This week finally seems to have been the moment when the penny dropped for many Argyle supporters. We are being shafted. The football side of the club is being left to wither and die. BIL and Ridsdale do not care about PAFC, they simply care about making money. Full Stop.
What are BIL/Ridsdale actually offering, assuming the deal finally goes through? A football club run on a shoestring, with an owner who has a less than spotless track record of football business management. A club that wouldn’t own its ground and have as a landlord, a Gibraltar registered company - owners unknown but led by a man who owns a rival local club and who also has a less than spotless record of running businesses.
BIL/Ridsdale are effectively blackmailing the supporters - "If you don't back us then there will be no Plymouth Argyle and the staff won't be paid. We will also lose our football league status". Meanwhile they appear to be prevaricating and delaying completion for as long as possible, starving the club of bringing in decent players, de-motivating the current players and STILL not paying the staff, unless being shamed into doing so. We can speculate as much as we like about the reasons for the delay, fact is it is killing the club's short (and possibly long) term future.
An alternative - lets take the fight to them:
1. The Trust urges fans to boycott all home matches from now on. We don't want the BIL/Ridsdale deal. Players are encouraged to strike. If necessary vigils are held, marches are marched. BIL/Ridsdale realise the game is up - the supposedly dopey Janners aren't so dopey after all. Brent contingency plan is attempted. Frankly however I can't see the guy getting the antogonistic secured creditors (Mastpoint/Gardner) to do a deal and he won't be given time to do deals with the assorted football creditors (he is a hard headed businessman, part of his plan back in April would have been to negotiate with the key players on expensive long contracts). I simply cant see him shelling out over £7M for a bottom of L2 club. We therefore are liquidated. Yes, we lose the League golden share and yes, the staff don't get paid.
2. The Trust, as well as continuing a positive dialogue with Mr Brent, sets out its stall to "renew" Argyle. It goes on a recruitment overdrive, asking all its members, current and new, to stump up say a minimum of £10 to create a new football club. £10 buys you 1 share in the new FC. £100 buys you 10 shares and so on. Some/many I'm sure would contribute far more. I'm not hugely wealthy, I'm not originally from this area, I only went to a handful of games last year and have only really followed Argyle since 2001 - but I'd stump up at least £1,000. I reckon there are another 999 out there prepared to do the same. There's £1M. And who knows, a certain Mr Brent may wish to purchase a significant number of shares and work hand in hand with the trust to build the club back up, as might the likes of Messrs Dawson, Jones, Gill and so on. Importantly the new club would be structured in a way so that it could not have a majority shareholder, so there would be no objection to even the likes of wealthy recent ex-directors who have a conscience (Wrathall?) helping out by buying shares.
3. From these funds a new, supporter owned club is created - say Plymouth Argyle FC (2012). The new club negotiates with the Council and whoever ends up owning Home Park (Lombard?) for the right to play there. The new club negotiates with the football authorities to start at as high a level in the leagues as possible.
4. And finally…the new club shareholders vote on how much of a % they wish/think they can afford to pay the ex-staff in back pay. Many of the staff could of course be asked to work for the new club. Maybe some of the small unsecured creditors who lost out from the liquidation could be helped out too - for example St John's Ambulance could get the rest of their money. We would then feel like the proper spirit of Argyle had been passed on to the "new" club. Just imagine the positive press and goodwill these actions would generate towards the "new" club.
I know there would be lots of bitching and sniping about the trust, the name, the opportunity for people like Stapleton or Todd to buy/own shares, the fact we are starting several rungs down the ladder and so on. The negotiations with the FL, the Council and Lombard to play at HP would be painful and agonising - we may have to play at Albion or similar to start with. But surely, surely, given all that has gone on this is a more palatable alternative to a Ridsdale owned club bumping along the bottom of league 2/in the Conference for the foreseeable future? If Brent can do a deal, great, but the longer BIL/Ridsdale are allowed to get in the way the chances of this happening diminish.
I went to the home game with my 7 year old son against MK Dons at the end of last season. We held out for a great win against the odds. My son finally 'got' football supporting then. Given even a crumb of encouragement he could end up properly following Argyle, his local team, rather than the premiership side he currently takes an interest in. The passion, unity and sheer goodwill was palpable amongst the crowd that day against MK Dons. That goodwill has been chucked away in a cold calculating manner by BIL/Ridsdale. They don’t care about PAFC, they care about making money. ITS TIME TO GET OUR CLUB BACK.
The structure and nature of Professional Football Club ownership in this country has to change. The old style owners - wealthy benign benefactors - are few and far between now, they have been replaced by asset-stripping money grabbing opportunists. Argyle could be in the vanguard of this change. If an election eventually goes ahead for the Trust and someone used 1-4 as their manifesto I've vote for them in a flash.
EnoughIsEnough
Trust Member
1117
PS certain people need to lay off Chris Webb. Met the guy at Ro's testimonial. Felt I had to speak to him after being impressed by his handling of the first public guildhall mtg. He struck me as a young man doing a superb job in his spare time, for the love of Argyle, and certainly NOT doing it to inflate his ego.
What are BIL/Ridsdale actually offering, assuming the deal finally goes through? A football club run on a shoestring, with an owner who has a less than spotless track record of football business management. A club that wouldn’t own its ground and have as a landlord, a Gibraltar registered company - owners unknown but led by a man who owns a rival local club and who also has a less than spotless record of running businesses.
BIL/Ridsdale are effectively blackmailing the supporters - "If you don't back us then there will be no Plymouth Argyle and the staff won't be paid. We will also lose our football league status". Meanwhile they appear to be prevaricating and delaying completion for as long as possible, starving the club of bringing in decent players, de-motivating the current players and STILL not paying the staff, unless being shamed into doing so. We can speculate as much as we like about the reasons for the delay, fact is it is killing the club's short (and possibly long) term future.
An alternative - lets take the fight to them:
1. The Trust urges fans to boycott all home matches from now on. We don't want the BIL/Ridsdale deal. Players are encouraged to strike. If necessary vigils are held, marches are marched. BIL/Ridsdale realise the game is up - the supposedly dopey Janners aren't so dopey after all. Brent contingency plan is attempted. Frankly however I can't see the guy getting the antogonistic secured creditors (Mastpoint/Gardner) to do a deal and he won't be given time to do deals with the assorted football creditors (he is a hard headed businessman, part of his plan back in April would have been to negotiate with the key players on expensive long contracts). I simply cant see him shelling out over £7M for a bottom of L2 club. We therefore are liquidated. Yes, we lose the League golden share and yes, the staff don't get paid.
2. The Trust, as well as continuing a positive dialogue with Mr Brent, sets out its stall to "renew" Argyle. It goes on a recruitment overdrive, asking all its members, current and new, to stump up say a minimum of £10 to create a new football club. £10 buys you 1 share in the new FC. £100 buys you 10 shares and so on. Some/many I'm sure would contribute far more. I'm not hugely wealthy, I'm not originally from this area, I only went to a handful of games last year and have only really followed Argyle since 2001 - but I'd stump up at least £1,000. I reckon there are another 999 out there prepared to do the same. There's £1M. And who knows, a certain Mr Brent may wish to purchase a significant number of shares and work hand in hand with the trust to build the club back up, as might the likes of Messrs Dawson, Jones, Gill and so on. Importantly the new club would be structured in a way so that it could not have a majority shareholder, so there would be no objection to even the likes of wealthy recent ex-directors who have a conscience (Wrathall?) helping out by buying shares.
3. From these funds a new, supporter owned club is created - say Plymouth Argyle FC (2012). The new club negotiates with the Council and whoever ends up owning Home Park (Lombard?) for the right to play there. The new club negotiates with the football authorities to start at as high a level in the leagues as possible.
4. And finally…the new club shareholders vote on how much of a % they wish/think they can afford to pay the ex-staff in back pay. Many of the staff could of course be asked to work for the new club. Maybe some of the small unsecured creditors who lost out from the liquidation could be helped out too - for example St John's Ambulance could get the rest of their money. We would then feel like the proper spirit of Argyle had been passed on to the "new" club. Just imagine the positive press and goodwill these actions would generate towards the "new" club.
I know there would be lots of bitching and sniping about the trust, the name, the opportunity for people like Stapleton or Todd to buy/own shares, the fact we are starting several rungs down the ladder and so on. The negotiations with the FL, the Council and Lombard to play at HP would be painful and agonising - we may have to play at Albion or similar to start with. But surely, surely, given all that has gone on this is a more palatable alternative to a Ridsdale owned club bumping along the bottom of league 2/in the Conference for the foreseeable future? If Brent can do a deal, great, but the longer BIL/Ridsdale are allowed to get in the way the chances of this happening diminish.
I went to the home game with my 7 year old son against MK Dons at the end of last season. We held out for a great win against the odds. My son finally 'got' football supporting then. Given even a crumb of encouragement he could end up properly following Argyle, his local team, rather than the premiership side he currently takes an interest in. The passion, unity and sheer goodwill was palpable amongst the crowd that day against MK Dons. That goodwill has been chucked away in a cold calculating manner by BIL/Ridsdale. They don’t care about PAFC, they care about making money. ITS TIME TO GET OUR CLUB BACK.
The structure and nature of Professional Football Club ownership in this country has to change. The old style owners - wealthy benign benefactors - are few and far between now, they have been replaced by asset-stripping money grabbing opportunists. Argyle could be in the vanguard of this change. If an election eventually goes ahead for the Trust and someone used 1-4 as their manifesto I've vote for them in a flash.
EnoughIsEnough
Trust Member
1117
PS certain people need to lay off Chris Webb. Met the guy at Ro's testimonial. Felt I had to speak to him after being impressed by his handling of the first public guildhall mtg. He struck me as a young man doing a superb job in his spare time, for the love of Argyle, and certainly NOT doing it to inflate his ego.
Good to hear from you! Hopefully catch up tomorrow. You missed a great morning. 