Devon Dragons

Coxside_Green wrote:

JMHO but what has happened at Cardiff is a disgrace.

It wasn't that long ago they had crowds of 4000 and were bigger underachievers than us.

'sfunny, I thought they had played at the top level, contested a Cup Winners Cup semi final and beaten the Arse in an FA Cup Final. I don't think they are anywhere near as big a bunch of losers as you lot.

No change for me as that would be the end of the identity which is one of the major points of supporting a club.
I also think that if the economy carries on the way it is then the premiership will come crashing down as opposed to where it is now.
I support PAFC as it is my home city and they should play in green and white as that is what I am accustomed to from over 30years of support.
I would also like football to revert back to a sport instead of a business for the power hungry greedy bastards we have running the show now.

Never on a million years would i like too see argyle sell out for a bit of short term success. I'd stop going all together

GreenWhiteBlack wrote:

Never on a million years would i like too see argyle sell out for a bit of short term success. I'd stop going all together

So why didn't you feel like that when you sold out to every slippery fecker in a suit over your entire history?

When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties I really liked Exeter. When I lived in Colchester in the 70's they use to play on a Friday night and when Exeter or Torquay came to town I used to go along and cheer them on. I stood in the away end cheering with the 5 or 6 other supporters who made the effort. I've always liked Exeter I really have but then I joined this forum and came across this cnut called Lord Tisdale and now I hate the bastards with a vengeance.
It just shows you what influence one single man can have on your concept of life.
Whether its IN on PASOTI or LT on here there's always someone you find easy to dislike.

Not really worth it is it? in a way it's good that our local rivals supporters post here but you always run the risk of attracting someone like the little bitter and twisted tisdale hater that is starting to iritate people.  

it would never ever work as we would be a franchise not a football club. No one likes a franchise except yanks.

MacDonalds seems to do OK as a franchise.

And KFC.

I hate to tell you this Pete, but Macdonalds aren't a football club.
I don't know of one person who would support a franchised Argyle upping sticks and moving to, say, the Thames Valley, or combining with a team that played in the Devon area. Are there any ?

I have no problem with the business vehicle of franchising per se within certain planning constraints to protect functioning local businesses, but a neighbourhood football club ? I always see the old nationalised utilities as a sort of franchise passed out to the provinces with good intent to ensure a know common service or product. Works well with food if you like that sort of mush.
Wimbledon are a fine example of just how REAL fans of a football club will not accept dictates from some business goon who doesn't  even actually put any of their own money into a club.
I went up to our Wimbledon away game a couple of years ago, and believe me I don't do away games easily with the policing we have had to endure. One big reason for that trip was to support their fans. I put a token £1 in their coffers and thanked them for the 3 points.

no, if we went in with the others in devon id give up on football

I wasn't hypothesising that franchising Argyle was desirable. It isn't. Not to me anyway. The real question on my mind was when does Argyle cease to be Argyle as we have always known it?

Obviously it goes way beyond any player, manager or owner. They all come and go. Always have and always will. The same goes for fans too but to a lesser extent because they can come, go and then come back again.

So for me Argyle has always been based in Central Park and has worn green/white/black in some variant or another. Everything else I have projected on to it.

And now we are where we are and possibly the most important thing that I have projected onto Argyle is the possibility that one day we'll be a better, more successful club. A club that a whole city can be proud of and support.

Instead of that we have a, frankly, mediocre team representing a club with no intrinsic assets and saddled with an enormous burden of debt. Which wouldn't be so bad if the club wasn't extrinsically so asset-rich due it being a key piece in the jigsaw puzzle of numerous development possibilities currently being cooked up between Brent and the council. As such I could be forgiven for expecting Brent to prioritise the club by giving it a decent stadium, by paying down the debt and by seeing it as something to be valued and nurtured rather than simply sustained.

But what if my pessimism is unjustified? (Don't laugh!) What if Brent actually oversees a re-birth of the club? It wouldn't take much of a prod to get the ball rolling and to see Argyle get promoted and we all saw what happened last time when a second promotion quickly followed.

And if it does all happen again Brent's Home Park will be too small. If the interest is sustained Argyle will have to leave Home Park. And where will it go? Is it still Argyle if it ends up at, say, Ernesettle or Plympton? Or worse at Ivybridge?

At what point does supporting Argyle become meaningless? (As opposed to be pointless!)

If the success of Plymouth Argyle can only happen by Argyle leaving the park and, maybe, Plymouth is that a price worth paying? And if we are doomed to stay in a Home Park encircled by development is the likely unsustainablity of any success that comes acceptable?

Argyle's departure from Home Park, should it ever happen, would leave a very enticing plot of land simply begging to be exploited right in the heart of the park and we all know what would be likely to happen to it.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If the success of Plymouth Argyle can only happen by Argyle leaving the park and, maybe, Plymouth is that a price worth paying? And if we are doomed to stay in a Home Park encircled by development is the likely unsustainablity of any success that comes acceptable?

If you even ask yourself that question, I would suggest you need to sit down and have a good think Sir Frank.

And while I'm at it, why doesn't your supposed £5m club debt include the still outstanding loan of £3m+  still owed to Mastpoint. That would make it £8m.
The loan agreement that replaced the original Mastpoint arrangement, of which only a proportion was a secured debt, is repayable over a period of 10 years, PLUS INTEREST, and most importantly, when the payments are made are to be decided by Mastpoint. I would suggest this deal will have far more of pressure valve effect on success up to the Championship than any 17000 stadium. While I do not like the HHP plans more than almost every other fan, the 17000 thing, and it's effect on a possible franchise, won't be an issue for a good 10 to 15years.
Mastpoint don't file accounts until at least June of next year, and it wouldn't surprise me if there is a delay. When they are available, it will be interesting to see if they are nibbling away at the blood of the club already.

I accept that in the future one the club will have to move out of Central park to find a new home in and around the plymouth area as the stadium will be too small for a professional football club wanting to compete at a decent level but in no way would the club move out of the Plymouth area.

Winter Green wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If the success of Plymouth Argyle can only happen by Argyle leaving the park and, maybe, Plymouth is that a price worth paying? And if we are doomed to stay in a Home Park encircled by development is the likely unsustainablity of any success that comes acceptable?

If you even ask yourself that question, I would suggest you need to sit down and have a good think Sir Frank.

And while I'm at it, why doesn't your supposed £5m club debt include the still outstanding loan of £3m+  still owed to Mastpoint. That would make it £8m.
The loan agreement that replaced the original Mastpoint arrangement, of which only a proportion was a secured debt,  is repayable over a period of 10 years, PLUS INTEREST, and most importantly, when the payments are made are to be decided by Mastpoint. I would suggest this deal will have far more of pressure valve effect on success up to the Championship than any 17000 stadium. While I do not like the HHP plans more than almost every other fan, the 17000 thing, and it's effect on a possible franchise, won't be an issue for a good 10 to 15years.
Mastpoint don't file accounts until at least June of next year, and it wouldn't surprise me if there is a delay. When they are available, it will be interesting to see if they are nibbling away at the blood of the club already.

It isn't my "supposed £5m" in any way at all. That figure was released to PASB.

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(3rd paragraph from the end.)

And Mastpoint waived their entitlement to anything after their mortgages were reclassified as "unsecured" and they were due a notional 0.77p in the pound (which actually turned out to be about 0.23p in the pound) on their c. £4m.

When they did this they effectively put £4m into the club which is more than anybody else did which is a point often overlooked.

Apart from being completely and demonstrably wrong in every important respect you're bang on!

Angry wrote:

I accept that in the future one the club will have to move out of Central park to find a new home in and around the plymouth area as the stadium will be too small for a professional football club wanting to compete at a decent level but in no way would the club move out of the Plymouth area.

Why do you say that?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

And Mastpoint waived their entitlement to anything after their mortgages were reclassified as "unsecured" and they were due a notional 0.77p in the pound (which actually turned out to be about 0.23p in the pound) on their c. £4m.

When they did this they effectively put £4m into the club which is more than anybody else did which is a point often overlooked.

Apart from being completely and demonstrably wrong in every important respect you're bang on!

I think you may have been listening to the wrong whispers Frank. Do you really think these characters just gave up the ghost in favour of a sweet little football club ? £3m still shows up as owed to Mastpoint if you check
Check the Vital Plymouth article in January 2013 from that dodgy character De Lar, praising Mastpoint ( how ironic and foolhardy is that ). Just look at the wording as he tried to cover it up as nothing.
You do maths, Frank, not accountancy. They're a creative bunch. I should know, I used to be one. If the reports are true, all they did is release the £1.4m charge on Home Park, rip up the old agreement and renegotiate a new loan.

It was in the final P&A document. No need to believe me just look it up yourself.

Come back in a couple of years, Frank, say you were wrong, and buy me a pint.
You were wrong when you thought a developed Home Park would put the club in clover, and you're wrong about this. You're listening to the wrong whispers.

I wouldn't trust any bit of paper Ridsdale had anything to do with. And do you think that was the whole picture ? If Mastpoint are history, how do you explain the little that has been stated, for instance, that future tv money will go to Mastpoint ? There's either a debt or there isn't. Or are we seeing the first admin gentlemens' agreement in history, another first in football
  

Winter Green wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

And Mastpoint waived their entitlement to anything after their mortgages were reclassified as "unsecured" and they were due a notional 0.77p in the pound (which actually turned out to be about 0.23p in the pound) on their c. £4m.

When they did this they effectively put £4m into the club which is more than anybody else did which is a point often overlooked.

Apart from being completely and demonstrably wrong in every important respect you're bang on!

I think you may have been listening to the wrong whispers Frank. Do you really think these characters just gave up the ghost in favour of a sweet little football club ? £3m still shows up as owed to Mastpoint if you check
Check the Vital Plymouth article in January 2013 from that dodgy character De Lar, praising Mastpoint ( how ironic and foolhardy is that ). Just look at the wording as he tried to cover it up as nothing.
You do maths, Frank, not accountancy. They're a creative bunch. I should know, I used to be one. If the reports are true, all they did is release the £1.4m charge on Home Park, rip up the old agreement and renegotiate a new loan.

Most interesting. (rubs chin).

Winter Green wrote:

Come back in a couple of years, Frank, say you were wrong, and buy me a pint.
You were wrong when you thought a developed Home Park would put the club in clover, and you're wrong about this. You're listening to the wrong whispers.  

I wouldn't trust any bit of paper Ridsdale had anything to do with. And do you think that was the whole picture ? If Mastpoint are history, how do you explain the little that has been stated, for instance, that future tv money will go to Mastpoint ? There's either a debt or there isn't. Or are we seeing the first admin gentlemens' agreement in history, another first in football
  

I'll buy you a pint next time I see you. No problem. Can't imagine why you think I might not.

The Ticketus thing was always a bit odd. Lots of rumours but no evidence and hardly a squeak in any of the P&A docs.

It's there in B&W in a legal document about the Mastpoint money though. So I'll stick with that rather than what Postie was told to put up. Did he link to anything supportive?

BTW be prepared for righteous indignation from some about mentioning a rumour without posting a link to anything that backs it up. Even if you are as right as I was when I did the same.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Angry wrote:

I accept that in the future one the club will have to move out of Central park to find a new home in and around the plymouth area as the stadium will be too small for a professional football club wanting to compete at a decent level but in no way would the club move out of the Plymouth area.

Why do you say that?

Because the way the HHP is planned its going to be virtually impossible to expand the capacity of the stadium beyond what it will be when its finished give or take 1000 seats. The new stand will be landlocked if you will with the new outside retail outlets so any expansion are going to be very tricky and unless there is room allocated for it the club will never be granted planning permission to do it for health and saftey. Also, with the road going around the Lyndhurst and Barn Park Stands it too will be impossible to increase their capacity without further endangering lives by pushing the punters even more into a road.

The only Stand that could be expanded and extended is the Devonport End which i believe is our only hope but woul be very expensive to do. So with all that said if any new owner who took over here that wanted to take the club to the championship is going to look for lland to build a stadium to match his/her ambitions adn Home park has lost that now sadly.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Winter Green wrote:

Come back in a couple of years, Frank, say you were wrong, and buy me a pint.
You were wrong when you thought a developed Home Park would put the club in clover, and you're wrong about this. You're listening to the wrong whispers.  

I wouldn't trust any bit of paper Ridsdale had anything to do with. And do you think that was the whole picture ? If Mastpoint are history, how do you explain the little that has been stated, for instance, that future tv money will go to Mastpoint ? There's either a debt or there isn't. Or are we seeing the first admin gentlemens' agreement in history, another first in football
  

I'll buy you a pint next time I see you. No problem. Can't imagine why you think I might not.

The Ticketus thing was always a bit odd. Lots of rumours but no evidence and hardly a squeak in any of the P&A docs.

It's there in B&W in a legal document about the Mastpoint money though. So I'll stick with that rather than what Postie was told to put up. Did he link to anything supportive?

BTW be prepared for righteous indignation from some about mentioning a rumour without posting a link to anything that backs it up. Even if you are as right as I was when I did the same.

This isn't Pasoti. See, we can say Pasoti, but why can't Pasoti say ATD? 

I must have been imagining it.

Just like I imagined this (from the final CVA document).



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Let me explain in simple terms, Sir Frank.
Loan notes are a well used instrument to help cash/asset poor companies during administrations and takeovers, amongst other things. The idea is those that 'lend the money', in this case let us say hypothetically Mastpoint,  take all the credit risk ( unsecured ). A loan note over a long period is also essential for this, hence, say 10 years. These sorts of deals allow certain loans to be off balance sheet for the recipient and hence satisfy accounting protocol. This deal is quite separate from agreeing to "write off" the initial monies you refer to in the CVA.

So let us look at what happened at Cardiff during that hard working gentleman Ridsdale's tenure, and what appears to be the final unraveling this year. Unsecured loan notes for £20m ( yes, that's £20m ) were agreed to Langston/Hammam? in 2006, and they were coming up to maturity in 2016. When maturity approaches on an unsecured loan, things hot up big time. Just because the loan notes were not secured on assets didn't stop Hammam threatening Cardiff with all sorts. They are a legal debt like any other debt, and eventually a deal has to be done, or else the club has to fold. This appears to have concluded recently with Cardiff settling with millions. The exact figure is not available. He had threatened all sorts, and the current owner was threatening pulling the club down. Basically they were both saying the rabbit gets it.
Now if loan notes of £20m+ can be agreed under Ridsdale's tenure at Cardiff, without actual administration, do you really think that Gardner and Todd just gave up and walked away empty handed from Argyle ? Do you think Ridsdale gave them an absolute kicking ? And why do you think Ticketus abstained from the Creditor vote ? Do you really think they just wrote it off because the mighty Ridsdale was too hard for them ?   
This month has just seen Ticketus finally nail their man from Glasgow Rangers, because the club refused to play ball. We all know Ticketus are a tentacles of Octopus, a well known quantitative easing bunch who don't take prisoners. These people just don't walk away when they know there is a multi million pound business about to start up with a ready made customer base.
The reason it is all hush hush is those that supported and still do support Brent do not wish the ordinary fan to know that the "saving" included still owing Gardner and Todd, and god knows who else, their money.

One reason this is all important is that it makes it even more certain that the AFT are wasting their time and energy wanting to put a stop to the selling of Home Park. Leverage is going to be required sooner or later, and it certainly isn't going to come from Brent's personal risk. How else is enough capital going to be leveraged ? Of course one way around things is just to go bust properly, and this is the ongoing threat that hangs over the likes of Todd.
Talking of Todd, I see Fastfill looks like it is being sold as we speak.