Poll - Never Again Statement

Do you agree with the "Never Again" statement.

I'm astounded people wouldn't.

Memories like a goldfish.

Free Chat

158 - yes
28 - no
12 - undecided

Pasoti

32 - yes
41 - no
10 - undecided

great signature Frank

Of course

BRENT OUT NOW

Stop Brent and Hallet, from ever getting their hands on the freehold of Homepark.

The latest scores

                  Yes       No       Undecided         Don't Understand
ATD             33        0               0                         NA
Pasoti          45        68             13                       NA        
Free Chat    178       23             11                       11

Total            256      91             24                       11

Even with Porkies Multis on overtime skewing the Pasoti Poll its utterly clear the message to Brent is do one....

It also shows that Free Chat is now the leading Argyle Internet forum.

Frank Bullitt wrote:

It also shows that Free Chat is now the leading Argyle Internet forum.

...and that is what irks Nool the most.

Pasoti no longer #1.

Pasoti, no longer "the fastest growing".

Frank Bullitt wrote:

The latest scores

                  Yes       No       Undecided         Don't Understand
ATD             33        0               0                         NA
Pasoti          45        68             13                       NA        
Free Chat    178       23             11                       11

Total            256      91             24                       11

That's a pretty damning indictment

It really does show how corrupt Pasoti has become, when 2 others are massively in favour of the statement, and Nool isn't. He and De liar are an absolute joke.

Freathy wrote:

Frank Bullitt wrote:

The latest scores

                  Yes       No       Undecided         Don't Understand
ATD             33        0               0                         NA
Pasoti          45        68             13                       NA        
Free Chat    178       23             11                       11

Total            256      91             24                       11

That's a pretty damning indictment

And John Lloyd dismissed my claim that the end of season survey had been 'got at' regarding the stadium ownership question.

PlymptonPilgrim wrote:

It really does show how corrupt Pasoti has become, when 2 others are massively in favour of the statement, and Nool isn't. He and De liar are an absolute joke.

Joking aside because its not funny anymore but can it be remotely possible that they are so far up each others arses that they dont genuinely believe the laughing stock they have become. Hard to comprehend their stupidity
Even my 15 year son says to me hows that wanker Nooly dad at the dinner table

I think it's about time we gave Nool the credit he deserves. He is an Internet visionary.

When he took control of Pasoti they were the only show in town and a fair barometer of the fans views. Their position was undisputed and it was hard to imagine that there was room (or need) for any other forum.

But through his sociopathic control he gave life to ATD and Free Chat. Instead of everyone being crammed onto one site we have 3 different forums with distinct styles with no single superfan in control.

Yes, it does seem strange that only two of the sites seem able to coexist happily alongside each other and it's a bit odd that one of them is riddled with adverts, but on the whole it's a "vibrant" scene.

And that's all down to one man. Internet Ian - a misunderstood visionary.

Frank Bullitt wrote:

I think it's about time we gave Nool the credit he deserves. He is an Internet visionary.

When he took control of Pasoti they were the only show in town and a fair barometer of the fans views. Their position was undisputed and it was hard to imagine that there was room (or need) for any other forum.

But through his sociopathic control he gave life to ATD and Free Chat. Instead of everyone being crammed onto one site we have 3 different forums with distinct styles with no single superfan in control.

Yes, it does seem strange that only two of the sites seem able to coexist happily alongside each other and it's a bit odd that one of them is riddled with adverts, but on the whole it's a "vibrant" scene.

And that's all down to one man. Internet Ian - a misunderstood visionary.

Nool is loathed by many Argyle fans on the internet, yet still see's himself as the spokesman for the silent majority!

I've taken a bit of a kicking in various places for this statement, so I've decided to release this statement in response to the criticism. I will also explain why I've done this and why I feel it necessary.

First of all I'll say a few short things. I, in this statement, represent myself and only myself. I have not discussed this with any of my co-signatories. I am not peddling any line. I am speaking openly and frankly. Secondly, I am a dedicated Argyle fan who has attended almost 500 games since I was first taken on a cold Tuesday night against York in March 2002. Thirdly, I was a once regular poster on the Argyle online stratosphere who has for reasons completely unconnected to Argyle's on-pitch or off-pitch fortunes taken a break over the past year or so. No doubt I will be met with allegations of only coming back to talk about political matters, but the fact is that having had that break I soon intend to be back posting regularly about all matters on or off the field.

I have signed this statement because I never again want to see my football club in the state that it was during those dark days of 2011. I was there, picking up glasses in the Green Taverners tent and helping the Trust in the early, formative days when we didn't know if the club we love would survive from one day to the next. Nobody can accuse me of being just a sayer, and not a doer. Such an allegation would simply be false. I know the exact same is also true for a great many of my co-signatories on that list. If we as a football club ever descended into a similar situation again, I am certain that we would rise up and fight like we did last time. I am equally certain however that prevention is better than cure and I want to do absolutely everything possible to avoid it happening again.

On that note, I oppose Home Park leaving public ownership. I oppose it whether it be (in this case) the football club taking up the option to buy the ground. I would certainly oppose it too if it were a private landlord buying the ground. I believe that private ownership compared to lease-holding is a vastly overrated option. Its benefits are vastly trumped up and its risks are absolutely astronomical.

Nobody really seems to be able to say what benefits we will get from private ownership. People talk about 'securing more investment'. How? The fact of a club owning its own ground is not a manna from heaven towards a positive bank balance. People will make an investment if they feel it is capable of making a return. Often it is just a repeated line that ground ownership will help towards that end, but nobody says exactly how. If people feel that they can make money from the success of this football club (which presumably is what we all want) then they will invest in it. If not, they won't. Plenty of successful clubs don't own their own ground and attract investment aplenty anyway. And vice-versa.

We will not, from owning our own ground, be able to make a significantly larger revenue. People need to understand the difference between tenants and lease-holders. Argyle are the latter, we are NOT the former. All tenants do is pay a sum of money for the use of the facility. Argyle pay a sum of money for the LEASE of the stadium. That means we can sublet the use of Home Park to other potential ground-users (such as Rod Stewart concerts for example) and the proceeds raised would go to the club. NOT the council. Therefore as leaseholders, we can act exactly as a groundowner would anyway. Therefore, there goes a big benefit of owning the ground. Why bother when we can do stuff like subletting anyway?

There is one benefit of ground ownership that I concede is relevant. That is that one day, we may own our ground outright once the mortgage is paid off. However, with the value of Home Park being well into seven figures, that day is a matter of at least a decade away. It may well be longer. Therefore the 'we don't have to pay the rent' line is misleading. We would still have to pay a large sum of money ever year. It would only be to the mortgage lender (whoever that may be) and not the council. We wouldn't feel any benefit of owning the ground until at least a decade from now (if we happened to get to that stage without going bust like we did last time).

So far, I have said why I feel the pros of ground ownership are either false or at best overblown. Now, I will argue why I feel the risks are so huge that they vastly outweigh the potential benefits.

The first one is very simple. ANY owner of Argyle, whilst the club owns the ground, would be easily able to transfer the ownership of the ground from the club, into their own private ownership. Not just James Brent. Any future owner as well. A great many fans have a great deal of trust in Brent, and fair enough, but I would urge those fans to consider we simply don't know who could own the club in future. Do you really want Argyle to end up in a situation like Oxford have been for the past decade? Ok, it's true, they have just been promoted. But any Oxford fans will tell you that they have been held back significantly by having to pay large sums of money in rent to their ground owner: the parasitic Firoz Kassam. James Brent may be alright- but it is impossible to deny that the club owning the ground opens the doors to wolves in sheep's clothing like Kassam coming in to be able to buy the club and thus transfer the ground to themselves. They could then charge us an extortionate sum in rent and run away with a tidy profit. Is that a risk worth taking so that the club can buy its own ground?

The second risk is even simpler than the first, because we saw it happen ourselves. Whilst we own the ground, it is possible for any owner (not just the current one) to borrow large sums of money against the ownership of the stadium. Home Park was mortgaged not once, not twice, not even three times, but four times over, the last time the club owned its own ground. We gambled away the future of the club and the wellbeing of its employees spending money we did not have. Again I ask you...is this a risk worth taking so that the club can buy its own ground?

Some fans have tried to turn this into a proxy war between supporters of James Brent and opponents of him. I think the situation is far, far bigger than that. It's not necessarily about if you support Brent, trust him, oppose him, buy into his vision or whatever. He may well manage both of the risks splendidly well. However, even if neither of those two risks happen under a JB-owned PAFC, they could VERY easily happen under the next owner, or the one after, or the one after that and so on.

Buying the ground would be Pandroa's Box being opened wide and it is for that reason that I oppose it. If there was a foolproof plan explained to me as to exactly how buying the ground would be of great benefit to the football club, I would still be sceptical under the Pandora's Box theory. I'm still not saying I'd necessarily support it. But I would be less cynical and would at least listen to an owner who proposed that plan to the fans and asked us to give the idea a fair hearing. At the moment though, us as fans of the club simply do not have that information for us to be able to give a hearing to.

When he took on ownership of the club, James Brent promised new, hitherto unseen levels of fan engagement, governance and involvement in the club. To his credit, James Brent has been very approachable as owner of this club. He knows me by name (as do many of the directors) and greets me by name when I see him at matches. As I have already said, I have no wish to over-personalise this issue. This is not about personal antipathy. However, I also have to be bluntly honest. The fact remains that, for all his approachability, we have not had the degree of fan input that was initially promised in January 2012 on that fateful Saturday morning at Plymouth Guildhall.

Any kind of corporate governance worthy of the name would involve a proper consultation before the decision to buy the ground. I do not mean a binding referendum. I mean a proper explanation of WHY it is for the best for the club that we take on the momentous decision of buying the ground. We are not asking to know financial minutiae. We are not asking to know the ins and outs of a duck's arse. We're asking that, from an owner who promised greater transparency than anything we'd ever seen before, a blueprint of the real, tangible good that would come from owning our own ground and an explanation of that vision in detail would not be an unreasonable request. Some of us are justifiably very worried about this being a step towards the club descending into financial trouble again.

The above reasons are why I am proud to put my name to the 'Never Again' statement. Here are a list of rebuttals to what I feel to be misinformation put out by opponents of the statement, towards me and my fellow co-signatories.

1) That we want Argyle to fail. This one is so ludicrous as to be barely worth my time, but I think referring you to my above post will quickly dispel that impression.
2) The AFT are going against their mandate by releasing such a statement. Not so, for one there is a debate to be had about whether the AFT should work like a political party (in that the elected leaders should decide policy and face deselection if the memberbase choose to do so) or whether it should decide its policies and standpoints on a direct democracy basis (ie, following surveys and consultations to the letter). If you believe the former, the AFT haven't gone against any mandate at all. Even if you believe the latter...they still haven't because this isn't an official AFT initiative. And besides which, the survey was of the wider fanbase. Not of the memberbase who the AFT specifically represent. So, the line that the AFT are ignoring the survey is wrong not just on one level, but on many.
3) This is an attack on Brent's competence or loyalty. Not at all. See above for reasons why I think the dangers apply to any potential owner of the club, not just the current one. For a further variant of this rebuttal, see 'I trust James to do best for the club' to which the same answer as this one applies.
4) If it isn't an official initiative, why do people have their AFT titles by their name? I don't believe myself to be more or less important than any other fan just because I was a Trust founder. But what I do have is my own unique position on this issue having been inside the belly of the beast myself. The point of the letter is to show a wide coalition of fans from VARIOUS supporter groups oppose the freehold sale and loudly say 'Never Again'.
5) This letter was handpicked for people who agree with it. Well, that's generally how these sorts of things work. I wouldn't ring up Benjamin Netanyahu and ask him to sign a letter for Palestinian solidarity campaigns. It is natural that like-minded people bunch together on this kinds of debates.
6) I'm just a normal fan who attends games and wants to watch the football. So am I. I want it to be as successful as possible. I don't think that will happen if the club is in financial ruin again. Prevention> cure.

I like DAZ reply post

You have to question the intelligence of several of Pasoti's finest...

They seem to have difficulty reading anything longer than a couple of sentences, and yet seem to able to comprehend and pass judgement on extremely complex issues.

If Daz and de Lar can't be bothered to read such a well thought out post on such an important subject, then maybe they forfeit the right to be listened to?

Sam has set out, intelligently and articulately, the case for the ground remaining in public ownership. All the Brentophiles have done so far is fling abuse at the signatories to the original 'Never Again' statement, take the piss out of people who support the statement, and wheel out the only Trust Chairman who had to resign because of his (mis)conduct whilst Chair of the Trust - Wozzer 'Deepthroat' Bowden.

Let's wait for someone to set out the case for private ownership in as reasoned a manner as Sam has done here.

It could take a while.

Well done Sam, it passes the three 'well' test.

Well thought out.

Well written.

Well long!!!!

Your integrity as a fan and ex member of the AFT board is un questionable Sam.

Looks like the 'quote of the day' prize has just been won with an absolute belter from a poster who has more than a sniff of a multi about him. Take a bow, 'LeadRain'

Quote :

I trust the chairman - he's never been wrong in the past. If he thinks that the ground would be better in private hands I would agree with him.

So apparently Brent has never been wrong in the past. Fill your boots, lads.

Nice anagram.