BM Alternatives

[TFDM]

The facilities are great at the arena but you need a small army of people to run them to a reasonable standard. As soon as people see executive boxes, big bars and rooms etc then they expect a certain level of service (rightly or wrongly) and to do that you need more people. We haven't really got that. Its all very well having facilities but you need the people to make them work.

I'd be against moving back to the arena. I hated watching football there and I hated even more working there. It was a soul destroying place. Plus we'd lose leverage and any possible help from the council as well. Like Andrew said earlier I think we really do need a definite answer now either one way or the other.

[Neil_Heaneys_Pace]

I don't think its wrong if you pay exec box money (which we would charge) to expect the service that comes with that. It's just part of life. Did you see that club does south (might have been eastbourne) that built a couple of sheds as hospitality boxes on the the side of the pitch it looked class.

[Robbie Painter]

I don't think its wrong if you pay exec box money (which we would charge) to expect the service that comes with that. It's just part of life. Did you see that club does south (might have been eastbourne) that built a couple of sheds as hospitality boxes on the the side of the pitch it looked class.

Lewes FC

http://www.lewesfc.com/rooks-beach-huts/

[Beano]

In my early post I said I could stomach the Arena if it was financially viable, but it never ever could be.

When I was officiating at AFC Fylde, they had a couple of shipping containers converted into executive boxes, boardroom and club facilities. They looked fantastic and must have been cost effective.

[theoriginalfatcat]

This Blackwell Meadows thing is concerning me.

It's like bickering about the wedding arrangements before a marriage date is even set.

And where will we be in 7 or 8 years time? Stuck in an unhappy marriage of convenience, with limited options? And sharing a pitch?

Personally I can't see us ever returning to the Football league but I feel we can cement ourselves into the Conference as a good strong club - and a nice little modern, purpose built ground would solve our problems, forever.

To me somewhere on the Arena site would be perfect, and as has been pointed out on another thread, everything is there - even the space -and although some posters on here think it's ridiculous, I reckon it is possible.

I'd rather wait and get it right, than be pushed into a move where yet again we're second best.

[wizardofos]

This Blackwell Meadows thing is concerning me.

It's like bickering about the wedding arrangements before a marriage date is even set.

And where will we be in 7 or 8 years time? Stuck in an unhappy marriage of convenience, with limited options? And sharing a pitch?

Personally I can't see us ever returning to the Football league but I feel we can cement ourselves into the Conference as a good strong club - and a nice little modern, purpose built ground would solve our problems, forever.

To me somewhere on the Arena site would be perfect, and as has been pointed out on another thread, everything is there - even the space -and although some posters on here think it's ridiculous, I reckon it is possible.

I'd rather wait and get it right, than be pushed into a move where yet again we're second best.

I completely agree with this post. Very succinctly put.

[Beano]

My favourite Mowden rumour will always be deconstructing the Arena and selling it to someone in China.

[AIDO]

.... the more I think about it the more I think we really have to pull out all the stops to get this BM thing going again .... The Arena would be a nightmare for many and would create obstacles rather than alleviate them .... The obstacles involved at BM are worth getting over ... We need an intermediary to chair a meeting ..... someone like the editor of The Northern Echo (although he might be slightly biased??) ..... Whatever, we need to bite the bullet somewhere ....

When you look at Maidstone in the league above, it makes you realise that in BM we are not far away from what we desire for a considerably less outlay .... I think theirs was 3 to 4 million .... They expect a near capacity crowd tonight for a local derby against county neighbours and big spending Ebbsfleet ....

http://www.maidstoneandmedwaynews.co.uk ... story.html?

I think talk of going back to the Arena shows how desperate we are .... There is a compromise waiting to happen with DRFC .... we just need to get the personnel together ...

[shawry]

Until we get a deal that treats us as a junior partner rather than a lodger we are going to be screwed wherever we play, just time scales will be different

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[darlodog]

.... the more I think about it the more I think we really have to pull out all the stops to get this BM thing going again .... The Arena would be a nightmare for many and would create obstacles rather than alleviate them .... The obstacles involved at BM are worth getting over ... We need an intermediary to chair a meeting ..... someone like the editor of The Northern Echo (although he might be slightly biased??) ..... Whatever, we need to bite the bullet somewhere ....

When you look at Maidstone in the league above, it makes you realise that in BM we are not far away from what we desire for a considerably less outlay .... I think theirs was 3 to 4 million .... They expect a near capacity crowd tonight for a local derby against county neighbours and big spending Ebbsfleet ....

http://www.maidstoneandmedwaynews.co.uk ... story.html?

I think talk of going back to the Arena shows how desperate we are .... There is a compromise waiting to happen with DRFC .... we just need to get the personnel together ...

I can't understand why it would be a nightmare to some? If we could strike a good deal it makes total commercial sense and hopefully with some good cup runs provide the facilities to host some decent crowds again. The stadium wasn't at at fault before it was the fools who ran the club, Mowden have shown what a club working together can actually do to make a success of the Arena.

[Beano]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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[darlodog]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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And your business plan is based on what financial information?
As far as I know there's none out there yet.

[lo36789]

The stadium wasn't at at fault before it was the fools who ran the club, Mowden have shown what a club working together can actually do to make a success of the Arena.

Think you have missed most of this thread, or at least over the last day.

From having £6million in the bank at current rate of spend Mowden have got 3 years left before they run out.

Mowden are 'allegedly' showing that even a club working together can't make that place stop losing money...

[Darlo_Pete]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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What happens if we win the title? We can't play at Bishop in the Conference North can we?

[lo36789]

What happens if we win the title? We can't play at Bishop in the Conference North can we?

Yes...as long as there is a plan in place to get it up to standard by the end of the season...and even if you don't you just get relegated.

[Twintowers]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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And your business plan is based on what financial information?
As far as I know there's none out there yet.

And your business plan is foolproof eh?,'hopefully a couple of cup runs'.How could it possibly fail?.,

[AndyPark]

All if's and but's.

I'll just wait to see what happens instead of coming up with flawless plans.

[Fibonacci0112358]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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What happens if we win the title? We can't play at Bishop in the Conference North can we?

And you can't enter into a ground sharing agreement to achieve promotion.

[Quakerz]

We cannot sustain the Arena with a volunteer workforce and crowds of less than 10k.

I'd rather stay at Bishop and wait.


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What happens if we win the title? We can't play at Bishop in the Conference North can we?

And you can't enter into a ground sharing agreement to achieve promotion.

That is for clubs who have their own ground and refuse to spend money upgrading it, instead trying to get around it by sharing with someone else with the right graded ground.

We don't have our own ground. We are nomads. Until we have our ground, we go where we can from season to season.

If we need to take a share somewhere else because the one at Bishop is no longer on the table, if it happened to be a Cat A or Cat B ground we wouldn't be moving just so we could get promotion. We'd be moving because of necessity not because we're trying to game the system.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Until we get a deal that treats us as a junior partner rather than a lodger we are going to be screwed wherever we play, just time scales will be different

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Equal partner more like!!

But preferably no partners at all.

[BUSHEAD]

I've heard the exact opposite regarding Mowden Park's Finances, i understand they are doing rather well.

[Darl-Zero]

I like the idea of a small stadium near the Arena as it solves the parking issues which we will have once Grange road gets yellow lined. It would be better to find a way to buy back in as equal partners though. Use of the Arena for big matches would be handy also. My gut feeling is that we should stay put at HP until we are sure what we are doing and how it's going to work long term as the Bishop Auckland relationship seems to have worked well.

[Fibonacci0112358]

I've heard the exact opposite regarding Mowden Park's Finances, i understand they are doing rather well.

Heard similar.

[BlackandwhiteBOB]

The stadium wasn't at at fault before it was the fools who ran the club, Mowden have shown what a club working together can actually do to make a success of the Arena.

Think you have missed most of this thread, or at least over the last day.

From having £6million in the bank at current rate of spend Mowden have got 3 years left before they run out.

Mowden are 'allegedly' showing that even a club working together can't make that place stop losing money...

Mowden pretty much broke even last year, despite expenditure on new pitches and changing facilities and expect to post a profit this year. Not sure what source your information has come from but it is incorrect from my understanding.

[Mr_Tibbs]

The stadium wasn't at at fault before it was the fools who ran the club, Mowden have shown what a club working together can actually do to make a success of the Arena.

Think you have missed most of this thread, or at least over the last day.

From having £6million in the bank at current rate of spend Mowden have got 3 years left before they run out.

Mowden are 'allegedly' showing that even a club working together can't make that place stop losing money...

Mowden pretty much broke even last year, despite expenditure on new pitches and changing facilities and expect to post a profit this year. Not sure what source your information has come from but it is incorrect from my understanding.

Having a football club round the back and having thousands of fans circulating round the place throughout the season can only help them build on that, especially if we get though to draw a big club in the cup and need to fill the stadium once in a while.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Having a football club round the back and having thousands of fans circulating round the place throughout the season can only help them build on that, especially if we get though to draw a big club in the cup and need to fill the stadium once in a while.

The more I think about it - the more I like this 'little stadium at The Arena' idea.

I wonder if it's seriously up for consideration, or is it just an internet pipe dream?

[JE93]

Having a football club round the back and having thousands of fans circulating round the place throughout the season can only help them build on that, especially if we get though to draw a big club in the cup and need to fill the stadium once in a while.

The more I think about it - the more I like this 'little stadium at The Arena' idea.

I wonder if it's seriously up for consideration, or is it just an internet pipe dream?

I just can't see it happening personally. Why would Mowden want to take that amount of capital that they have and invest with us into a smaller stadium next to their already purpose built facility. Even if they were earning rent from us, what are we currently paying Bish 20K a season ish?, it would take them around 25 years to make back a 500K investment (based on both sides investing 500K) which would be cheap for what we'd need to build. Cause surely we'd be thinking about conference standard. 4000 capacity, 500 covered seats, development on at least 3 sides (being the main parts of that).

if they really wanted income from us they would just rent us the arena, then they get their pay day and don't have to invest any of their capital. Think of it this way if you were doing alright but you fancied some extra cash by having a lodger, you wouldn't build a house in your garden and then rent it to him, you'd rent them your spare room.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Having a football club round the back and having thousands of fans circulating round the place throughout the season can only help them build on that, especially if we get though to draw a big club in the cup and need to fill the stadium once in a while.

The more I think about it - the more I like this 'little stadium at The Arena' idea.

I wonder if it's seriously up for consideration, or is it just an internet pipe dream?

Bit of a pipe dream, I think, or pipe-less dream... but if you don't chuck ideas out there they'll never get considered, and we know this forum is the place to chuck 'em if you want that to happen.

@JE93 - I'm not a money man but the people who need to juggle all the figures will be reading this, so maybe they can drum their chins a bit and come up with something that would work - perhaps offer them a fatter slice of the takings if we ever did need to fill all those seats once in a while, and rent out the spare room as an office bar/meeting room?

It'd be a nice Plan B to have in our back pocket.

[shawry]

The problem we have at the moment, is as far as we know the 2 clubs aren't even talking anymore; they may well be, but after all this speculation and the RC saying we've walked away etc no one has any clue of whats likely to happen, this is a little sad considering at one point we expected to be up and running at BM by Saturday.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Yeh, bang on.