Eyes wrote:

Why are people harping on about Exeter’s Sandy Park

There is no similarity between Sandy Park and Home Park

Exeter Sandy Park is a purpose built conference facility with a rugby club attached.   It is adjacent to and has easy access to the motorway network with a good infrastructure of connecting roads, not a small part of a retail development with back lane access.
The Exeter suite alone at Sandy Park can accommodate 475 persons, there are 9 facility rooms catering for between 475 and 20 persons able to cater for around 1100 fans on a capacity of 10700.
Exeter has plans to increase capacity to 20600 nearly double the current capacity and to expand current conference facilities to match.

What is Argyle proposing?

Effectively reducing ground capacity!
Providing no option to expand anywhere!
Provide a small numbers of bars in the new development –yes. Which will offer what?  Probably will only be able to service players, directors, and the few handpicked prawn sandwich sucking super fans.

What is not being catered for is the average fan who wants to go to the game, maybe watch the dinner time game have a few pints and a conversation? This is exactly what the far post club provided in the past.

This development is all about maximising the amount of retail space and maximising income from that space.  Argyle fans do not fit into that equation!

Sandy Park is used because it's successful and James Brent dangles Sandy Park's success in front of a handful of selected fans who lap it up and go away dreaming of a shiny new grandstand with all the profits from the retail units going back to the club, grand corporate plans to rake in an additional £1-2 million per year and talk of reaching the Championship and even the Premier League. The major flaw in this though is that when asked for any details or clarification on some points Mr Brent mumbles and stutters incoherent vague details and joins in with a chorus of the Janner song and all is forgotten until reality hits home, i.e. now.

Exeter is far more amenable to businesses looking to hold conferences. A direct motorway and airport for a start and a few years experience in holding these conferences and weddings etc. Argyle will have smaller facilites, no direct motorway and no airport, but take Greensleeves word for it, when the grandstand is built EVERYONE will want to use the inferior Plymouth location because Ian Newell says so, because James Brent says so, and James Brent has never said anything that hasn't turned out to be true has he  

Iggy wrote:

Get the stand built, fill that desert of football aka Mayflower Steps, and surely it's got to be upwards and onwards  .class post from porky

But that desert of football will be a desert of shops, no fans other than on the tiny shelf, where is the atmosphere coming from? The Grandstand has never been rocking before, why would it now?
Also supporters bar = Walkabout.
Another thought that strikes me is that Porky is not allowed to question the development one iota, not one tiny little bit, not a clarification, not a thing, has he already been cast adrift from the top table, or was it part of the deal he did with Brent when representing us ordinary fans?

Talking of the Grandstand rocking, didn't Newell used to call is the Moanflower?

I guess his opinion has changed....again.

Graham Clarke wrote on the farm,
I note your use of careful language.'somewhere' did not include the grandstand. i hope that does not mean a supporters bar is not considered possible within the grandstand (despite the relatively minor alterations to the current plans to achieve it.) I just hope it is not contractually prohibited given the proposed uses of the four units within the grandstand. Hopefully, the PASB or AFT will obtain clarification soon.

So Graham guesses right or does he actually know something the Porkster doesn't? Drip, drip, drip the leaks continue.

Snake Eyes wrote:

Why are people harping on about Exeter’s Sandy Park

There is no similarity between Sandy Park and Home Park

Exeter Sandy Park is a purpose built conference facility with a rugby club attached.   It is adjacent to and has easy access to the motorway network with a good infrastructure of connecting roads, not a small part of a retail development with back lane access.
The Exeter suite alone at Sandy Park can accommodate 475 persons, there are 9 facility rooms catering for between 475 and 20 persons able to cater for around 1100 fans on a capacity of 10700.
Exeter has plans to increase capacity to 20600 nearly double the current capacity and to expand current conference facilities to match.

What is Argyle proposing?

Effectively reducing ground capacity!
Providing no option to expand anywhere!
Provide a small numbers of bars in the new development –yes. Which will offer what?  Probably will only be able to service players, directors, and the few handpicked prawn sandwich sucking super fans.

What is not being catered for is the average fan who wants to go to the game, maybe watch the dinner time game have a few pints and a conversation? This is exactly what the far post club provided in the past.

This development is all about maximising the amount of retail space and maximising income from that space.  Argyle fans do not fit into that equation!

 
We are also assuming that the new facilities at HHP and in the mini grandstand are going to be managed and marketed well enough to produce a profit that benefits the club and Akkeron. I have little to no faith that this will happen as Brent's tenure as custodian of PAFC has been an utter shambles both on and off the pitch.
 
Sir Roy Gardiner "Didn't do failure" until he got involved with Argyle. Why is everyone so sure that everything Brent touches will turn to gold?

How will you ever know if the new facilities are making money?

The problem is that there is no way the figure £1-2 million can be substantiated.

Unless the club released the receipts/profit from what is made on current facilities to give a base line to work from on which future profits can be judged.

This will have been done at board planning level but will the fans ever know?

I think not!

We are like mushrooms kept in the dark and fed sh1t.

While brent owns argyle the club will always be crap thats the bottom line, no ambition on or off the pitch, we will have to wait until the developer has developed the whole of plymouth before he leaves the club and moves on, only then is there a possibility that the club can move forward.

And where is Brent's previous experience in building these scale of projects?

There will be a strict limitation placed on any and all Home Park catering, there has to be or no catering business would be interested enough to signs Brent's contract for one of the outside developments, hence no GT bar, hence no Far Post Club etc.

Argyle fans will get what Argyle fans deserve.

brents obviously better at 'figure' management than people

Iggy wrote:

And where is Brent's previous experience in building these scale of projects?

I wondered that Iggy, brent was a banker now a hotelier, all of a sudden he's a large scale developer! you would think that would set a few alarm bells ringing amongst the council! does he have the money and expertice to manage large scale projects on time and on budget ?

Iggy wrote:

And where is Brent's previous experience in building these scale of projects?

I wondered that Iggy, brent was a banker now a hotelier, all of a sudden he's a large scale developer! you would think that would set a few alarm bells ringing amongst the council! does he have the money and expertice to manage large scale projects on time and on budget ?

     

Snake Eyes wrote:

How will you ever know if the new facilities are making money?

The problem is that there is no way the figure £1-2 million can be substantiated.

Unless the club released the receipts/profit from what is made on current facilities to give a base line to work from on which future profits can be judged.

This will have been done at board planning level but will the fans ever know?

I think not!

We are like mushrooms kept in the dark and fed sh1t.

 
My bullshitometer always goes through the roof when I hear figures like "£1-2million". So what is the figure then James? There is a lot of difference between £1million and £2million - how good is the business plan if you cannot get a better estimate then that? How is the club going to set any sort of realistic budget if it cannot predict how much its going to make from the development.
 
But of course, if there was any REAL money to be made then it wouldn't be going into PAFC's coffers would it?

I find it frankly bizarre that the bread and butter matchday income from your average fan is being ignored and this leads me to believe that Mr Brent really isn't in this for any kind of long term 'football club' reason; how can he be as he'd certainly ensure the club had a 'working man' bar that would easily take a few thousand quid on a matchday and could double as a social club during non-matchdays. It's cheaper not to build something and that's what he's doing. As we're lower league and are likely to be for some time, it's a mid-term (at least) investment that would be essential to any Chairman that's looking ten years down the line.

As for Newell; he's a strange fish swimming against the tide. I genuinely can't make him out. He's all for the club with Brent attached but seems to resent the supporters.

Freathy wrote:

punchdrunk wrote:

david_fisher wrote:

The letter from James Greenacre (10th July) advising that the Far Post will not be open this season states:

"A members' bar will be provided in the new Grandstand, details of which will be available as soon as possible"

What a "members" bar? In other words a corporate bar for corporate fans exclusive and inclusive with access to the shelf.
And some Prawn Sandwiches. 

Wake me up when this nightmare is over.

Does sound rather like that.  You won't even be considered for membership unless you're a pasoti face with very pro-brent credentials.

I suspect that since 'member' is the new word for 'season ticket holder', that is who any bar will be for?

That'll make Hooper deliriously happy.

hairy j wrote:

I find it frankly bizarre that the bread and butter matchday income from your average fan is being ignored and this leads me to believe that Mr Brent really isn't in this for any kind of long term 'football club' reason; how can he be as he'd certainly ensure the club had a 'working man' bar that would easily take a few thousand quid on a matchday and could double as a social club during non-matchdays.  It's cheaper not to build something and that's what he's doing.  As we're lower league and are likely to be for some time, it's a mid-term (at least) investment that would be essential to any Chairman that's looking ten years down the line.

As for Newell; he's a strange fish swimming against the tide. I genuinely can't make him out. He's all for the club with Brent attached but seems to resent the supporters.

he's convinced brent is wonderful and thinks everyone else should think the same.
if you dont he uses those who are 'on-side' to gang up on you,
makes remarks designed to esculate matters than claims he's the one being picked on,
some dissenters are allowed to remain, after all you need some salt in the soup.

its all about control. read pasoti now 97% of the opinion is the same. certainly not true over here.

What makes me laugh is he thinks we should all worship brent just becuase he does, yet he seems to have forgotten his attrocious track record in this area - first staplewallet and then todd. I think he's going for the hattrick.

At Argyle yesterday and it's obvious we are missing a trick, about 8000 punters there and you couldn't get a beer, I went down for a piss about 5 minutes before half time and the queues were massive already in a crowd of bout 8k. We easily could have sold another 5000 beers if they were able to be bought, that equates to about an extra £150 k a year or a Bradley Wright Phillips as its known at HP.

Iggy wrote:

At Argyle yesterday and it's obvious we are missing a trick, about 8000 punters there and you couldn't get a beer, I went down for a piss about 5 minutes before half time and the queues were massive already in a crowd of bout 8k. We easily could have sold another 5000 beers if they were able to be bought, that equates to about an extra £150 k a year or a Bradley Wright Phillips as its known at HP.

Agreed. I saw Webby at the Zoo Corner end and he was at the back of the queue. I didn't bother getting an oggy yesterday as the queue was huge. They could get rid of the betting shop and the little club shop thing in the Spion and put extra food counters in.

that would mean more money for argyle and not for mr brent. he'll wait until the corporate bland stand is finished