How much will it cost to move James Brent on? (And how can we raise it?)

They're asking the wrong questions, to the wrong people in the wrong way at the wrong time. Who are 'they', no idea. What questions should be asked? No idea. Who should they be asking? Someone different to who they've asked. Also, Chris Dawson's an 'arrogant cnut' and we need Brent out as there's literally hundreds of billionaires out there who're aching to buy us a 45,000 seater stadium we'll never even half fill and buy us a full team of international players.

Ballboy1958EGS wrote:

Jethro wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

Ballboy1958EGS wrote:

I think you will find that the Trust has been co-ordinating and asking all sorts of questions to the CEO Martyn, since the demise of the PASB and the people who have asked for questions to be raised have been advised of the replies. So if you want questions asked and do not want to ask yourself, send your question to the AFT secretary, I am sure they will ask it for you and let you know the reply to your questions.

They should be talking to the organ grinder, not his monkey.

+1

Tringreen and yourself like to complain about what other people should be doing, so why don’t you both go direct yourselves to Mr Brent and ask the questions that you feel so badly needs answering. I am sure everyone on here and the not to be named other site will all so grateful to you for finding out all the answers. After all the AFT board are supporters just like you and all have their own jobs to do, so what’s the difference in you asking questions? I understand the AFT are looking for proactive members I am sure you both could be good additions.

Don't be stupid. Brent won't even talk to the Trust. Fan engagement my arse.

Symons said as much on the ITV prog. Sam Down has told us that he'll be taking suggestions from here and the farm, to the Trust board for consideration.

We wait with bated breath.........................

there must be somebody somewhere to save argyle !

Iggy wrote:

Feck Dawson, arrogant cnut if ever I met one, better the devil you know or it could be out of the frying pan into the fire. Someone like Dawson with the ACTUAL MONEY could develop HHP without handing out the begging bowl to NCP he could also change many things the council want to not change because he would have the budget to fight PCC through the courts.

I was in Elvira's Cafe (right by the Cremyll Ferry) once and there was a dirty great Bentley (might've been a Roller) with number plate CD1 parked up on the double yellows outside. I went in and Chris Dawson was in there having breakfast and reading the FT. I suppose he could easily afford the parking ticket, were he to get one, and didn't want to walk very far.

That begins and ends my acquaintance with Dawson but he would, as I see it, be a further extension of the Heaney/Brent axis (albeit far more minted and successful than either) and it is exactly this that we need to break and get away from (unless we get astonishingly lucky and end with a real fan with real money and altruism running through his soul which seems to be on the far-fetched side of wishful-thinking).

There must be a way, a chance that there is some sort of mechanism that places the club, it's progress and it's future at the head of the priority list rather than seeing it as an in to scam money out of the council.

Argyle was originally formed to give the city a football club, later it entered the league to represent the city. Wouldn't it be great if that was still it's core objective!

Dawson always used to have a Bentley with a CDS 1 plate. I saw him the other day in a Range Rover with a TH4 BO55 plate.

As a general rule of thumb, personal plates usually confirm the owner is a cock.

I once saw a Roller in N Devon with 1 0WN as the plate.

No idea who owned it.

Czarcasm wrote:

Dawson always used to have a Bentley with a CDS 1 plate. I saw him the other day in a Range Rover with a TH4 BO55 plate.

As a general rule of thumb, personal plates usually confirm the owner is a cock.

There's always the exception that proves the rule   

Charlie Wood wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Dawson always used to have a Bentley with a CDS 1 plate. I saw him the other day in a Range Rover with a TH4 BO55 plate.

As a general rule of thumb, personal plates usually confirm the owner is a cock.

There's always the exception that proves the rule   

  

There's loads of personal plates out here in Los Angeles (Needless to say..)

...and 'proper' (job) ones too!  

Not that two bit shit you have in Blighty where you have to use numbers for letters etc, (as in TH4 BO55) and half of the rest of the time you can't work out wtf it is meant to be anyway?



LIMEYM8

Tringreen wrote:

Charlie Wood wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Dawson always used to have a Bentley with a CDS 1 plate. I saw him the other day in a Range Rover with a TH4 BO55 plate.

As a general rule of thumb, personal plates usually confirm the owner is a cock.

There's always the exception that proves the rule   

  

Should have mentioned that (obviously) ATD Demi-Gods like Charlie get special dispensation...   

I have spoken to Chris many times regarding the Club. He really has no interest in football whatsoever. The numbers don't make sense to him for shirt sponsorship - and certainly don't in club ownership. The only personal sporting interest Chris has is in Motorbikes and he doesn't see the value in sponsoring that either. His sport, his passion is business (and he's pretty good at that).

Damon.Lenszner wrote:

I have spoken to Chris many times regarding the Club. He really has no interest in football whatsoever. The numbers don't make sense to him for shirt sponsorship - and certainly don't in club ownership. The only personal sporting interest Chris has is in Motorbikes and he doesn't see the value in sponsoring that either. His sport, his passion is business (and he's pretty good at that).  

What if we all say please really nicely? Tell him as owner he could put Pilgrim Pete on a monkey bike to ride around on pre-match and replace the cheerleaders with a motocross stunt show!   

This is where Trings vision of a walleted owner gets a bit wishful, people like Dawson have worked long and hard for their money, why would they want to spank it all away on a football club that you aren't interested in? Ask Delia Smith how much of a return she has made in Norwich? She will be the first one to tell you that their not in it for the money.

Iggy wrote:

This is where Trings vision of a walleted owner gets a bit wishful, people like Dawson have worked long and hard for their money, why would they want to spank it all away on a football club that you aren't interested in? Ask Delia Smith how much of a return she has made in Norwich? She will be the first one to tell you that their not in it for the money.

What do you mean by 'Tring's Vision' ? I hope we get lucky and a local wealthy person has a go, or maybe a group of wealthy people. I can also see a Trust owned club situation, bringing in wealthy shareholders at the right time. I don't really care where it comes from but the one sure thing is that should we ever get to where Holloway [on the back of Pulis] got us, finance at crucial moments is essential if we ever expect to hold onto staff and follow clubs like Hull, Swansea, Cardiff, Reading etc. Once some time has been spent in the top flight the core fanbase will double or possibly even treble.
Owners of clubs like Blackburn, Wigan and Reading have been prepared to invest in their clubs, so why shouldn't we be so fortunate one day, provided we're not housed in a boxed in clusterfuck ? !

I agree with Tring there. However likely or unlikely it may be that we strike gold with an oil baron owner, we should be keeping the club in a state attractive to be being taken over. And building such a backwards development is not going to help. Why would an ambitious owner buy a club that has reduced it's resources to lack the abilit to match his aims?

spowell92 wrote:

I agree with Tring there. However likely or unlikely it may be that we strike gold with an oil baron owner, we should be keeping the club in a state attractive to be being taken over. And building such a backwards development is not going to help. Why would an ambitious owner buy a club that has reduced it's resources to lack the abilit to match his aims?

Kinnay. Said as much back on the farm about a year ago. HHP would stunt the club in central park for good and no future owner other than a cashed up fan, would be interested in a club with maxed out league one infrastructure.

And ain't that the truth.

Plymouth argyle, the only club in the history of the world, to build a smaller ground to expand!

All the Presidents Men wrote:

And ain't that the truth.

Plymouth argyle, the only club in the history of the world, to build a smaller ground to expand!

Haha so unfortunately true.

Yet another first in football for us to celebrate.

I also wish for a wealthy owner who wouldn't, I just don't think that I'll be lucky enough to see one in my lifetime. In the meantime you should all know I am not in support of the clusterfuck but I am convinced a trust owned/ fan backed club could easily get us to the CCC, (with the old grandstand and a capacity of twenty odd K) hover around the top of that for a while and we will become attractive but to pull us up from here you would need more money than sense. Brent has no money and the sensibility of a jar of dead flowers so it's down to us I feel. Waiting for a walleted one will see us die before it happens. We must get Brent out so that we can rebuild properly.

All the Presidents Men wrote:

And ain't that the truth.

Plymouth argyle, the only club in the history of the world, to build a smaller ground to expand!

  

Tiz going up under the ATD main banner me thinks.

If you look at the scenario of keeping the Grandstand for a few years I think that it makes much more sense for the club. feck Brent off, get the fans back to HP and get to the CCC. If we could get say fifteen k a week into HP our turnover would surely be enough to build a proper stand, other clubs do it by themselves why not us? Once in the CCC with an exciting new stand then we could really build some momentum. It's all very well the trust saying they have to represent their members but I haven't seen anything from the trust challenging the capacity of the stand or the obvious fact that it can't be expanded, yes the question was asked of Starnes recently but his brush off was accepted, we are running out of time with plan B being mooted we need to make more noise and wake the fan base up.

Damon.Lenszner wrote:

I have spoken to Chris many times regarding the Club. He really has no interest in football whatsoever. The numbers don't make sense to him for shirt sponsorship - and certainly don't in club ownership. The only personal sporting interest Chris has is in Motorbikes and he doesn't see the value in sponsoring that either. His sport, his passion is business (and he's pretty good at that).  

Any chance you could get him to lend you £10m or so?

If, as the Herald recently claimed, he's a billionaire then he'd hardly miss it.

That'd be enough to buy Brent out and any manager worth his salt should be able to effectively guarantee promotion with what is left over.

Make it £20m and we can probably get a new grandstand thrown in too!

The argument that suggest that the Club need a new grandstand for cooperate facilities to generate further income other than just gate money is a valid one, although it has been completely exaggerated to help force through Brent's money spinner.

I love the old Grandstand, it's different and it's a curiosity that provides a good intake on what football stadiums once were. If anything it should have a protection and preservation order placed on it!

There is no reason why the Club could not gain from Brent's dream going pair shaped in that it could use the land for building cooperate facilities, a 'proper' bar for the GT's and a make over for the Grandstand. It would benefit the Club and not of James Brent's bank account, as should have been the case from day 1.

Maybe the AFT should offer Brent 400k for the lot and see what happens!

It might look quite nice from the other side of the ground but I think the grandstand needs to go.

The seating is hideously uncomfortable, the legroom is negligible, the sightlines often impeded by pillars.

Underneath it everything needs urgent modernisation.

The only sensible thing to do is to knock it down and build a new one complete with office space, media facilities (which are currently non-existent) and all the other infra-structure things a club needs.

In an ideal world I'd like to see a modern version of what is there already: a safe-standing terrace at the front, a bank of seats above that, exec boxes the length of the pitch, a large restaurant above that and seating above that again. All amounting to a total capacity of about 8000 (which is only a slight increase of what we had before.

That'd get us up to 20,000 or so for now and we could fill in the corners, one at a time, at a later date if success and attendances merited it. We'd be up to about 25,000 by then if we did.

And then, if demand still out-stripped supply, flatten and enlarge the Devonport End in line with Brent's smokescreen proposal. We'd be nearing 30,000 capacity at that stage which would probably just about support PL football should we ever get there.

A cheaper option would be renovate what we have and do the corners, one at a time, first.