Anyone fancy supporting their football team on Saturday?

[Stone Valiant]

SEO may well have it's desired effect, ie, bankrupt the club, but that will leave it mega vunerable to a take over on the cheap by someone who could easily asset strip it like **** Knight did at Brighton.

 

What is there to asset strip?

 

The Ground?

 

Well the total cost to buy the club, pay off debts, demolish the stadium and prpare for development comes to around £9m, and yet there are umpteen sites around SoT, all closer to the A500 or desirable living areas, that are larger in size and a qualrter of the price

 

The Team?

 

Does anyone honestly think our totoal squad value is more then £1m, let alone £3m

 

So what other viable profit making scheme could there be at Vale Park other than to invest in it as a football club and increase its value as a marketing tool by taking it up the leagues and investing in the youth and community policies!

 

It makes common business sense!

[Stone Valiant]

They step down who steps in , NLV have bottled it after starting all this and we still waiting for Mark Simms All i here of him is be patiant how patiant we got be, and Mo say no more

 

So you'd prefer to stick with BB, GO and ML! Why? Go on, give me just 5 good business reasons why? I look forward to reading that!

[KNOCKERS1]

Well said lets get behind the team.

[BIRCHES HEAD WHITES]

clayton , you are right you go to the match to support the team not the board.

 

however when the board have slowly destroyed our club over their 8 year tenure , trebling our debt , getting us relegated , FAILING on almost every point on THEIR OWN CHARTER, turning away investment time after time, you have to say to yourself hang on a minute what do you think you are doing to our club.

 

i want this all over just like the next fan , however this club has no future with these clowns in charge ? i will not stand by and watch it die and do nothing . we used to compete on a level footing with the lardies , man city , wolves , west brom, birmingham , blackburn, bolton etc etc , i want that again . maybe we will never manage the prem but its nice to dream , however the championship could be a reality , it will never be achieved if everyone says well nothing has happened yet so lets give up.

[clayton vale]

Birches Head White, I agree we're going nowhere with these guys in charge. At the end of the day our club needs serious investment and Bratt and co have deflected offers left right and centre. However, I'll be going most home matches, no season ticket thankyou CSA, regardless.To those stayaway fans I say turn up, the end of V2001 isnt far off,

[cheeky]

Fundamentally I agree with Fuzzy.

 

I detest the current way the club is run but I don't think there's a viable takeover bid in place at the moment; maybe Mark Sims can put something together in the future but (1) I can't see involvement from Mo Chaudray being anything but a disaster, sorry but I just don't trust his motivations and his interests lie with Mo Chaudray and not with Port Vale - not too disimilar to the criticisms of the present board.

 

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. (2) SEO may well have it's desired effect, ie, bankrupt the club, but that will leave it mega vunerable to a take over on the cheap by someone who could easily (3) asset strip it like **** Knight did at Brighton. Surely it's much better to campaign to bring about a regeime change and encourage someone to buy the club when it's viable? There've been some notable successes so far in bringing about significant changes to the board and we may well see further change in the near future. The 24.9% rule is the biggest blocker, especially as it's been demonstrated that collectively Vale fans don't have enough financial clout to purchase enough shares to oust a board with a marginal shareholding, a rule which has effectively protected them. (4) If Mo had been serious he'd have kept his mouth shut, purchased 24.9% of the shares and then looked to form an alliance with other major shareholders such as Robbie / the supporters club and Rob Lee.

 

Personally I'll attend the games and hope we're successful whilst still supporting a change in the way the club is owned and operated. I can't see that killing the club financially will bring about anything but its end, as ordinary supporters we've proved we don't have the finances to bring it back from bankruptcy, (5) we'd end up like Stockport.

 

(1) I don't doubt Mo's interest lies with making himself money should he take over. But if Mo makes money, it means the club is making money and therefore it must be successful. I can't see the issue myself.

 

(2) SEO's intention is not bankrupt the club. It is disenfranchised customers showing their displeasure at the way their club is being run and the product on offer. If a business goes bankrupt who do you blame? The customer, or the management of the business for not reacting to customers wants and needs to maximise profit?

 

(3) What assets? The ground is mortgaged to the hilt, the Council have first dibs on that, and how many of our players would command a substantial fee, if any?

 

(4) The board can veto any share purchase, do you really think they'd allow anyone to buy 24.9% of shares unless they new they were in their corner? Don't be so naive.

 

(5) What, you mean we would be able to bid £50,000.00 for players, rather than scouring the bargain basement. Damn, what a disaster that would be.

[ONLYWAYISUP]

A very good friend of mine who is very prominent in the protest movement accused me of being apathetic and of not being a real fan because I will continue to support my team at home matches. This is despite the fact that I have been watching the Vale since 1953, home and away.

Seems that I've been fooling myself for all these years.

[Aussie Rules]

A very good friend of mine who is very prominent in the protest movement accused me of being apathetic and of not being a real fan because I will continue to support my team at home matches. This is despite the fact that I have been watching the Vale since 1953, home and away.

Seems that I've been fooling myself for all these years.

 

OWIU, do what your heart tells you and dunner get mithered by someone saying you're not real fan :)

[Burt]

Everyone is a Vale fan.

 

Everyone will be happy when the board has gone and better businessmen come in and things start improving.

 

Some people want to go and watch football.

 

Some want to show their anger by not going.

 

Some want to show their anger at the march, but still go into the ground.

 

It's daft questioning people's loyalty, those wanting to go are blatantly fans and supporters, and those protesting (whether or not they are SEO) obviously care enough to feel they need to do something about it.

[SourceOfTheTrent]

For me debating on this board is difficult because I only have limited time I can devote to it but I'd like to answer a couple of comments on my post;

 

SEO may not intend to bankrupt the club but if the club has little or no income through the actions of fans witholding financial input via the gate and club shop what else can be the outcome? At best we'll end up with a woeful team that gets relegated to the Conference. I agree that businesses who disenfranchise their customers go bump because of the actions of the directors, not the customers, but the result is the same. Doultons and Rover are classic examples but are their former customers suffering emotional pain and a feeling of loss in their lives because of it, like they would if it were their football club that ceased to exist?

 

If Mo or anyone else took over the club and made money out of bringing us success on the pitch I would wholeheartedly support that as I've stated in the past. Trouble is I personally don't think that would be the case with Mr. Chaudray, I suspect it would be a gain for Mo and little or nothing in return for the fans. As I said, not too different that it is now.

 

As for asset stripping, there must be some assets or the club would have nothing to secure finance against. If there really are no assets left - some or all of the ground being the only obvious one - then bankruptcy would surely see the death of the club and the council taking possession of the ground.

 

As for the board blocking anyone buying 24.9% of the shares, yes they may but it's not me being naiieve. If you wish to aquire a company you can either make an open bid or do it by stealth if it's a hostile takeover, in which case you play the politics better than Mo has and keep your mouth shut until you are in a position of strength to close the deal. If Mo had been serious he'd have played the nice guy, 'invested' in 24.9% of shares and been making sensible alliances to outvote the current board, change the constitution and aquire a controlling interest. Instead, to my knowledge, he hasn't purchased a single share and was hoping a noisy public campaign would force a change through fan pressure and let him in on the cheap. I'll believe his £1.2m investment claim when I see it.

 

Finally, Stockport may now be looking financially stronger than they have for years but they have been very lucky in gaining what appear to be sugar daddy owners. Let's see how it pans out, plus where would we get a sugar daddy from (and it won't be Mo)?

 

I would like to re-state that I don't like the way the club is run now and if I were rich enough I'd love to be the sugar daddy but that isn't going to happen, so I'll continue to support THE TEAM and hope for success on the pitch which is the most likely thing to attract new owners and investors. I sympathise with what SEO is trying to do but I just don't think it will achieve a positive outcome, I'm more supportive of straightforward anti-board protests coupled with gathering together supportive shareholdings to get enough clout to install people such as Mark Sims to the board. They're down to a gang of three now, they're going to find it increasingly difficult to hold on to power.

[MarkCh]

For me debating on this board is difficult because I only have limited time I can devote to it but I'd like to answer a couple of comments on my post;

 

SEO may not intend to bankrupt the club but if the club has little or no income through the actions of fans witholding financial input via the gate and club shop what else can be the outcome? At best we'll end up with a woeful team that gets relegated to the Conference. I agree that businesses who disenfranchise their customers go bump because of the actions of the directors, not the customers, but the result is the same. Doultons and Rover are classic examples but are their former customers suffering emotional pain and a feeling of loss in their lives because of it, like they would if it were their football club that ceased to exist?

 

If Mo or anyone else took over the club and made money out of bringing us success on the pitch I would wholeheartedly support that as I've stated in the past. Trouble is I personally don't think that would be the case with Mr. Chaudray, I suspect it would be a gain for Mo and little or nothing in return for the fans. As I said, not too different that it is now.

 

As for asset stripping, there must be some assets or the club would have nothing to secure finance against. If there really are no assets left - some or all of the ground being the only obvious one - then bankruptcy would surely see the death of the club and the council taking possession of the ground.

 

As for the board blocking anyone buying 24.9% of the shares, yes they may but it's not me being naiieve. If you wish to aquire a company you can either make an open bid or do it by stealth if it's a hostile takeover, in which case you play the politics better than Mo has and keep your mouth shut until you are in a position of strength to close the deal. If Mo had been serious he'd have played the nice guy, 'invested' in 24.9% of shares and been making sensible alliances to outvote the current board, change the constitution and aquire a controlling interest. Instead, to my knowledge, he hasn't purchased a single share and was hoping a noisy public campaign would force a change through fan pressure and let him in on the cheap. I'll believe his £1.2m investment claim when I see it.

 

Finally, Stockport may now be looking financially stronger than they have for years but they have been very lucky in gaining what appear to be sugar daddy owners. Let's see how it pans out, plus where would we get a sugar daddy from (and it won't be Mo)?

 

I would like to re-state that I don't like the way the club is run now and if I were rich enough I'd love to be the sugar daddy but that isn't going to happen, so I'll continue to support THE TEAM and hope for success on the pitch which is the most likely thing to attract new owners and investors. I sympathise with what SEO is trying to do but I just don't think it will achieve a positive outcome, I'm more supportive of straightforward anti-board protests coupled with gathering together supportive shareholdings to get enough clout to install people such as Mark Sims to the board. They're down to a gang of three now, they're going to find it increasingly difficult to hold on to power.

 

All very nice, but that's not what you said is it. You said, quite simply, SEO's desired effect was to bankrupt the club. Which shows a complete lack of understanding, either wilful or otherwise, of the motivation and reasoning behind SEO. It's also pretty insulting to the likes of me, a fan of 40 years plus, who feels completely s..t about the fact that I'm going to have to miss the game tomorrow.

 

Forgive me if I don't prescribe to your 'hope for success on the pitch' because it's 'the most likely thing to attract new owners and investors' approach. Hardly been a raging success for the last 8 years has it, that approach, during which period our alleged temporary custodians have become more and more entrenched, knocking back investor after investor.

[SourceOfTheTrent]

All very nice, but that's not what you said is it. You said, quite simply, SEO's desired effect was to bankrupt the club. Which shows a complete lack of understanding, either wilful or otherwise, of the motivation and reasoning behind SEO. It's also pretty insulting to the likes of me, a fan of 40 years plus, who feels completely s..t about the fact that I'm going to have to miss the game tomorrow.

 

Forgive me if I don't prescribe to your 'hope for success on the pitch' because it's 'the most likely thing to attract new owners and investors' approach. Hardly been a raging success for the last 8 years has it, that approach, during which period our alleged temporary custodians have become more and more entrenched, knocking back investor after investor.

 

Sorry but it's not my fault you're easily insulted. If you read the last paragraph of my post you'll see I'm not trying to be insulting to SEO or anyone who feels that's the approach they should take, I just disagree with it because I think it will do more harm than good, as I've explained, because if you starve the club of its revenues bankruptcy surely has to be the desired effect, what else can it be? Also, for your information, I am also a fan of 40+ years standing and I can imagine how difficult it will be for you to abstain. The Vale are like heroin, very bad for your health, all consuming, very expensive but highly addictive.

[saintvaliant]

SoT. The desired effect is not bankruptcy. It is change.

 

If the board allowed it to progress to bankruptcy then I'm afraid they will shoulder the blame for not preventing it.

 

Change in the boardroom will see people coming back.

 

It is not a difficult concept to comprehend, and if the board believe they can survive without custom then that is their decision, and theirs alone.

[Guest potalot1]

if there are any confrontations, they will be 100% caused by those against the protests.

 

Thats like saying its the police's fault for any trouble at a BNP or EDL march..

Nonsense. The aggressor is always to blame..

[Memphis]

Nonsense. The aggressor is always to blame..

 

Who exactly is the 'aggressor' in a PEACEFUL protest?