clusterfuck is back on ;)

Thanks for the welcome, so this is the dark side.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

spowell92 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I don't remember who made this argument but a while back Home Park's future limited capacity was portrayed as a Good Thing because limited supply and increased demand would justify higher pricing equating to more income at no extra cost!

Why wouldn't the same apply to the corporate facilities we currently enjoy? Hike the pricing up, serve some posher grub and keep the plebs out while you do so. It's all win! win! win! isn't it?

New facilities will be required for the long term gains of the club. You'd be an idiot to ignore the corporate hospitality and non-matchday conferencing market in any development plans.

I'm not ignoring it; those development plans as yet don't exist to be ignored.

I'm simply using the logic that justifies an inadequate grandstand to justify inadequate corporate facilities.

And it isn't  my logic either - I've borrowed it.

To be honest I don't think it is logic at all I'm taking somebody else's idea and running with it to show how ludicrous it was to start with. Or at least that is what I was trying to do.

My "you" was not a direct you, but more a collective "you" on whoever uses the logic you (personal) highlighted

I know, as does everyone else, that you're not an idiot SFD.

Tringreen wrote:

spowell92 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I don't remember who made this argument but a while back Home Park's future limited capacity was portrayed as a Good Thing because limited supply and increased demand would justify higher pricing equating to more income at no extra cost!

Why wouldn't the same apply to the corporate facilities we currently enjoy? Hike the pricing up, serve some posher grub and keep the plebs out while you do so. It's all win! win! win! isn't it?

New facilities will be required for the long term gains of the club. You'd be an idiot to ignore the corporate hospitality and non-matchday conferencing market in any development plans.

Depends whether you have the club's future at heart or your own pension pot.

No idea how that's relevant?

Deek wrote:

Thanks for the welcome, so this is the dark side.

Not dark dear boy, HOT !

Honest... Open... Transparent.

Another 98 posts and you could stand in a fair, democratic election to become a moderator.

spowell92 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

spowell92 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I don't remember who made this argument but a while back Home Park's future limited capacity was portrayed as a Good Thing because limited supply and increased demand would justify higher pricing equating to more income at no extra cost!

Why wouldn't the same apply to the corporate facilities we currently enjoy? Hike the pricing up, serve some posher grub and keep the plebs out while you do so. It's all win! win! win! isn't it?

New facilities will be required for the long term gains of the club. You'd be an idiot to ignore the corporate hospitality and non-matchday conferencing market in any development plans.

I'm not ignoring it; those development plans as yet don't exist to be ignored.

I'm simply using the logic that justifies an inadequate grandstand to justify inadequate corporate facilities.

And it isn't  my logic either - I've borrowed it.

To be honest I don't think it is logic at all I'm taking somebody else's idea and running with it to show how ludicrous it was to start with. Or at least that is what I was trying to do.

My "you" was not a direct you, but more a collective "you" on whoever uses the logic you (personal) highlighted

I know, as does everyone else, that you're not an idiot SFD.

Really? You don't speak for me spowell

spowell92 wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

spowell92 wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I don't remember who made this argument but a while back Home Park's future limited capacity was portrayed as a Good Thing because limited supply and increased demand would justify higher pricing equating to more income at no extra cost!

Why wouldn't the same apply to the corporate facilities we currently enjoy? Hike the pricing up, serve some posher grub and keep the plebs out while you do so. It's all win! win! win! isn't it?

New facilities will be required for the long term gains of the club. You'd be an idiot to ignore the corporate hospitality and non-matchday conferencing market in any development plans.

Depends whether you have the club's future at heart or your own pension pot.

No idea how that's relevant?

The clusterfuck plans were largely to the financial benefit of the owner, through ongoing rent on the retail space. Can you see him getting involved in building a grandstand, with easy expansion possible, if there's no longer term profit in it for him ?
Hopefully he'll show his true colours and piss off soon.
He surrounds himself with jumped up janner wannabes, who'll protect him as long as they get to be someone at the Theatre of Schemes.
I fear this is not going to end well.

The one reason JB may go for a sports based development is to provide the Ice Rink required to unlock the £80m Pavilions development.

steveinspain wrote:

Thanks for the welcome, so this is the dark side.

First of all welcome steve and hope you enjoy the ride......

This is not the dark side we have seen the light. praise the light

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The quotes in your post is a bit broken, but I've managed to read the new bit.

Its precisely why we need to upgrade our facilities, so our facilities are the best place to host these functions and conferences or even for businesses to purchase corporate hospitality season tickets. As it currently stands the tribute lounge and grandstand is sub standard and I don't think we have any other conferencing or function facilities available. For the matchday packages to attract interest we do need to be riding higher than the basement division in order to reap the reward, but all the while we need to be laying on far far far better quality facilities than what is currently offered. Chiefs have cite their conferencing facilities as a large factor in them pushing the club up to the next level to even win a major cup competition. The fact that every single Premier League and Championship club that I can think of has these facilities shows that by not having them we're only adding to our already large list of disadvantages.

I'm not disputing the fact that better "facilities" generate extra income, just that the sort of income generated is going to be a major factor in the success of a football club. Does having the best corporate facilities lead to being the best football team?

I accept that Exeter Chiefs have done well on the back of their non match day income, but would again point out that the costs of running a rugby club are a lot lower than even a lower league football club. Also, the fact that the Chiefs are already doing well in the hospitality field probably means Argyle have already missed the boat-certainly for anything not locally (and therefore less profitable) based.

My main concern is that people (the club, fans and politicians) start thinking that a new stand with better facilities will magically solve all the club's problems.

PAFC is a football club and the only way for it to improve is to improve the core product  i.e. the football

A new stand with better facilities would go a far way to solving many of the club's issues, but I agree it's no magic cure.

The new stand needs to strike balance between hosting the average Joe, the King Joe and the Monday to Friday Joe. Brent's proposed Grandstand did achieve much of that balance, but ignored what the average Joe might do if any success above the 3rd tier was achieved.

Why the village idiots at the club use their noggins and build the new decent grandstand with a capacity that can be increased or built grand now with all the mod cons and what not inc corporate shit and on the car park build an arena that homes a icerink for the public and a ice arena for events and such and not just ice related. YOu could use that pretty much 365 and the rent alone will be more of a cashcow than a dentist or a nandos.

It seems simple. Brent owns the club. Brent's spinners have put it about that he has great enthusiasm for the club, as has Brent himself. The club needs a new grandstand, as the current one doesn't provide the 'hospitality' that Argyle fans deserve. Therefore the buck stops with Brent. He needs to sort the funding out, and I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect him to put his hand in his own pocket to do so. After all, if he is rich and loves the club, why wouldn't he want to leave a legacy?

The Bretonside development is a red herring. Brent has no business commenting on council decisions. If he wants to influence them then he can just stand for election as any of the rest of us would have to do if we wanted to influence decisions.

Could someone tell me if the Life Centre is a private business or council run? I'm presuming it's the latter. So there was a £50m investment in the council's own project. Makes far more sense that spunking taxpayers' cash on a private business run by a unreliable businessman.

We hear so many proclamations (ok, admittedly they all come from one person, ) of how Brent "bleeds green", he "gets it" etc etc.

This is an example of truly loving your club......

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I'm sick of all this sustainable model bullshit we are hearing, Brent was going to get the revenue from the retail units, all the club would see is the income from club shop and the prawn sandwiches just as we do now. Brent's plans are good for Brent and no one else, that's why he has not had the support he thinks he deserves.

Iggy wrote:

I'm sick of all this sustainable model bullshit we are hearing, Brent was going to get the revenue from the retail units, all the club would see is the income from club shop and the prawn sandwiches just as we do now. Brent's plans are good for Brent and no one else, that's why he has not had the support he thinks he deserves.

That's about the size of it, foreshore.

HHP, as per Brents original plan would have seen any real potential money-making streams going exclusively to Brent/Akkeron.

The club would have been fobbed off with a fourth division sized unexpandable mini-stand that would have been the death knell for any aspirations of PAFC ever achieving anything beyond the odd foray to the 2nd tier.

In years to come, those child-like plans and drawings Brent produced initially will be looked back on with almost laugh-out-loud jaw-dropping incredulity because they were so so amateur, it's unbelievable how someone could have the gall to even attempt to pull off such a stunt.

I also think in the absence of anyone willing to pay for a new stand, it is nailed-on that Brent will exercise the buy-back clause on Home Park when the time comes around, to give him a genuine saleable asset when it comes to him making his final exit.

He would have to find the money first!
Unless of course he did it on favourable terms i.e. HP.

I'm all for sustainable. Who isn't when the only alternative is unsustainable? - and we all know where that leads. Anybody wanting that needs their bumps feeling.

Brent does deserve credit for getting Argyle back to running according to budgets because, again, if we don't then disaster surely awaits. So, those things taken in isolation, I'm quite happy with Mr Brent.

There's all the other stuff, too, though and the failure of HHP to progress was, make no mistake, a very narrow escape for the club. It would have had long term implications so awful they would have been insurmountable and still might because there's still no indication that there is anything like a proper consultative process being implemented - well not beyond asking the usual nodding donkeys anyway - for whatever plan emerges next.

What we need, and what we could all support I suspect, is a new grandstand that restores ground capacity to at least 20,000, that it is economically and practically possible to expand the ground in the future and that land historically owned by the club (but recently asset-stripped by Mr Brent) is returned to the club so that it can be used by the club for the good of the club.

All we'd then have to object to is the control freakery but I am becoming rather fond of how ramshackle and incompetent that all is. Just imagine how all that frantic, sustained effort to lie, bully, intimidate, suppress and extort has only succeeded in the creation of several openly reviled laughing stocks and has destroyed the relationship with the very same council that was bank-rolling everything whilst maligning the general feeling of integrity and competence on which any brand relies.

Who'd ever've thought it, eh?

Czarcasm wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I'm sick of all this sustainable model bullshit we are hearing, Brent was going to get the revenue from the retail units, all the club would see is the income from club shop and the prawn sandwiches just as we do now. Brent's plans are good for Brent and no one else, that's why he has not had the support he thinks he deserves.

That's about the size of it, foreshore.

HHP, as per Brents original plan would have seen any real potential money-making streams going exclusively to Brent/Akkeron.

The club would have been fobbed off with a fourth division sized unexpandable mini-stand that would have been the death knell for any aspirations of PAFC ever achieving anything beyond the odd foray to the 2nd tier.

In years to come, those child-like plans and drawings Brent produced initially will be looked back on with almost laugh-out-loud jaw-dropping incredulity because they were so so amateur, it's unbelievable how someone could have the gall to even attempt to pull off such a stunt.

I also think in the absence of anyone willing to pay for a new stand, it is nailed-on that Brent will exercise the buy-back clause on Home Park when the time comes around, to give him a genuine saleable asset when it comes to him making his final exit.

When asked at the last pre fest jolly about the buy back clause,his brief response was that he hadn't given it any thought yet........................my arse !

Some of it just isn't even vaguely believable, is it?

From 36mins..........'that's the honest truth'

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These events are just publicity stunts...I meet the fans on a regular bases type of thing.
For the serious questions all you get is evasive answers, pseudo speak or empty promises.

The buy-back clause is a real interesting one. When negotiations were ongoing between Brent and PCC about the Councils re-acquisition of Home Park, I wonder which party was the driving force in the opportunity to buy back the freehold every 5 years for a fixed price dependent on annual rent?

I think I can guess.

Tbf to Brent, this was a real piece of business masterstrokery and it did give PAFC a safety net against catastrophe for a fixed period - the first five years leading up to the first chance for Brent to buy it back. Now, with relative stability and operating at a break even level, it is the no-brainer of all no-brainers for Brent to buy-back for a super-bargain price.

Iggy wrote:

I'm sick of all this sustainable model bullshit we are hearing, Brent was going to get the revenue from the retail units, all the club would see is the income from club shop and the prawn sandwiches just as we do now. Brent's plans are good for Brent and no one else, that's why he has not had the support he thinks he deserves.

I see your avatar is the one and only Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, who in a previous life, gained a degree in sports information and communication from the Ithaca College in New York. He is also fluent in English, Greek, German, French, and Italian.