#SellBeforeWeDai Action/Inaction Group

[Brogue]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

[Snowflake Royal]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

[bcubed]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

I'd even go to £2k

[AthleticoSpizz]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

I'd even go to £2k

wasn’t this pretty much what Pompey fans did (until their yank investor finally came in)

[Brogue]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

I'd even go to £2k

I’m sure we could get loans against the assets to help cover any shortfalls in operating costs. and I’m sure SCL would help out too. As soon as we are in power we contact couhig or Smee Or whoever. Reckon the sale would be done in 3 months. This is a serious suggestion I cited 20k fans. I’m sure we must have close to 100k fans globally that have an interest in the club that would be interested in putting something towards the sale. 100k fans would only need to stump up £300 each. And I’m sure there will be other prepared to put more in if it meant we got out of this hole.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

I'd even go to £2k

I think a number (including also me) would on here, but have to remember the make up of HNA, being a fans forum from the very early days of the internet, pre any sort of other social media. So I'd imagine if we did a survey of who reads and contributes to this forum you'd find a lot of fans with 20 years plus of supporting the team and likely associated higher age means more cash around than the average RFC fan.

I'd reckon we'd sadly only get 1000 max who'd stump up £1500 plus.

[Royalwaster]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

[Snowflake Royal]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

[Crusader Royal]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

Assuming a price difference had anything to do with any deals falling through it sounds like this scheme has just upped dai’s asking price by a few million!
Good luck with organising it though.

[tmesis]

That's not actually the worst idea, surprisingly. We'd get most of our money back if we just immediately sold to Couhig.

I'd be seriously tempted to stump that up to be rid of Dai and move forward.

I'd even go to £2k

wasn’t this pretty much what Pompey fans did (until their yank investor finally came in)

I think they only needed something like £2 million, and were nowhere near until a few rich investors put loads in.

There's absolutely no way we have 20,000 fans willing to put in £1500 each.

[El Diablo]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

LOL at 'trusting' Couhig.

[Sutekh]

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

LOL at 'trusting' Couhig.

Hmmm, trust a chap with a decent past record at running a football club or trust Dai?

[Snowflake Royal]

And you think Couhig would offer us £30million ... knowing that we do not have the capital to fund the club he'd offer us £10million.

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

LOL at 'trusting' Couhig.

Lol @ not trusting a guy with an actual track record because Dai's minions told you not to.

[Forbury Lion]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

Alternatively, How much money does STAR collect up each year form Subs (ignore travel/assume that breaks even)..... Had they hung onto every penny since we moved to the Madejski Stadium in 1998 and announced their intention to fans to save enough cash to one day purchase the freehold to the stadium if it ever came up for sale then I reckon STAR might well own the ground the Stadium is on now.

Swindon supporters own a share/most of the ground their stadium is on, The club own the stadium and pay rent to the land owners. This would prevent the club from selling the ground because they don't own it, but if they had a lease that allowed them to build/own a stadium on that land for 100 years then they get all the benefits of that and no real incentive to buy land elsewhere and relocate.

Chelsea have a similar arrangement with fans owning the pitch.

[Crusader Royal]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

Alternatively, How much money does STAR collect up each year form Subs (ignore travel/assume that breaks even)..... Had they hung onto every penny since we moved to the Madejski Stadium in 1998 and announced their intention to fans to save enough cash to one day purchase the freehold to the stadium if it ever came up for sale then I reckon STAR might well own the ground the Stadium is on now.

Swindon supporters own a share/most of the ground their stadium is on, The club own the stadium and pay rent to the land owners. This would prevent the club from selling the ground because they don't own it, but if they had a lease that allowed them to build/own a stadium on that land for 100 years then they get all the benefits of that and no real incentive to buy land elsewhere and relocate.

Chelsea have a similar arrangement with fans owning the pitch.

Is
Swindon didn’t own their ground anyway, the club own more of it then they did previously having leased it from the council for years.
Preventing a club from moving is all well and good but can put big limits on the club (see Chelsea’s ongoing problems with increasing capacity). Moving and building a better stadium shouldn’t be an issue, It’s selling the land for profit and leaving a club homeless that is the problem.
Imagine if we had been prevented from leaving Elm Park…..

[El Diablo]

It would be sensible to contact him and get a pre-agreement for how mcuh he'd pay.

The alternative is obviously a fan group, like SBWD or STAR, reach out to Couhig/Smee/someone else we trust, crowd funds the difference between their bid and what Dai is asking.

Which should be significantly less... so taking Couhig's offer, that works out at somewhere between
£200 - £750 each for 20k fans.

LOL at 'trusting' Couhig.

Lol @ not trusting a guy with an actual track record because Dai's minions told you not to.

Double LOL

[tmesis]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

Alternatively, How much money does STAR collect up each year form Subs (ignore travel/assume that breaks even)..... Had they hung onto every penny since we moved to the Madejski Stadium in 1998 and announced their intention to fans to save enough cash to one day purchase the freehold to the stadium if it ever came up for sale then I reckon STAR might well own the ground the Stadium is on now.

You think STAR raises about £1 million per year in subs?

How would they have paid for the things the subs pay for currently if they'd saved all the sub money?


Swindon fans did buy their ground, but the bulk of the money came from one supporter. The contribution from ordinary fans wasn't that high.

[Lower West]

The fans should just buy it now. £30 million divide by 20k fans £1500 each. Job done. STAR - over to you. Once the fans have bought it we can sell it on.

Alternatively, How much money does STAR collect up each year form Subs (ignore travel/assume that breaks even)..... Had they hung onto every penny since we moved to the Madejski Stadium in 1998 and announced their intention to fans to save enough cash to one day purchase the freehold to the stadium if it ever came up for sale then I reckon STAR might well own the ground the Stadium is on now.

Swindon supporters own a share/most of the ground their stadium is on, The club own the stadium and pay rent to the land owners. This would prevent the club from selling the ground because they don't own it, but if they had a lease that allowed them to build/own a stadium on that land for 100 years then they get all the benefits of that and no real incentive to buy land elsewhere and relocate.

Chelsea have a similar arrangement with fans owning the pitch.

Is
Swindon didn’t own their ground anyway, the club own more of it then they did previously having leased it from the council for years.
Preventing a club from moving is all well and good but can put big limits on the club (see Chelsea’s ongoing problems with increasing capacity). Moving and building a better stadium shouldn’t be an issue, It’s selling the land for profit and leaving a club homeless that is the problem.
Imagine if we had been prevented from leaving Elm Park…..

The land that the County Ground sits on , which includes the Cricket Ground , Swindon Football Foundation and the Athletics track forms part of covenanted community land. Which was bequeathed to the Council many years ago. The ground is leased on a 250 year term. The club has to spend the notional rent directly on the upkeep of the facility. Due to the covenants the opportunity for commercial redevelopment is limited.

[Forbury Lion]

You think STAR raises about £1 million per year in subs?

No, However if they had 10,000 members (not saying they do) and they all contributed £10 a year then that's £100,000 a year, say from when we moved to the Madejski to now that'll be £2.7m plus interest

Any owner looking to run the club properly and not sell it off as a property deal might be prepared to take £2.7m of free money in return for the selling the pitch only but on the condition that the club have a 100 year lease to use it as a football pitch. If they want to relocate the stadium then they could enter into a dialogue with the pitch owners with a view to trading in ownership of that pitch with the pitch of the new stadium.... Yes I know this us unlikely, but maybe buy some shares in the club instead? or maybe a mortgage against the stadium meaning it couldn't be sold until the debt was paid.

How would they have paid for the things the subs pay for currently if they'd saved all the sub money?

I've often said STAR shouldn't be spending money on many of the things they have spent money on, their focus has to be the football club as an asset to the community rather than funding worthy causes for the community. By all means hold a collection for fans to donate to those causes but don't spend money fans have paid into STAR just because you have it, one day maybe years after the current STAR board have all retired it might be needed.

Now, the money spent towards saving the club I can get on board with. I would add though that I've not read the STAR charter for many years and whilst I am 100% sure those trusted with the funds are spending it legally and in line with the aims of the organisation, I think they maybe didn't appreciate they might one day have to start a pheonix club because none of us saw things ever getting this bad, likewise if a new benevolent owner makes shares available, that's when it would have been good to have some cash sat in a bank account ready to spend spend spend.

[Fox Talbot]

Last AGM I think STAR had about £80+K in the bank which is enough to get a campaign for a phoenix club going.

Probably get called Hollywood by the other clubs in the Reading & Disrict league with that budget.