The Voice - Match preview Bradford City vs Mansfield Town Saturday 16th March 2024 3:00pm

I wish we were bankrolled by someone.

 

I'd be fully behind it if he did.

 

We might have to go backwards to go forwards. Hopefully Rupp will have learned from yesterday that either he shits or gets off the pot. Either sell up or make changes in your personnel. Cos I'm pretty sure thats what he would do if any of his other businesses were failing. Not sure where we go from here as it stands though Kev but something has to be done, Valley Parade so not a happy place and hasn't been for a long long time.

 

Who is suggesting that Adrian.? .Cripes It the moment it’s worth three seasons rent plus scrap steel value , ALL , wiped out by demolition costs. Brownfield land worth pennies per sq ft .

 

We all knew Flint was a threat at set pieces and his time in the CC, what 10 years ago?

 

No if that included the purchase of the stadium that makes more sense, although £10 mill is a joke for the club that Rupp bought back in 2016, and I think £5 mill for the stadium is unrealistic but we'll see once new negotiations have taken place with regards the new rent etc.

 

I do hope you correct.

 

Agree and this forum adds to it. It’s a results based game played out , let’s face it, on social media week after week after week. I’m over yesterday’s result , beaten by a well invested in , good side. Lots acknowledge that. Defensively I thought they were pretty RANK tbh, however, I knew and listed who the danger men were before kick off. I’d watched them several times.

A few of us have witnessed this over and over without the advantage of cheap season tickets over 50-60 years. Won’t stop me supporting my club, even though I hate us losing.
I live in hope we will see great times again, but without an owner willing to actively “ invest” , we won’t get far if luck doesn’t tap us on the shoulder.

 

ok Time will tell,

 

I'm not being disingenuous at all. We don't know how much teams are spending. I do know that Gillingham tapped up 2 of our players last season and paid £300. We just couldn't compete. Salford regularly pay fees for players and pay off managers, we don't. Notts signed a bunch of players in January while we paid a fee for one unwanted player from Gills, who is now our backup striker. Wrexham are, we all know, the biggest spenders.

Obviously these teams haven't all been in League 2 for the time we have, but I'd hazard a guess that they've spent more over 4 or 5 years in whatever leagues they've been in, than we have. We haven't needed to splash the cash. We've quietly gone about the business of building our squad in a sensible way.

 

It must the the EFL rumour mill that has it all wrong then . Please don’t try and change the narrative. I wasn’t including the unregulated spending in the NL , you know I wasn’t .

Investment doesn’t come in transfer fees , most of which are zero anyway, which I’m sure you know . Investment in L2 comes either in paying large signing on fees, long contracts and/or L1/ CC wages.

Take Flint, straight from the CC on an initial one year deal, will be on silly money for the division.
( So he should be) . Let’s not hide the fact.

Such funding covering several players in the side hasn’t remotely come about through relatively low/ poor gate receipts since 2019 to current date. So there is only one conclusion to draw?

The club is bankrolled for progression, until the glass ceiling is reached, unlike ours which isn’t bankrolled to any degree whatsoever.

There is the glaring difference.

Remember the phrase until the glass ceiling is reached?

 

What is £5m to the pension fund, 10 years rent so a no brainer to them not to sell and at the end of the 10 year term they still have the asset.

As long as we have nowhere else to go, they won’t reduce the rent by much and they won’t sell us the ground. It’s commercial sense NOT to do so. In fact the pension fund would be nuts to do so.

 

And that my friend is exactly why Gibb should be shitting himself and fully expecting the club to negotiate a new rental deal at 50% reduction or we leave. End of negotiation.

 

Whilst we have 15000 season ticket holder of course we have nowhere to go but if that number was to decrease by half then there are several options locally for groundsharing.
Halifax, Rochdale, Bury, Oldham, Accrington to name but a few.
Not ideal I get that but Coventry managed it and I’ve watched them progress from league 2 with no home to a Championship playoff final and an FA cup semi final in a matter of 5 years.
They now play back at a home they can afford.

 

I reckon the club is worth between £1m and £2m, and if Rupp invested an extra £10m it still wouldn't be worth as much...

 

I think that kind of emphasises my point. They were good on the day, but I wouldn't stick £10 on them going up automatically.

 

I wonder if the pension fund position is so strong?

As you mentioned above, the value of the actual land is probably negligible in view of the costs of decommissioning it. It is only of value because Bradford City play football there.

The pension fund has had a cracking return from what was a somewhat risky investment at the time.

We should be negotiating them down while we are in L2 with clauses to pay more if we progress up the league. Let's remember, this pension fund is broadly that of Gordon Gibb and immediate family, so they do have some flexibility as opposed to a company pension scheme investment.

 

Every manager appointed over the past 6 years , can not be the wrong man.
We need to decide how we would like to try and progress , pick the manager for that and stick by him longer than 12 months.
We got very lucky under Parky, but we did stick by him, he walked from us.

 

They still have to abide by the pension regulator rules.

Like it or not the fund holds 52 cards unless as someone suggested , (Saving embarrassment) we move lock stock and barrel and share with Harrogate Town.

 

You missed your original suggestion off…why is that?