Heaney

I think that had Brent been honest from the start, informed the fans of the options and placed his cards on the table instead of deceiving everyone and forming relationships with thugs, his development ambitions would have been pretty much accepted.

Gareth Nicholson wrote:

There's a wild lot of bollocks on this thread.

The general consensus while the club was in administration was that, of the three options that the overwhelming majority of the fanbase recognised (the fourth - starting again as a fan-owned phoenix club - was not considered desirable by virtually everyone), the Brent option was the best (or the least worst, choose which you please).

Even accounting for the pedestrian, amateur "progress" made during Brent's ownership, I can't believe that anyone is seriously saying the club would be in safer hands if either of the other two bids had come to fruition.

The first came from Heaney: a bankrupt. 'Nuff said.

The second from Paul Buttivant who was virtually ran out of Wrexham for "announcing he was going to develop the ground for the benefit of the club, going on record saying clubs need to develop their spare land for revenue, and thats the way football is these days".

...which is exactly what some are castigating Brent for, so what's your problem? Better the devil you know and all that.

Brent is an efficient businessman who has done a good job on the things his portfolio cares about and kept the lights turned on at the part of the business he has to own to make the rest go smoothly. In an archaic system, he's doing what owners of clubs have always done: try and make the most progress with the least money.

Hmm.

There was 'interest' from another group (hesitate to use the word 'consortium') - not a bid, just interest. A few questions were asked and a very quick decision was made that to work with someone like Guilfoyle would have been far too risky. This along with the distinct impression that the decision had already been made. It was well known that Brent was hovering in the background, letting Heaney take the flak, and then would ride in to save the day, hiding the fact that he knew bugger all about football, and that the HHP development was just part of the overall plan.

It would have taken a lot of money to effectively, buy Brent out, money that would have been wasted insofar that it couldn't be used to pay the debtors.

As for Brent, he played a blinder. He's got what he wanted, he spends the minimum he can on the football club - he never was a football man and never will be.

The football club and it's fans have been well and truly shafted. Yes, we have a club, yes, we'll have a new stand and yes, we'll spend the foreseeable future in the lower leagues.

If that's what people want, great. There are a lot of others, however, who have consigned their support for the football club to way down the list of things to do a Saturday thanks to the lack of ambition

Does Brent care? No. If he has to loan the club more money he will do so in the short term. Once he's made his millions from the development across the City, he'll be off calling in his loans when he does so. If there's no-one around then to pay him off, that could be the end of PAFC. It really is that serious.

I mean, would any of you want invest money in something that you couldn't ever own?

Iggy wrote:

I would argue with the efficient claim Gareth, best of a bad bunch I could swallow but are you seriously saying that he is and has been a good owner?

I characterised his ownership of Argyle as being at various stages amateurish and pedestrian so I think I made it pretty clear what my view is. I'd say he's unproven as an owner of Argyle and has a number of questions to answer, but it's hard to argue with how he's prosecuted the wider Akkeron strategy if you're looking at it from their perspective.

But to demonise him and resort to personal abuse and flat out lies makes his job so much easier. It's easy to characterise everyone who doesn't agree with you as cranks and weirdos if some of them behave like cranks and weirdos. It makes the serious questions easier to avoid too.

Heaney was a front for some of the m7 who wouldn't or couldn't stump up the money for exclusivity and wanted to utilise the land around Home Park for a leisure park which included a cinema.

James Brent isn't a property developer who wouldn't pay for exclusivity and wanted to utilise the land around Home Park for a leisure park which included a cinema.

That's my opinion based on what I know and have seen. I resided in Truro for years and know a few people who know Kevin Heaney very well.

I also don't think Mr Brent has done a good job or will be good for Argyle in the long term.

Greenjock wrote:

Heaney was a front for some of the m7 who wouldn't or couldn't stump up the money for exclusivity and wanted to utilise the land around Home Park for a leisure park which included a cinema.

James Brent isn't a property developer who wouldn't pay for exclusivity and wanted to utilise the land around Home Park for a leisure park which included a cinema.

That's my opinion based on what I know and have seen. I resided in Truro for years and know a few people who know Kevin Heaney very well.

I also don't think Mr Brent has done a good job or will be good for Argyle in the long term.

Eh  

LondonGreen wrote:

Heaney was obviously a waste of space (the Truro stuff proves that). However I would of liked to have seen that Buttivant chap in action

Oh the joys of hindsight

Buttivant had no money either, he would have tried to raise it from venture capitalists. I'm not Brent's biggest fan but out of the three he won hands down.

He'll do ok for the club, there will always be an owner but the fans make a club what it is.

Gareth Nicholson wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I would argue with the efficient claim Gareth, best of a bad bunch I could swallow but are you seriously saying that he is and has been a good owner?

I characterised his ownership of Argyle as being at various stages amateurish and pedestrian so I think I made it pretty clear what my view is. I'd say he's unproven as an owner of Argyle and has a number of questions to answer, but it's hard to argue with how he's prosecuted the wider Akkeron strategy if you're looking at it from their perspective.

But to demonise him and resort to personal abuse and flat out lies makes his job so much easier. It's easy to characterise everyone who doesn't agree with you as cranks and weirdos if some of them behave like cranks and weirdos. It makes the serious questions easier to avoid too.

Well said.

Mrrapson wrote:

Gareth Nicholson wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I would argue with the efficient claim Gareth, best of a bad bunch I could swallow but are you seriously saying that he is and has been a good owner?

I characterised his ownership of Argyle as being at various stages amateurish and pedestrian so I think I made it pretty clear what my view is. I'd say he's unproven as an owner of Argyle and has a number of questions to answer, but it's hard to argue with how he's prosecuted the wider Akkeron strategy if you're looking at it from their perspective.

But to demonise him and resort to personal abuse and flat out lies makes his job so much easier. It's easy to characterise everyone who doesn't agree with you as cranks and weirdos if some of them behave like cranks and weirdos. It makes the serious questions easier to avoid too.

Well said.

Hear hear.

Czarcasm wrote:

It's all a bit of daze really now, thinking back. But how on earth did Heaney manage to actually become preferred bidder? For him to have been selected, there must have been guarantees of funding coming from somewhere or someone, surely? Guilfoyle and Co would have had to base their preference on something more than a letter from Heaneys mum, or suchlike?

Who was Heaneys backer? Did it ever come out officially?

It was abbé. One of the backers that was pulled into it by Todd. They were close friends and lived nearby. If Heaney had got his hands back on the club you can guarantee Todd would've been around somewhere. I always so it as them thinking they had a chance to get their money back.

Heaney talked about a cinema for home park, saying he had a company interested, the sale could only have happened if planning was granted first because without it they had no funds to complete the purchase.

Sorry Tring I was just pointing out the massive differences between Heaneys plan and Brents plan.

I even have Kevin Heaneys phone number if anyone wants to ask him for details. What's he got to lose by revealing all?

Knowing him he will be involved in more property deals already, just under someone else's name.

Gareth Nicholson wrote:

There's a wild lot of bollocks on this thread.

The general consensus while the club was in administration was that, of the three options that the overwhelming majority of the fanbase recognised (the fourth - starting again as a fan-owned phoenix club - was not considered desirable by virtually everyone), the Brent option was the best (or the least worst, choose which you please).

Given the council's £1.6m deal for the ground on top of the 5 year repayment plan, was the net takeover deal really beyond a well organised Fans' Trust? Portsmouth's Trust have taken over a club in much more debt and in the same league. They now sing "We own our own club" to the tune that the Forza nerds squeak "We're trying our best".

Ridsdale's convenient walking holiday ending in a convenient invite down to his mate Guilfoyle to oversee an pre-pack administration conveniently delayed to the point of crumble by Heaney until the convenient Mr Brent saunters in, all cute and unmanly with his Harry Potter glasses and dim haircut, yet all ruthless and unforgiving with his Voldemortian politics, his truly shit deal for the staff and now this utterly poxy ministand. Yet instead of the fans leaders rising above the crap and showing anything like critical thought (tbf to Webb he was never cut out for that sort of thing) it was sidled up to in really quite a vomit inducing manner (even a thicko like Webb can have morals), leaving us where we are now: We're trying our 'best'; and that is all we'll ever do, ever again.

We are never ever ever getting it together,
We are never ever ever getting it together,
You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting it together

Like, ever...

There might well have been other bidders. However I don't they were ever encouraged or wanted even.

Hugh Watt wrote:

There might well have been other bidders. However I don't they were ever encouraged or wanted even.

Absolutely. If it was made common knowledge that PCC would buy the ground, remove covenants on the land around HP and grant planning permission for anything you want, who wouldn't have been interested? Brent's paid creditors 0.73 in the pound? Received the season ticket money and is paying back the rest of the debt over 5 years!

Were Ridsdale and Guilfoyle looking for a whole host of interested party's when they just kept repeating how terminal the trouble was and how much debt there we were in etc?

Maybe others wouldn't have been able to get the 300 signatures in the month Brent did but I'm sure they'd have been able to give it a bleddy good go. Especially if they were allowed to make life difficult for the one's who were hesitatant like Tony Campbell.

[quote="Greenjock"]

Hugh Watt wrote:

Received the season ticket money and is paying back the rest of the debt over 5 years!

Hmmn.. I wonder how much he got? A shame nobody has ever asked...

dont forget the additional deby accrued last season, whens that going to be repaid ?

This thing about other interested parties who may or may not have been out there has been aired plenty of times before. Personally I still doubt they existed but the last time I said that I was assured they did and the "evidence" is there to prove it. However, no matter how many times the question is asked they remain a mythical bunch.

At best it is just about possible that somebody or plural of that just might have had a look. I'm not sure what carrot could have been dangled at the time to make others look, but letting it be known something might be agreed without anyone knowing what might be proposed planning wise is hardly how it could have been done. How would you advertise that for example. PCC would never agree to any planning application in theory or give anyone the nod their plans would breeze through to encourage them out of the trees. Had they been asked and been given a skeleton plan of intent they might have said it probably would be ok at best. All Brent could have done is test the ground rather than have a definate along with anyone else.

Despite everything there were officially 3 bidders at the outset and of that 3 Brent seemed to be the best option. He has done what he said but the big problem is it is smaller and less beneficial to the football club than was assumed at the time. It is now realised that the big plans were only in the heads of supporters and never on the table from the word go. Brent would make a truly great poker player. He could take the pot with a hand only 6 high with 4 different suits in it. JR from Dallas couldn't have done it better.

an argyle admin was ALWAYS going to be very hard as no one has got the cash down there to pump in, the debt of £17m was way too much for even those that had money.

sensi i agree brent is effectively downsizing the club

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

   This thing about other interested parties who may or may not have been out there has been aired plenty of times before.    Personally I still doubt they existed but the last time I said that I was assured they did and the "evidence" is there to prove it.      However, no matter how many times the question is asked they remain a mythical bunch.

That's wrong and you know it.  You stupidly deciding to dismiss the official report is your problem.

The fact that the "parties" were not personally named in that official report does not make them "mythical", it makes them unnamed.

Whichever way you look at it, the admin process was a bit of a farce and a stitch up, with the reluctant bidder, in cahoots with tenpole and co for years, waiting for any costs to him to bottom out. All he then had to do was make a few suggestions as to how the club would be run under his ownership, to the likes of the Deepthroating Windsor Boys, hand out the silly hats, AAA passes and Brent's yer uncle ! A compliant , bucket rattling core fanbase, helping to pay off his debts. The largest fans' forum controlled by those with stars in their eyes and used to discredit/marginalise all dissent.

You have to hand it to the man but sadly for PAFC, it now no longer has a cat's chance in hell of ever being anything other than a parochial big fish in a very small pond.

The jockeying for position at the club will only heighten amongst the 'leading' fans but anyone of any vision or integrity will sadly walk away.

The common ground that both Heaney and Brent share is that neither of them would need to use a penny of their own money to make this happen.

GOB wrote:

The common ground that both Heaney and Brent share is that neither of them would need to use a penny of their own money to make this happen.

But one of them admitted so from the start !

Did he?

Grovehill wrote:

Flat_Track_Bully wrote:

Coxside_Green wrote:

I've already stated where the money for running the club would've came from, season ticket money plus £1.6m from PCC, circa £4m.  Is that not enough?
.

Clearly not seeing as James Brent has lent the club money to cover ongoing losses. The money from the PCC went straight on paying off some of the football creditor debts I think. We'd be in an even worse state than Brent's 'competitive budget' with Heaney.

FTB are you a complete idiot? You seem to think that Brent and PAFC are totally separate entities.

Brent is the sole owner of PAFC-if his business losses money, he has to cover the losses, it's not some charitable donation.

If The Range was losing money, nobody would say "Chris Dawson has lent The Range money to cover ongoing losses" Brent & PAFC are no different.

If JB doesn't want to support a loss making football team, he has two choices-run it better so it makes a profit, or sell up & F**K off.

As for Heaney/BIL  didn't the Pasoti hordes get turned against them because they wanted to build hotels etc. in Central Park- that would absolutely terrible was the view from the Brent Fan Club at the time

The point I was making is that as Heaney doesn't have any money, he wouldn't have been able to cover those running costs - hence administration/liquidation if he had taken over. I'm not painting Brent out as some generous benefactor, which he clearly isn't. I'm just answering the OP. You're thinking I'm answering a different question. Maybe you should read the thread before throwing names at people,