spowell's on fire, on the farm !

BG20 was Ollie.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

Dick Trickle wrote:

"I firmly believe that the building of the new stadium and the resultant success of the football club has given this City the confidence to believe in itself. People are proud to say they come from this City and I am convinced that this would not have been the case if firstly the ground had not been built and secondly the football club had not capitalised on that with two promotions to the top tier. Everyone here believes the football club and the City can achieve anything that they set their minds to and that includes winning the FA cup this Saturday. We are Hull and we're not going to London for a day out."

Mayor of Hull

It's amazing what ambition and belief can do isn't it?

Indeed. We had a better side than them for the first half of 2007/8 season. Now Plymouth, not Hull, is the biggest city/catchment area in England never to have achieved top flight staus and the resultant 15/20k solid fanbase. Even they wouldn't be able to squeeze into brent's farm supported folly.

There's some tropes trotted out every now and then that, while initially they may appear to have an element of truth, are completely irrelevant.

Comparing Argyle to Darlington is one; comparing Plymouth to Hull is another.

Quite literally nothing in UK sport compares to what has happened in Hull and it is impossible to replicate anywhere else.

Hull, as a city, got lucky. Due to a quirk of historical municipal planning the Hull council, for reasons I do not know, took complete control of the city's telephone system meaning that it enjoyed a complete monopoly in the area. Decades later this was considered anti-competitive and so it was sold off to "open up the market" according to modern mantra.

The result of this was a windfall of many millions of pounds to Hull council which promised the city that it would build sporting facilities second to none. At a stroke it was goodbye to crumbling Boothferry Park and hello a magnificent municipally bought and paid for state of the art (with capacity to add) stadium.

From that base Hull's rise has been meteoric but none of it would have, could have happened, without the current council's pure, dumb luck (or the olde tyme council's vision and foresight if you prefer).

No other city or region in the country, especially in the current economic climate but at any time it would be unthinkable, could do what happened there.

Our council certainly won't do what they did simply because it definitely couldn't even if it wanted to.

So... yes it is galling to see Hull's success. And... yes I suppose Hull and Plymouth are similarly-sized provincial outposts with vaguely similar histories of under-achievement. But... what happened there can not and will not happen here (or anywhere else ever again).

Seems like there's been a lot of cities of comparable [or smaller] size and previous [or worse] history that have "got lucky" and overtaken us since the 1960's.Southampton,Norwich,Ipswich,Coventry,Palace,QPR back then,Hull,Reading,Swansea,Cardiff in more recent times.Funny innit,how unlucky we must be.

Chemical Ali wrote:

PilgrimJosh wrote:

So CA, presumably trolling people must be an appropriate use of a second account!

All I know is that some (not all) of the pasoti mods/ site owners used multi accounts for trolling purposes in the past (pre-Deep Throat)- Ponty, PL2, IJN, Andy_S, Daz were the main ones but there is now a Pasoti Mods Code of Conduct which is supposed to stop this from happening (although accounts like Saracen10, Helen Richards, Ghost, Brian Green and a couple of others seem quite suspicious). The use of multi accounts by Peter Jones also had some dodgey cover up- he posted as Peter Jones, Iddesleigh green (attacking [at the time] the Trust's John Petrie and Darren Purse) and The Nightfly that was post deep throat.

I was IP banned from using Pasoti for saying on ATD that Pasoti Mods had multi accounts a month before the Deep Throat thing kicked off (April 2012?) so I may not be able to see things that members can- if I used the site, and given the past behaviour of some of the current serving Pasoti moderators as well as the Site Manager and Owner, I would like to see their Code of Conduct publicised.

saracen10 and helen richards were obvious.
lets face it there 100s of multis on there.

None of Southampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Coventry, Palace, QPR, Reading, Swansea, Cardiff got lucky in a similar way though.

Southampton, Norwich, Ipswich, Coventry, Palace and QPR have all had a history with some sort of glory, either cup wins or European qualification.

Swansea had played top flight football not that long ago.

Coventry has all but destroyed itself (why did they ever leave Highfield Road?).

Cardiff adopted the most irresponsible and fraudulent financial model they could.

Reading (with no sort of pedigree at all), in common with most of them, traded up stadium-wise.

QPR and Palace are both London-based which puts them in a different category altogether.

Most of them have experienced an adminstration along the way.

Southampton basically stole St Mary's...

All of them have seen the injection of either huge private funding or serious council support.

I'd enjoy the success when it came, if it came, however it came pretty much as much as anybody else but I'd rather we did it with some pride and integrity attached. Out of that list Hull, Reading, Swansea, Norwich and Ipswich don't emerge too badly, even if they are not all exactly spotless, but would I want us to follow the methodology deployed by Cardiff, Coventry or Southampton? No. No I would not.

All of which is immaterial because nobody has even tried to meaningfully invest in Argyle since McCauley thought better of it and pulled out. And it doesn't look like anybody is ever going to.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

All of which is immaterial because nobody has even tried to meaningfully invest in Argyle since McCauley thought better of it and pulled out. And it doesn't look like anybody is ever going to.

Depends on the circumstances I guess?

Brent at the open meeting not so long ago said that people were interested in buying the club. So there are people out there? But those people -unless he was talking about Wrathall - appear not to be that interested in just investing?

Which might suggest they think they have a better or different way of doing things or don't believe in Brent's vision?

Why would anybody "just invest"?

There's no such thing anyway. An investment intrinsically expects, or at least hopes for, the principal to be returned and more besides. The return on the investment, hopefully, reflects the risk involved. That's the game.

Other than that there is the Brent model of loaning and guaranteeing which isn't investment at all because there isn't really any risk.

Or there is plain donation. There's not much of that about but it always seems to be what people expect. Again a quite different thing from investment.

Do we want investment? Maybe. It depends on the terms. It's like borrowing money: scrounging a fiver off a pal is one thing, using a bank loan another, a credit card another still, a payday loan company something else yet again... It might or might not be a good idea. It's not investment itself that is the issue but the terms.

Investment is the wrong word, gamble would be more suited. But if the gamble paid off, it could well be immense.

How time flies, it only seems like only yesterday when Hull City were only getting just over four and a half thousand through their gates.

green_genie wrote:

Almost 8 months since planning approval and no sign on PCC website that the plans for contentious outstanding issues such as Outland rd junction and traffic management around Lyndhurst have been submitted let alone agreed.

Unless PCC know how unpopular they would be and are keeping under wraps until JB can prove he is going ahead or maybe just until after elections.

The euphoria of that day has ebbed away somewhat. We were promised delays and twists and turns but there must be a project plan. That plan must include sorting out those issues. Do they need to be sorted before all the premises are pre let and all the funding in place? Or does the funding have to be in place before 'wasting' money on the minutiae of traffic control? Or is there no dependency one upon the other?

Perhaps the much maligned Miss Sutherland was right all along or maybe James Brent should hire her to switch sides and help him with outstanding planning issues.

GOB wrote:

Investment is the wrong word, gamble would be more suited. But if the gamble paid off, it could well be immense.

How time flies, it only seems like only yesterday when Hull City were only getting just over four and a half thousand through their gates.

Hull were getting an average of 4,500 in League One (1994-95 / 1995-96) and had an average of 3,400 in 1996-97 in League Two.

It breaks my heart to see them bulldozer their potential into being a big club belonging to a big city. Luck indeed, but they seized their chance.

Swansea, Brighton, Cardiff, Fulham, Burnley, Wigan, Reading. Those were our fixtures in Div 3 in the 1990s, at the club's lowest ebb. Some clubs broke out and fulfilled their potential, grew, and modernised, others accepted their reality as a lower league outfit, to the extent where a proposed 17,000 capacity now screams 'ambition' (a proposed capacity well below ALL of those other clubs in the here and now).

...and if the Truro chairman had proposed a half of the HHPCF, the white-coated goons in the pisspoti lab would have unleashed the dogs of war from their kennels.

Clubs that were below Argyle's level less than 20 years ago, that have since

A) Won FA Cups/reached finals.
B) Played top flight football.
C) Have developed all seater stadiums in excess of 20, 000 capacity.
D) Had players bought by Manchester United and other globally dominant clubs for club record fees.
E) Played in UEFA European competitions on the continent.

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See how many you can name in your office break.

Against this backdrop, I can't understand how a 4,800 seater stand redevelopment can be exciting and 'ambitious'. It's ambitious for Halifax - not for a city the size of nearly 300, 000 people, and with strong, loyal Cornish support beside.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

Dick Trickle wrote:

"I firmly believe that the building of the new stadium and the resultant success of the football club has given this City the confidence to believe in itself. People are proud to say they come from this City and I am convinced that this would not have been the case if firstly the ground had not been built and secondly the football club had not capitalised on that with two promotions to the top tier. Everyone here believes the football club and the City can achieve anything that they set their minds to and that includes winning the FA cup this Saturday. We are Hull and we're not going to London for a day out."

Mayor of Hull

It's amazing what ambition and belief can do isn't it?

Indeed. We had a better side than them for the first half of 2007/8 season. Now Plymouth, not Hull, is the biggest city/catchment area in England never to have achieved top flight staus and the resultant 15/20k solid fanbase. Even they wouldn't be able to squeeze into brent's farm supported folly.

There's some tropes trotted out every now and then that, while initially they may appear to have an element of truth, are completely irrelevant.

Comparing Argyle to Darlington is one; comparing Plymouth to Hull is another.

Quite literally nothing in UK sport compares to what has happened in Hull and it is impossible to replicate anywhere else.

Hull, as a city, got lucky. Due to a quirk of historical municipal planning the Hull council, for reasons I do not know, took complete control of the city's telephone system meaning that it enjoyed a complete monopoly in the area. Decades later this was considered anti-competitive and so it was sold off to "open up the market" according to modern mantra.

The result of this was a windfall of many millions of pounds to Hull council which promised the city that it would build sporting facilities second to none. At a stroke it was goodbye to crumbling Boothferry Park and hello a magnificent municipally bought and paid for state of the art (with capacity to add) stadium.

From that base Hull's rise has been meteoric but none of it would have, could have happened, without the current council's pure, dumb luck (or the olde tyme council's vision and foresight if you prefer).

No other city or region in the country, especially in the current economic climate but at any time it would be unthinkable, could do what happened there.

Our council certainly won't do what they did simply because it definitely couldn't even if it wanted to.

So... yes it is galling to see Hull's success. And... yes I suppose Hull and Plymouth are similarly-sized provincial outposts with vaguely similar histories of under-achievement. But... what happened there can not and will not happen here (or anywhere else ever again).

Didn't Plymouth have a slice of luck too with the sale of Citybus or is that somehow different? The last I recall was PCC were still sitting on that little windfall (happy to be corrected if that is now not the case). Depending on whose figures you believe between Brent and the WG, just 5-10% of that money could be enough to help deliver a stand we could all be happy with?

You can slice and dice it however you want.  At the 'end of the day' the council pie is however big the council pie is...

How the pie is sliced, is up to the council.

I am sure that when Hull City Council got a huge dollop of cream to put on their pie, the 'social services' community were shouting for a huge slice, with cream, if not the whole plate.

Hull dished out some seconds for their football team, and the team repaid them, by opening up a nice eatery, and serving good food every Saturday afternoon.

Everyone went home fat and happy.

If Aviva made commercials involving footballing naive, straw chewing yokels, they'd choose Plimuff Gargoyle   


Wonder why Naaaaaaaaaaarich didn't want the 'publicity' from their major sponsor ?  

Green [Dads n Geeks] Arrrrmeeeee ! 

I remember when Hull fought bit and scratched their way to a one nil victory over our dream team with Halmosi, Norris and Buzacky all getting a lesson in how to win ugly. It was early in the season but I had seen enough to predict that they would go up that year, cue derision on the farm. Luck will only take you so far Phil Brown had a very workmanlike team who beat enough teams to get promoted, luck had feck all to do with it.

Coxside_Green wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

Dick Trickle wrote:

"I firmly believe that the building of the new stadium and the resultant success of the football club has given this City the confidence to believe in itself. People are proud to say they come from this City and I am convinced that this would not have been the case if firstly the ground had not been built and secondly the football club had not capitalised on that with two promotions to the top tier. Everyone here believes the football club and the City can achieve anything that they set their minds to and that includes winning the FA cup this Saturday. We are Hull and we're not going to London for a day out."

Mayor of Hull

It's amazing what ambition and belief can do isn't it?

Indeed. We had a better side than them for the first half of 2007/8 season. Now Plymouth, not Hull, is the biggest city/catchment area in England never to have achieved top flight staus and the resultant 15/20k solid fanbase. Even they wouldn't be able to squeeze into brent's farm supported folly.

There's some tropes trotted out every now and then that, while initially they may appear to have an element of truth, are completely irrelevant.

Comparing Argyle to Darlington is one; comparing Plymouth to Hull is another.

Quite literally nothing in UK sport compares to what has happened in Hull and it is impossible to replicate anywhere else.

Hull, as a city, got lucky. Due to a quirk of historical municipal planning the Hull council, for reasons I do not know, took complete control of the city's telephone system meaning that it enjoyed a complete monopoly in the area. Decades later this was considered anti-competitive and so it was sold off to "open up the market" according to modern mantra.

The result of this was a windfall of many millions of pounds to Hull council which promised the city that it would build sporting facilities second to none. At a stroke it was goodbye to crumbling Boothferry Park and hello a magnificent municipally bought and paid for state of the art (with capacity to add) stadium.

From that base Hull's rise has been meteoric but none of it would have, could have happened, without the current council's pure, dumb luck (or the olde tyme council's vision and foresight if you prefer).

No other city or region in the country, especially in the current economic climate but at any time it would be unthinkable, could do what happened there.

Our council certainly won't do what they did simply because it definitely couldn't even if it wanted to.

So... yes it is galling to see Hull's success. And... yes I suppose Hull and Plymouth are similarly-sized provincial outposts with vaguely similar histories of under-achievement. But... what happened there can not and will not happen here (or anywhere else ever again).

Didn't Plymouth have a slice of luck too with the sale of Citybus or is that somehow different?  The last I recall was PCC were still sitting on that little windfall (happy to be corrected if that is now not the case).  Depending on whose figures you believe between Brent and the WG, just 5-10% of that money could be enough to help deliver a stand we could all be happy with?

Citybus was pretty much the same thing but far, far smaller. I don't have the figures to hand for either but it was something akin to Hull getting £200m and Plymouth getting £2m*. Not the same thing at all, really.




*I'm happy to be corrected because these figures are complete guesswork and chosen just to make a point.

Iggy wrote:

I remember when Hull fought bit and scratched their way to a one nil victory over our dream team with Halmosi, Norris and Buzacky all getting a lesson in how to win ugly. It was early in the season but I had seen enough to predict that they would go up that year, cue derision on the farm. Luck will only take you so far Phil Brown had a very workmanlike team who beat enough teams to get promoted, luck had feck all to do with it.

By that time Hull were well set in their swanky new stadium and had been promoted a couple of times. The luck they enjoyed came when the new stadium landed in their lap FOC. Since then they have spent every bit as much as anybody else to get where they are but without the stadium to start the ball rolling nothing would, in all likelihood, have happened for them - it certainly never had before.

All the Presidents Men wrote:

...and if the Truro chairman had proposed a half of the HHPCF, the white-coated goons in the pisspoti lab would have unleashed the dogs of war from their kennels.

To be honest I struggle to see much difference between Brent and Heaney.

Ultimately they are the same thing: "only want to put a cinema in the park"; "doesn't have the money"; "only here for the property deal"; "doing it all with other people's money"...

Can't get a fag paper between them, can you?

It was £20m SFD for citybus-

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I think they received a further £3m for Milehouse depot.

I would imagine any profit would have part funded the Life Centre Project (c £50m)?

Chemical Ali wrote:

It was £20m SFD for citybus-

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I think they received a further £3m for Milehouse depot.

And how much did Hull get? And when?

£260m in 1999-

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As I suspected: not really comparable (in scale, at least).

Of course Plymouth CC could have used that £20m to have built a grandstand - but why should it when the club was privately-owned at the time?

Mind you, now it is the stadium owner...

A brief resumé of Hull's journey.

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Their stadium cost £43.5m.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

All the Presidents Men wrote:

...and if the Truro chairman had proposed a half of the HHPCF, the white-coated goons in the pisspoti lab would have unleashed the dogs of war from their kennels.

To be honest I struggle to see much difference between Brent and Heaney.

Ultimately they are the same thing: "only want to put a cinema in the park"; "doesn't have the money"; "only here for the property deal"; "doing it all with other people's money"...

Can't get a fag paper between them, can you?

One bankrupt the other not yet.

A lot of similarities between Brent and Heaney, both fond of acquisition but without having cash of their own.

The only obvious differences I think of is Brent is an absolute master at PR, presenting himself as the cuddly Harry Potter whose priority is the welfare of Plymouth Argyle. Is it feck

But yeah he's just like the Heaney cnut but without the ginger pubes