Wrexham FC
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Posts
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@Welsh Dresser 9098 wrote:
So the promise was made and there was never any intention of honouring it? That is immoral. I don’t expect the swindling so and so’s have lost any sleep over it but what goes around comes around. They might have broken the club financially but it’s still there. I hope it haunts them to their graves and beyond !
It’s immoral, but they got themselves a 40 million pension fund and the rental value is an allowance for the kids after they pass away.
But politicians like bithell and roberts have all carried on in politics and have more than doubled their salaries since then.
@thewayneinspain 9085 wrote:
The racecourse is in the perfect position
easy access for both sets of fans and plenty of parking.However for Pryce Griffiths, Marek, Rhodes, Guterman, Hamilton, Steve Morgan, dickens, moss, retout and roberts, it was in the perfect position to sell the land with none of the money going to the football club.
In court is was found that Pryce griffiths, Guterman and hamilton had arranged a deal where they would all profit from selling the ground.
And of course, Marek is the only poltician to have profited from loaning Moss and Dickens money to buy the land that Moss & Roberts they eventually developed for their own 40 million pension nestegg.
Dickens profiting from Moss purchasing the showrooms.
And al under the watchful of eye of the council and leader aled roberts.
If Moss,Retout & Roberts had done what they said to the council of giving the profits to the club, the club would have a playing budget now of something close to championship level and so would the crusaders.
I’m not getting into the speculation about who did what and when but I hope your facts on people and what they did are better than your understanding of football clubs and finance in the year 2013. You claim that the ground is perfect for fans, etc. Wow. Is that it. Football clubs don’t survive on sport anymore but have to have a plan B to survive. Where Swansea have had huge successful concerts with the likes of Rod Stewart, Elton John and JLS what equivalent have Wrexham had? Stoke’s Brittania stadium is a regular concert location. Wrexham’s ? We have the crusaders but nothing else to give the club an income stream.
@Alunh 9116 wrote:
thewayneinspain;9085 wrote:The racecourse is in the perfect position
easy access for both sets of fans and plenty of parking.However for Pryce Griffiths, Marek, Rhodes, Guterman, Hamilton, Steve Morgan, dickens, moss, retout and roberts, it was in the perfect position to sell the land with none of the money going to the football club.
In court is was found that Pryce griffiths, Guterman and hamilton had arranged a deal where they would all profit from selling the ground.
And of course, Marek is the only poltician to have profited from loaning Moss and Dickens money to buy the land that Moss & Roberts they eventually developed for their own 40 million pension nestegg.
Dickens profiting from Moss purchasing the showrooms.
And al under the watchful of eye of the council and leader aled roberts.
If Moss,Retout & Roberts had done what they said to the council of giving the profits to the club, the club would have a playing budget now of something close to championship level and so would the crusaders.
I’m not getting into the speculation about who did what and when but I hope your facts on people and what they did are better than your understanding of football clubs and finance in the year 2013. You claim that the ground is perfect for fans, etc. Wow. Is that it. Football clubs don’t survive on sport anymore but have to have a plan B to survive. Where Swansea have had huge successful concerts with the likes of Rod Stewart, Elton John and JLS what equivalent have Wrexham had? Stoke’s Brittania stadium is a regular concert location. Wrexham’s ? We have the crusaders but nothing else to give the club an income stream.
With the greatest respect alun, how many club grounds (including those in the biggest populated cities in the uk) or the better suited cricket grounds get a profitable band to play? never mind two or three times a year.
I spoke to the potential wrexham fc buyer steve cleeves many times (many of those calls recorded) about this and he never had an answer on this. Although he would rant on about his love for motorhead.
swansea only has cardiff and bristol as competitors within an hours drive, wrexham has liverpool, manchester and birmingham.
Pryce Griffiths sold Wrexham F.C down the river.
He had to bite his lip when Hamilton removed his two sons from the board of directors.
Hamilton spilled the beans in a letter to the Evening Leader saying Griffiths stood to receive £500k if the Racecourse got re-developed.
When questioned by a reporter about this, Griffiths’ only reply was: “This is confidential business”.So, Griffiths only received £50k for his 78% shareholding of the club, saw no £500k, had his sons removed from the board, and lost the respect of Wrexham football fans who knew what was going on at the club via the Net.
Still today, there are people who don’t understand what went on. The local papers were too scared of being sued to print the goings-on.House of Commons – Culture, Media and Sport Committee – Written Evidence
This might be of interest. It sets out some of the goings on at the time and is in the public domain so I can’t be sued!
@thewayneinspain 9117 wrote:
@Alunh 9116 wrote:
With the greatest respect alun, how many club grounds (including those in the biggest populated cities in the uk) or the better suited cricket grounds get a profitable band to play? never mind two or three times a year.
I spoke to the potential wrexham fc buyer steve cleeves many times (many of those calls recorded) about this and he never had an answer on this. Although he would rant on about his love for motorhead.
swansea only has cardiff and bristol as competitors within an hours drive, wrexham has liverpool, manchester and birmingham.
I suspect that you’ve missed my point here Wayne. I quite agree with you about competition for Wrexham. The pull of Liverpool, Everton, Man Utd, etc has always meant that a small town like Wrexham has struggled for numbers through the gate.
I quite agree with you about the number of clubs of all shades that have been able to use their grounds on a multi-function basis. These are few and far between and that probably accounts for the fact that most clubs are on the breadline.
The one individual who tried to argue that Wrexham FC would probably languish in the nether regions because of these facts was IRONICALLY, Hamilton.
My point, in response to the original question posed is that Wrexham FC is where it is because the realities of economic life have dictated the destiny that the club now has. Wrexham FC is now on a shoestring beyond shoestrings. We can bleat on about who did what, who robbed what, who should go to hell in a handcart, who should fry in boiling saliva……..for ever.
Hamilton’s observation was the obvious one. To escape from the constraints that you (Wayneinspain) have identified, the club had to move ground to allow a scenario to exist that would allow other income streams. The fact that few clubs have advantaged themselves of other income streams is neither here or there. For Wrexham to prosper, this is what needed to be done. Some other clubs (say Sheffield Wednesday or Wolves) have big potential crowds/populations), some other clubs have big investors (say Wigan). Others have to give themselves an advantage. Wrexham hasn’t and the club is where it is.
This debate raged out on about 8 years ago.
Hamilton never wanted the club, he wanted the land for his own profits, so he ran the club into the ground so it’s liabilities were more than the assets,
Moss and Roberts did the same by
1. leveraging the club to gets funds to purchase the club, land & build the student flats for their own pensions
2. whilst running the club into the ground.
3. Sadly then moving the ownership of the ground to the mother company of wrexham fc that they also owned…
4. They then sold it to university.A club can’t move anywhere unless there is somewhere to purchase and then have extra money to build a stadium. Sadly studies in the fanzine groundtastic found that stadia costs 1,000 per seat.
The club has never had anywhere to go because:
- It needs land
- It needs finances to build a stadia
- Get planning for that land.
It already has the land and it is in a great position close to the motorway and railway.
I remember doing an interview with the former commercial manager bill wingrove in a greasy cafe near newcastle under lyme (at that time under criminal charges for a missing 10k from the wrexham kitty – charges later dropped.) That interview whilst accusing david rhodes on poor financial planning (previous wrexham CEO and later becoming a disqualified company director) he also went onto say that they didn’t utilise the space in terms of function rooms, shops, etc. Its prime position for these things after all.
Sadly Glyndwr now owns the racecourse, so they will now benefit not the club.
@thewayneinspain 9148 wrote:
This debate raged out on about 8 years ago.
Hamilton never wanted the club, he wanted the land for his own profits, so he ran the club into the ground so it’s liabilities were more than the assets,
Moss and Roberts did the same by
1. leveraging the club to gets funds to purchase the club, land & build the student flats for their own pensions
2. whilst running the club into the ground.
3. Sadly then moving the ownership of the ground to the mother company of wrexham fc that they also owned…
4. They then sold it to university.A club can’t move anywhere unless there is somewhere to purchase and then have extra money to build a stadium. Sadly studies in the fanzine groundtastic found that stadia costs 1,000 per seat.
The club has never had anywhere to go because:
- It needs land
- It needs finances to build a stadia
- Get planning for that land.
It already has the land and it is in a great position close to the motorway and railway.
I remember doing an interview with the former commercial manager bill wingrove in a greasy cafe near newcastle under lyme (at that time under criminal charges for a missing 10k from the wrexham kitty – charges later dropped.) That interview whilst accusing david rhodes on poor financial planning (previous wrexham CEO and later becoming a disqualified company director) he also went onto say that they didn’t utilise the space in terms of function rooms, shops, etc. Its prime position for these things after all.
Sadly Glyndwr now owns the racecourse, so they will now benefit not the club.
Agree with most of this but not all. When even Hamilton seemed keen on a move and evaluating potential sites, the idea went down in flames. Everyone, probably quite rightly, suspected that this was all a fabrication to disguise an ulterior agenda. Trouble is, this was, in a way similar to Swansea or Stoke, intellectually the right move.
You repeat this theme about the location. You are correct. The ground is adjacent to the railway station and road system. Every two weeks, the club can expect to pull in the 2000-4000 fans it gets to watch football (and whatever the Crusaders pull in). At £19.00 a ticket that would derive an income per week (based on perhaps 30 home games a season including the cups) of £22,000-£40,000 per week if all tickets were sold full price to adults. Many are not and are sold to pensioners, children and season ticket holders. That reduces the income potential again so that Wrexham FC, through the gates, get perhaps a comparable turnover to a shop like my old one on King Street.
If you think that an income derived from single streams is adequate to run a football club in 2013, you are, sadly, living in cloud cuckoo land. I can see from your input that you have a greater understanding than this and have investigated further. My only observation is that I have sat in the Town Centre Marketing meetings talking about putting headline events on at the Racecourse featuring any range of artists (a couple of years ago some sort of Welsh supershow including the Manics/Super Furries/Stereophonics) was touted. The idea falls at the same hurdle- the ground
Alun,
Last seasons turnover was 2.2 million, next year’s turnover is forecast at 1.6 million (no cup runs or plays off included.) Matchday reciepts were 988k. Think at the last AGM it was stated Wrexham FC got around 10.09 per ticket per game.
The club doesn’t own the football ground. It will make no money from a gig of 10,000 people. It had been ripped from the club’s hands. it has gone. The only people who wanted to invest in the club or ground wanted the land for their profit. Only the fans themselves wanted the club, Moss sold the ground to the highest bidder.
But looking in terms of finances, it would cost a conservative minimum of 12.5 million to get a site . 2.5 for the land (assuming the club can get somewhere in wrexham for same price glyndwr got the raceocurse), 10 million for the stadia. That’s over 300k depreciation (over 25 years), never mind the upkeep (think the current ground is hinted at 200k a year.)
Could a new stadia get enough bands and attendees to get past the extra break even point of 300k a year for the next 25 years? No.
The town centre manager is doing what everyone has always done with the racceourse, promise something big, but it never turns up.
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