To be or not to be? (Club owners)

Pop1eye · May 4, 2017

I'm not really aware of the circumstances Plymouth found themselves in a few years ago but you seem to have a man who cares at the helm.
I was wondering how this came about?
Tonight, our shareholders vote whether to hand the keys over to another custodian or whether we go it alone and wait for another.
All the noises are that this man is impressing everyone but having been bitten so badly Pompey fans are reluctant to hand the Crown Jewels over.
How did you guys come to be where you are Re the board.
After all, you nearly folded yourselves.

Verte · May 4, 2017

He came in when no one wanted to. He admitted to not knowing about Football but his prudence is why we are where we are now.

We had a near miss with extinction we really did. Guilfoyle, Ridsdale and Heaney are names that make my teeth itch.

Your supporters need to do their own due diligence as ours did on Heaney. You cannot rely on suits to tell the truth.

PL2 3DQ · May 4, 2017

Check out the Story So Far forum below. It's all there.

MickyD · May 4, 2017

If ex-Disney CEO Michael Esiner does take over, keep your fingers crossed that the worst you'll have to suffer during his tenure are "Mickey Mouse Club" jibes - and there'll be plenty of them, I'm sure.

More seriously, with his background I do worry just how "American" Pompey might become. I have a sneaking suspicion that he won't be as hands-off as Stan Kroenke, Fenway Sports Group and others. Being a lower division team and less in the spotlight, he may well see this as the perfect "project" to to enable him and his board to introduce all sorts of frightfully un-British "innovations" of the kind those ghastly colonial upstarts love so much in the NFL, NBA et al.

We already have EPL and EFL. I wonder where that idea came from?

Horsley Green · May 4, 2017

Careful- you may end up with Pom Pom(pey) girls

Pop1eye · May 4, 2017

He's been coming to fratton regularly and is reported as saying that American sports fans 'only think they know' how to support a side.
Although one thing has struck home. Our crest!
It belongs to the city and can not be copyrighted which is a moot point. He has said we will have to 'adjust' that so it can be copyrighted.
At present someone who puts a crest on a cap can rock up and sell it outside the ground with no infringement s made!
He has a point.
Everything else he has been saying has come across with purpose and with a degree practicability.
His track record with other sports clubs he owns is exactly what we are looking for.
He runs them in a sustainable way injecting cash when he needs to but nurtures talent through academies brilliantly.
We will do ok in league 1 this year but if he comes in then it's understood the pressure will be on cookie again as he won't just be competitive but have a war chest that puts us top of the pile.
The fact we own all the land surrounding fratton and have a redevelopment model in place just needing the funds has also attracted him. The development sees the ground increase in capacity to 30k with three new stands to be opened over a four season program. As he put it, just in time to see the academy really start to deliver.
The youth side having just lost the semi final against Swansea after extra time.
It's an exciting time but one we have all seen before.
One thing is for certain, you can keep the Russian, Arab and Chinese. We have been burnt as fans by them already.
Now I'm off to read up on your man who sounds as though he should be given the freedom of the city

Guiri Green · May 4, 2017

We got extremeley lucky and unlucky, both extremes down to two different groups of people with differing views on the way ahead. Thankfully the best group did everything right and saved the day.

Pompey are lucky in that they get a chance to select possibly another chance or depite the good support, the beginning of a new end.

Good luck.

Pop1eye · May 4, 2017

Love the bit about 'anger as Heaney holidays in Dubai'
We had our own bastardo who went to Australia. But when asked when all was going to poo at fratton what he was doing he was quoted as saying' looking for investment'!
The reporter pointed out that he was 1400 odd miles from anywhere of note?
They are dogs, always have been, always will be!

Wozzer · May 4, 2017

The "holiday in Dubai" was taken by the then chairman Stapleton during the height of the troubles when staff and players had gone unpaid for some time with some of them at risk of losing homes etc.

To say it was crass was an understatement. His reply when tackled was " well I haven't been in the water once".

Pretty much say's everything about the man, who most, before the troubles held in high regard. Now I wouldn't put him out with any of my waste if he was on fire.

MickyD · May 4, 2017

Pop1eye":1lpel6uu said:
He's been coming to fratton regularly and is reported as saying that American sports fans 'only think they know' how to support a side.
Although one thing has struck home. Our crest!
It belongs to the city and can not be copyrighted which is a moot point. He has said we will have to 'adjust' that so it can be copyrighted.
At present someone who puts a crest on a cap can rock up and sell it outside the ground with no infringement s made!
He has a point.
Everything else he has been saying has come across with purpose and with a degree practicability.
His track record with other sports clubs he owns is exactly what we are looking for.
He runs them in a sustainable way injecting cash when he needs to but nurtures talent through academies brilliantly.
We will do ok in league 1 this year but if he comes in then it's understood the pressure will be on cookie again as he won't just be competitive but have a war chest that puts us top of the pile.
The fact we own all the land surrounding fratton and have a redevelopment model in place just needing the funds has also attracted him. The development sees the ground increase in capacity to 30k with three new stands to be opened over a four season program. As he put it, just in time to see the academy really start to deliver.
The youth side having just lost the semi final against Swansea after extra time.
It's an exciting time but one we have all seen before.
One thing is for certain, you can keep the Russian, Arab and Chinese. We have been burnt as fans by them already.
Now I'm off to read up on your man who sounds as though he should be given the freedom of the city

That all sounds quite encouraging - and I see that you're already speaking American!

Leon Horn · May 4, 2017

Wozzer":1wpr97yb said:
The "holiday in Dubai" was taken by the then chairman Stapleton during the height of the troubles when staff and players had gone unpaid for some time with some of them at risk of losing homes etc.

To say it was crass was an understatement. His reply when tackled was " well I haven't been in the water once".

Pretty much say's everything about the man, who most, before the troubles held in high regard. Now I wouldn't put him out with any of my waste if he was on fire.

Would you let him buy you a beer, Woz? :lol:

Wozzer · May 4, 2017

Leon Horn":3myd3lg5 said:
Wozzer":3myd3lg5 said:

The "holiday in Dubai" was taken by the then chairman Stapleton during the height of the troubles when staff and players had gone unpaid for some time with some of them at risk of losing homes etc.

To say it was crass was an understatement. His reply when tackled was " well I haven't been in the water once".

Pretty much say's everything about the man, who most, before the troubles held in high regard. Now I wouldn't put him out with any of my waste if he was on fire.

Click to expand...

Would you let him buy you a beer, Woz? :lol:

No.

And I would let pretty much anyone buy me a beer.

MickyD · May 4, 2017

Good grief, I've just read that Esiner's offer is just £5,673 Million, or £1,000 for each of the 5,673 shares that fans bought at exactly the same price in 2013.

Investment promises aside, that's practically giving it away, isn't it?

Ave IT · May 4, 2017

We’d all love a mega-rich, decent bloke (or woman) with the genuine interests of the club at heart - but like all dictatorships even if they do start out that way unaccountable power often goes badly wrong. On the face of it I’m jealous – but doubt I’d swap places right now. With Brent, he is clearly a decent bloke but not rich (as club owners go) so his ‘power’ is more distributed using other board members to provide cash and running the club as a sustainable business. The thing I like most is that although he takes a keen interest, regularly attending games & mixing with the fans, he openly admits he knows very little about football so doesn’t interfere at all beyond setting a budget and is instinctively very patient. We also have a bit of a control freak for a manager who would not take kindly at all to being quizzed about tactics on a Monday morning by some rich owner wanting to get his hands on the train set. So this arrangement is working perfectly for now, but we will hit a glass ceiling eventually when you need serious money to compete. However, the journey is likely to be much more fun than the destination anyway – would I swap the season we’ve just had with fans of a mid-table Premiership or Championship teams like West Brom or Barnsley? No – definitely not.

EDITED TO ADD:-
This is the sort of owner we have (there are loads of similar accounts) ....no I definitely wouldn't swap:-
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=99520

Pop1eye · May 4, 2017

We don't want a profit on the shares. We want the right man in place.
It was always going to be that way.
That includes the ground, training facility and all the land owned by Portsmouth football club.
Others were obviously interested but this mans track record has got him this far with due diligence because he is what we are looking for.
It just remains to be sorted out how a future sell on could be sorted with the fans involved. We are giving him as you say, a steal. What will he give us back for it. We don't want the money. We want safeguards.

To be or not to be? (Club owners)

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