Doug King Takeover (30 Viewers)

Bad Boy

Well-Known Member
No the Ricoh is significantly more accessible than HR for anything other than walking from town. I get it: jumpers for goal posts, hmm? bovril, rattles? Marvellous.

But as a club with Premier League ambitions just not fit for purpose. How the club came to give away their stake in a stadium has been done to death, but I never once sat in HR thinking “yeah the atmosphere is shit, my knees are by my chin, and I can’t see half the game, but at least the club own the freehold” TBH.
I never once thought it was fit for purpose shmmeee, I just accepted it was what it was and as for jumpers for goal posts bovril and rattles then there was nothing wrong with them once, that's all there was, I have absolutely no longing for those bygone days. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
You're right the ground wasn't great, I haven't said it was but instead of moving from a 100 year old shit hole (as you describe it) we've located to a bigger shit hole.
For what it's worth I knew every nook and crany of HR, every grubby, smelly little cupboard, above every false ceiling in my capacity as a telephone engineer, I also knew Don the Maintenance Manager and what he was up against and my sisters electrical business maintained as best they could, the ageing installation so I was under no illusion of the place and I know many many really didn't like it and thought it was best to move (me included even though I quite liked it for all the memories good and some not so good I had) to somewhere better, new and thus make more memories.

Fuck knows what state the gasworks ground is like behind the scenes, the general public accessible bit is bad enough.
 

Sick Boy

Super Moderator
There was a plan to turn HR round so the Sky Blue stand & Main Stands would have been behind the goals and four new stands would have been built Thackhall Street would have been shorter, I’m sure it was nearly a goer but there was money to be made shifting to where it is now. The council at the time probably all dead now wanting a the old gas works modernising etc. We had all the bunkum of a retracting pitch, being the new national stadium, a potential gold mine for ccfc all pie in the sky crap. The Ricoh and all that’s happened since almost finished the club we are now hopefully at the end of what’s been a long dark tunnel, basically caused by the HR move fiasco.
Talk about rewriting history - we had dire financial problems at HR too. The problem came from the days in the PL and the collapse of ITV Digital; we got relegated at the worst time really.
Suggesting our problems all come from selling HR is laughable.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
I never once thought it was fit for purpose shmmeee, I just accepted it was what it was and as for jumpers for goal posts bovril and rattles then there was nothing wrong with them once, that's all there was, I have absolutely no longing for those bygone days. When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
You're right the ground wasn't great, I haven't said it was but instead of moving from a 100 year old shit hole (as you describe it) we've located to a bigger shit hole.
For what it's worth I knew every nook and crany of HR, every grubby, smelly little cupboard, above every false ceiling in my capacity as a telephone engineer, I also knew Don the Maintenance Manager and what he was up against and my sisters electrical business maintained as best they could, the ageing installation so I was under no illusion of the place and I know many many really didn't like it and thought it was best to move (me included even though I quite liked it for all the memories good and some not so good I had) to somewhere better, new and thus make more memories.

Fuck knows what state the gasworks ground is like behind the scenes, the general public accessible bit is bad enough.

Well we do know cos we’ve seen the dilapidations report.
 

Robinshio

Well-Known Member
Talk about rewriting history - we had dire financial problems at HR too. The problem came from the days in the PL and the collapse of ITV Digital; we got relegated at the worst time really.
Suggesting our problems all come from selling HR is laughable.
ITV digital was an issue, but we were in big issues even before that - and that was where we had 60m of PL debt, and I think they said the 1st 40m was easy to sort, but the balance of 20m would hinder us for a long time and so it proved (exacerbated by ITV digital)

The ITV digital deal was less than £1m per club per year, we were losing 9m per year approx at the time
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member
Talk about rewriting history - we had dire financial problems at HR too. The problem came from the days in the PL and the collapse of ITV Digital; we got relegated at the worst time really.
Suggesting our problems all come from selling HR is laughable.

We could at the time wiped all debt at a stroke and without any points penalty

If Bryan Richardson had remained rather than the pug nosed idiot he’d have screwed over the sitting mp and not moved unless on his terms. Mginnity was a dumb patsy who did as the council at the time told him
 

SkyblueDad

Well-Known Member
We could at the time wiped all debt at a stroke and without any points penalty

If Bryan Richardson had remained rather than the pug nosed idiot he’d have screwed over the sitting mp and not moved unless on his terms. Mginnity was a dumb patsy who did as the council at the time told him
He also owned by coincidence a company which did stadia seating and a West Brom fan who jumped onto our board when WBA board booted him off theirs. Tell you a story about him, while I was talking to the then maintenance man, a mate, an assistant of his came up to us with about a dozen or so old rusty nails in his hand which he had to hand in to get new ones. True story and I believe the same with pens to get new one or had to be exchanged with an old one that had run out.
But talking our present ground the whole thing was a disaster, an abortuon from concept to completion and beyond and is still going on, don’t just blame present day councillors either. At the conception time we even had a councillor god bless who got out of her death bed , made the national news, to help vote something through to get the project started as we were potentially in the shite because old pug nose had sold HR to a housing developer.
 
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Bugsy

Well-Known Member
took from CT

with new investment in the club, the City boss is confident he can accelerate the team’s progress towards being in a stronger position for promotion.


Asked about King and whether he has spoken to the prospective new owner, Robins said: “Yes, I have spoken to him briefly but you can’t do anything until we get the green light from the EFL. Hopefully that will be today, if not Monday or Tuesday next week. Hopefully it’s imminent and then we can get on with things.

“That can then be exciting times because it’s fresh and new, and there’s going to be an understanding about what we want to do and what we need to do and how we can get there. And that will obviously come quickly after the ratification of his ownership, so I look forward to it.


“I’m really looking forward to getting to know him and seeing where we can work together to take this brilliant club forward as quickly as we can, although it will always be incremental. But we might be able to do things a little bit faster, who knows.

good news finally....PUSB
 

mark82

Super Moderator
took from CT

with new investment in the club, the City boss is confident he can accelerate the team’s progress towards being in a stronger position for promotion.


Asked about King and whether he has spoken to the prospective new owner, Robins said: “Yes, I have spoken to him briefly but you can’t do anything until we get the green light from the EFL. Hopefully that will be today, if not Monday or Tuesday next week. Hopefully it’s imminent and then we can get on with things.

“That can then be exciting times because it’s fresh and new, and there’s going to be an understanding about what we want to do and what we need to do and how we can get there. And that will obviously come quickly after the ratification of his ownership, so I look forward to it.


“I’m really looking forward to getting to know him and seeing where we can work together to take this brilliant club forward as quickly as we can, although it will always be incremental. But we might be able to do things a little bit faster, who knows.

good news finally....PUSB

Sounds positive. We're not going to be big spenders, but don't need to be if we can hold what we've got and add a bit of extra quality/depth.
 

rexo87

Well-Known Member
So it's looks like Doug is happening (humble pie for me). Do we think he will bring in some new people behind the scenes? Boddy has done a decent job following on from Fisher in that role but has also shown a lot of naivety and made a lot of mistakes, particularly this season. I think I'd be quite happy with a new CEO coming in with a more impressive CV

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
We could at the time wiped all debt at a stroke and without any points penalty

If Bryan Richardson had remained rather than the pug nosed idiot he’d have screwed over the sitting mp and not moved unless on his terms. Mginnity was a dumb patsy who did as the council at the time told him

McGinnity was not that dumb either, he had a huge conflict of interest given his involvement in the seat manufacturer
 

alexccfc99

Well-Known Member
King seems to be getting plenty of stick, dunno what people want, for him to be one of those Bassini types and prat about on the tele and radio? Or is it the wild soundbites like that Chinese bloke who used to own Villa was famed for that they are after?

Key thing for me is MR is positive about it and as a result so am I
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member
McGinnity was not that dumb either, he had a huge conflict of interest given his involvement in the seat manufacturer

He was if course led up the garden path by a family of lawyers

 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
He was if course led up the garden path by a family of lawyers


How did PWKH know that information anyway? Surely the procurement of subcontractors was the council's business
 
D

Deleted member 5849

Guest
How did PWKH know that information anyway? Surely the procurement of subcontractors was the council's business
I guess Higgs ended up owning half of it, so would have access to the records. Or as prosaic as Robinson told his mate, who told his family!
 

SkyBlueSam01

Well-Known Member
Potentially huge news that Robins has ratified this... Never in my lifetime have we been a club with a degree of freedom in recruitment at this level and it (tragically) feels like a huge weight off the shoulders!

Maybe we can actually experience a net positive January transfer window with some excitement about incomings for once??

Is this what being a normal football fan feels like??
 

SkyblueDad

Well-Known Member
Potentially huge news that Robins has ratified this... Never in my lifetime have we been a club with a degree of freedom in recruitment at this level and it (tragically) feels like a huge weight off the shoulders!

Maybe we can actually experience a net positive January transfer window with some excitement about incomings for once??

Is this what being a normal football fan feels like??
Well we have been debt ridden since the early 70’s some of those times pretty dire. Will we be really debt free though ? we’ll have to see.
 

Samo

Well-Known Member
Potentially huge news that Robins has ratified this... Never in my lifetime have we been a club with a degree of freedom in recruitment at this level and it (tragically) feels like a huge weight off the shoulders!

Maybe we can actually experience a net positive January transfer window with some excitement about incomings for once??

Is this what being a normal football fan feels like??

I think it might be... Merry Christmas!!!! 😁
 

Samo

Well-Known Member
I’m the biggest bloke in here with a skinhead. Make sure you slap my bonce as hard as you can so I know it’s you.

I'll pinch your arse instead!
 

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