D
Deleted member 5849
Guest
So a Wasps takeover of the Ricoh is in the news, even if it may not come to fruition.
What's in it for CCFC however? If we want to maximise the benefit to CCFC then should we just be looking at the short term financial benefits? It's possible, after all, that Wasps moving to the Ricoh could be good for CCFC in the short term - it means ACL are less dependent on CCFC for rent/running costs etc. and the diversified portfolio can mean rent for the club would be cheaper, and deals could be easier to negotiate long term.
However...
is that it?
The danger of all these arguments is we reduce them to a SISU level. They're always about the finance and if we go down that route, then SISU become justified in taking whatever action they choose to take, to attempt to turn around what is and has been since before they took over, a failed business.
And surely the argument was that football and sport isn't about the finances? That even if there's a ridiculous rent being charged, moving a club to break that isn't helpful?
Let's cut this down as much as possible.
How do cities thrive? Identity. What's Coventry's identity? As much as anything it's things such as the three spires. When Coventry tried the tagline of The City in Shakespeare's County this muddied its identity as it picked on something not obviously 'Coventry', resulting in confusion about what Coventry actually *was* which didn't help its perception among other people and places.
Is this identity immediate? Nope. It borrows symbols that have an authority because of their age, it's something that's allowed to build up over time. Whatever the current catastrophes surrounding CCFC, it has an identity due to being here for time, as does Cov Rugby club. Introducing a new club muddies that, much as it does if similar is done to the general city identity.
The identity and affinity is something that's intangible, but it helps build the club, its fanbase. It's partly why so many 'phoenix' clubs get back to a reasonable level, especially in recent years - even with gaps between demise and reformation clubs buy into that. Even 'failures' such as Bradford Park Avenue return to their old ground to play a couple of games to establish the link with place, connect the emotion... and they claim len Shackleton as their own... despite the fact the club wasn't even reformed immediately.
So it's important not to compromise that link with the past. Clubs such as Newport County weren't imported teams from, say, Gloucester when they ran into financial trouble. No, they were extensions of what had gone before, as that's what tends to work in connecting place.
Now we've suffered a fair amount of hammer-blows to that identity - moving from Highfield Road, the involvement of various owners with no affinity to the club... and moving away from the city. In this respect, a club such as Wasps moving in also cuts that a little more as it glosses over *our* identity, makes it harder to view as something else rivals the 'tradition' for space. We in effect compromise the authority of time and tradition which ends up weakening what it is that makes CCFC 'special'. Once you weaken that, you struggle long term to regain it...
A club isn't just made up of its balance sheet. If it was, we'd all follow Man utd as they have some cracking balance sheets and some superb accountancy practices that see their investors doing alright, Jack. Building that tradition takes time, and no matter how much its been eroded at present its still there. Add a surface gloss in top however, and you erode it further in a general sense.
What's in it for CCFC however? If we want to maximise the benefit to CCFC then should we just be looking at the short term financial benefits? It's possible, after all, that Wasps moving to the Ricoh could be good for CCFC in the short term - it means ACL are less dependent on CCFC for rent/running costs etc. and the diversified portfolio can mean rent for the club would be cheaper, and deals could be easier to negotiate long term.
However...
is that it?
The danger of all these arguments is we reduce them to a SISU level. They're always about the finance and if we go down that route, then SISU become justified in taking whatever action they choose to take, to attempt to turn around what is and has been since before they took over, a failed business.
And surely the argument was that football and sport isn't about the finances? That even if there's a ridiculous rent being charged, moving a club to break that isn't helpful?
Let's cut this down as much as possible.
How do cities thrive? Identity. What's Coventry's identity? As much as anything it's things such as the three spires. When Coventry tried the tagline of The City in Shakespeare's County this muddied its identity as it picked on something not obviously 'Coventry', resulting in confusion about what Coventry actually *was* which didn't help its perception among other people and places.
Is this identity immediate? Nope. It borrows symbols that have an authority because of their age, it's something that's allowed to build up over time. Whatever the current catastrophes surrounding CCFC, it has an identity due to being here for time, as does Cov Rugby club. Introducing a new club muddies that, much as it does if similar is done to the general city identity.
The identity and affinity is something that's intangible, but it helps build the club, its fanbase. It's partly why so many 'phoenix' clubs get back to a reasonable level, especially in recent years - even with gaps between demise and reformation clubs buy into that. Even 'failures' such as Bradford Park Avenue return to their old ground to play a couple of games to establish the link with place, connect the emotion... and they claim len Shackleton as their own... despite the fact the club wasn't even reformed immediately.
So it's important not to compromise that link with the past. Clubs such as Newport County weren't imported teams from, say, Gloucester when they ran into financial trouble. No, they were extensions of what had gone before, as that's what tends to work in connecting place.
Now we've suffered a fair amount of hammer-blows to that identity - moving from Highfield Road, the involvement of various owners with no affinity to the club... and moving away from the city. In this respect, a club such as Wasps moving in also cuts that a little more as it glosses over *our* identity, makes it harder to view as something else rivals the 'tradition' for space. We in effect compromise the authority of time and tradition which ends up weakening what it is that makes CCFC 'special'. Once you weaken that, you struggle long term to regain it...
A club isn't just made up of its balance sheet. If it was, we'd all follow Man utd as they have some cracking balance sheets and some superb accountancy practices that see their investors doing alright, Jack. Building that tradition takes time, and no matter how much its been eroded at present its still there. Add a surface gloss in top however, and you erode it further in a general sense.